On that Huffington Post “foods hipsters are ruining” list

BACON-BRA-pic-1-1

I have seen this post make the rounds a handful of times since it was published a couple of weeks ago. The conceit is basically, “We enjoy great food and hipsters like great food, but we don’t think we are better than you for liking them (unless you are a hipster because eff you for the way you enjoy Kimchi.) And if hipsters keep liking them, our favorite foods are going to be ruined forever.”

Exact quotes:

We’re also fans of some of the specific foods beloved by hipsters… but we don’t think we’re better than you for eating them every day.

Here are 22 foods we think hipsters need to calm down about before they ruin them all for good.

(Let’s not even touch on the picture of the “hipster,” which actually appears to be a stock photograph of a guy from a pickup truck commercial—but he has a beard, right? HIPSTERS ARE RUINING BEARDS. Let’s actually touch on this picture by suggesting we are not going to do so and then doing it anyway.)

So here they are presenting themselves as better than hipsters (or guys from pickup truck commercials) while also suggesting that if a certain subculture of people likes a certain food item too much it will be ruined for the author and the public at large.

Think about that in any other context:

“I’d love to enjoy some pesto right now but I can’t bring myself to do it ever since the greasers became obsessed with it.”

I mean, I know that I am taking this link-bait more seriously than it is meant to be taken, but pump the brakes on suggesting you are better than some ill-defined group of people (ie. people who like all of the same things that I do but in a way that I don’t appreciate all while fitting into jeans I have not been able to wear since the fourth grade… I guess?) while simultaneously acknowledging that you are so precious that your palate is determined by what other people do / don’t enjoy.

Note: I will concede that I have suggested in the past that obsession with bacon by the country at large is burning me out on the idea of the pork product, which is also how I feel about Star Wars. I never saw it as a hipster thing, though… maybe a handful of years ago, before brewpubs started serving bacon cheesecake and bacon cupcakes began making appearances at bake-sales. Or before I couldn’t go a day without seeing at least a tweet or two of allegiance to the bacon gods in my stream, perhaps.

Or it was when bacon bras made appearances in Glamour.

On another bacon hipster note—an ironic one at that—I recently enjoyed pimento cheese & bacon marmalade at Empire State South in Atlanta, Georgia and it restored my faith in all things bacon. So thanks for that, hipsters.

IMAGE SOURCE: Back Freak

Alex Steed

About Alex Steed

Alex Steed has written about and engaged in politics since he was an insufferable teenager. He has run for the Statehouse and produced a successful web series. He now runs a content firm called Knack Factory with two guys who are a lot more talented than himself.