Free Stuff Hipsters Hate by Brenna Ehrlich, Andrea Bartz

content to warm your bones by the hearth of matching china and purring housecats until Death comes creeping to your bedroom door. But as we know, a hipster is always seeking something larger, shinier and more magnificent. He is driven more by his inner whims and desires than by his need for things (with the exception of narcotics, cool new headphones and Salvation Army clothing).
     
    Therefore, a home becomes merely a place to rest one’s head. One does not have time to watch the latest hot block of primetime programming when one is always hustling toward artistic genius. (Besides, one can always catch up on America’s Next Top Model via Megavideo.com at 4 a.m.—for free, at that.) Although a hipster’s home is often slowly going to seed (light bulbs guttering into darkness, dirt caking the floors, cheese moldering in the vegetable crisper), the hipster does not care. In his mind, those four walls only amount to a pit stop, so even if he occupies an abode for years, he will never acquire proper kitchen utensils (he cannot cook, anyway), receptacles for his clothing (the floor works just as well) or any of the other niceties of home, aside from the occasional housekitten.
     
    Moreover, there is an underlying laziness 19 that prevents a hipster from acquiring a dining room table or a new shower curtain. This ennui often wears the mask of martyrdom. As we’ve discussed, a hipster’s daily calendar is as changeable as the colors of a particularly pollution-spun sunset. Although he may swear he will make the trek to Target tomorrow to purchase an air conditioner, he will likely either fail to muster the strength to board the bus, or he will be distracted by a party or a vigorous bout of collaging. Consequently, he will put off the task until “tomorrow.”
     
    In the meantime, he will begin to adapt to the intense summer heat; what’s more, he will begin to look down on those who complain about the intense summer heat. He will come to enjoy the feeling of suffering, and of disdain for anyone who wastes the copious electricity necessitated by central air. The lack of this amenity becomes a badge of honor, and the hipster decides he does not, in fact, need such a frivolous nicety. 20 Besides, by the time he works up the energy to actually make it to Target, winter has come and his apartment is shrouded in a cold chill. At this point, he begins the process anew with such amenities as space heaters, extra blankets and warm food.
     

MICROWAVES
     

    Extreme hipsters consider microwaves just another obesity-causing invention that modern society has convinced us we can’t live without, like washing machines, Big Business, automobiles and health care. ( Pay $900 a year when I can theoretically visit the free clinics [or just have Mom pay for my dentist visit when I go home]? Fuck that. ) Hipsters show off that additional counter space with pride. (It’s there somewhere, I swear, under the two-and-a-half-foot-tall Tower of Pisa of crusted-over dishes.)
     

BACHELOR PADS
     

    “Wow. What a fine selection of movie posters you have. Am I correct in noting that they all feature the films of Robert De Niro? Well, isn’t that lovely? You truly have created a singularly glorious color scheme that in no way resembles the dull greens, blacks and reds found in most popular video games that prominently feature handguns and hookers. Cozy. And, no, your ardent love for The Matrix is neither trite nor exhaustively obvious. Perhaps we could even watch it later on that mammoth flatscreen TV, hulking there in the corner next to that rather sizable video game console. I could relax luxuriously on this leather couch (still reeking of the poor animal that was forced to give up its life so that you could put the moves on Trixies who get all embarrassed when the leather squelches with their every motion), put my feet up on this futuristic-looking glass coffee table laden with vintage Playboy s and partake in a Coors from that sweet