I don’t know what’s more disturbing: the fact that I accidentally got drunk on beer before the afternoon was even over (ewww gross – beer!); or, the fact that it was so easy for me to find clothing and accessories in my house that fit the hipster milieu.
In any event, for some reason I got this crazy idea that if I surrounded myself with hipster accessories, and even went as far as to dress like one, that I would somehow magically begin to like PBR as well. I thought this would be the best way to test my hypothesis that it is being a hipster that makes you actually enjoy Pabst Blue Ribbon. The only other possibility is that being a hillbilly will influence your actual enjoyment of PBR, and since we have already established that hipsters are just hillbillies in vintage, it seems pointless to test both. (Not to mention, I would have to dress in overalls and take serial photographs of myself sitting on the toilet: the former I am unable to do for I own no overalls; the latter I am sure you all do not really want to see…)
Here are the results (you will note I have added the typical, hipster photo effects to get the true feeling that – for this day only – I really became a hipster):
I decided to only sample four beers, because really I hate beer. PBR was to be included as one of the four; my photographer and beer sampling administer (thanks dad!) chose these: Tecate, Corona Extra, Coors Light, and PBR
As I said, I surrounded myself with everything-hipster. That was to test my hypothesis that it is being a hipster that makes you actually enjoy Pabst Blue Ribbon. Included in my surroundings, I had: an unreasonable amount of Apple products, a pile of scarves (ready for wear if needed, despite the fact that it was 90 degrees out), colored sunglasses, a ridiculous hat (the only thing that would have been worse would be a vintage fedora … but the hipsters do love their retarded beanies), and an oversized and unmatched outfit … disturbingly put together from my very own closet. The drinks were hidden behind a black box and a wall of the extra cans of PBR.
It was rough for me to choke down that beer, but I’ve had enough in my hey day to guess at 75% correctness. This blogger hasn’t had beer in a long time, though, so obviously I felt a little rusty drinking it.
I got Tecate right! I’ve had Tecate a lot in my life – and I still do enjoy the taste.
Coors Light was wrong. I didn’t like it and never have, so it is no wonder I guessed it was Rolling Rock. I’m not the biggest fan of American beers on the rare occasions that I do drink them, so it is no surprise that I had no clue (really) what I was drinking on the second round.
Obviously a little tipsy at this point, I got Corona Extra correct! And I’m still a fan …
I was given a few different samples of the Tecate and the Coors Light before we moved on to the PBR, just for the sake of making sure I didn’t figure out what I was drinking. Obviously the level of hatred I have towards hipsters would have skewed the results; nonetheless, when PBR came up I did guess it correctly and I still hated it.
This leaves us to a few possibilities:
- My hypothesis that it is being a hipster that makes you actually enjoy Pabst Blue Ribbon was just proved wrong. This is quite obvious.
- You could further hypothesize that just surrounding yourself with hipster-esque things does not actually make you be a hipster. This is a pretty big possibility and is an entire blog altogether, for that would mean that being a hipster is not about the material manifestations of it, but rather an inner state of being. (I shudder to think that is the case.)
- What I really believe this proves is the idea that hipsters will do whatever to conform to the social standards of being a hipster. It has been cited before on a number of different blogs, websites, and even news articles on Time and various weekly papers. Hipsters want so badly to be against the grain of social norms that they conform to their own … social norm of (ironic) nonconformity.
Heather Christena Schmidt 