From Instagram @dudewithsign

Methinks he doth...nvm.

Dear Hipster:

Here is a puzzler for you. I always hear about hipsters being super socially conscious of all the world’s ills, and letting this concern guide their decision-making towards (mostly commercial) activities like drinking fair trade coffee and purchasing clothing from American Apparel. But here’s the thing — I was at a sort of rally/protest a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t help wondering where all the hipsters were. I saw loads of school-aged kids, and plenty of middle-aged professional types (maybe the parents of the school-aged kiddos instilling good morals in their youngsters who would rather be home playing Fortnite?), but not nearly as many tattoo’d and fashionable hipster types as I would expect, given the supposed social consciousness of the hipper set. Is hipster social consciousness a facade — a ruse — dare I say a fancy veneer of caring over a plywood core of materiality?

— Dana, Mom of Two Trying to Instill Values in Several Children Who Would Rather Be Playing Fortnite, Point Loma

Hipsters love protesting and standing up for causes, but we don’t like to hop on the mainstream bandwagon by zealously believing in things that already have plenty of people to believe in them. We spend our efforts waging war on the tiny micro-injustices that conspire to make everyday life just a little bit more hellish than it might otherwise might be. Did you know there’s a change.org petition to bring back Kellogg’s Fruit Loops Cereal Straws? There is! You should certainly sign it.

Me, I’m not exempt from doing my part. In the storied tradition of Hipsters Protesting Extraordinarily Mundane Things, I have chosen to protest the release of increasingly unsatisfactory Star Wars movies by not watching The Rise of Skywalker. Sure, maybe Disney DGAF about my $20, but fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you again! Fool me, thrice? No, thank you very much.

Some hipsters take it to the extreme, like Instagrammer @dudewithsign, who would make Larry David very happy by visibly protesting things like people saying “Happy New Year” after too much January has happened. Seriously, he’s a dude with a sign who protests the injustice of White Claw not being made available on tap. If I’m being honest, I think @dudewithsign might be doing it for humor and the Instagram likes, perhaps even financial gain, rather than a serious commitment to improving our world. I can’t prove it, but I have a strong hunch.

You’re probably thinking, “Well now, this is all pretty disingenuous of you (particularly because Rogue One was actually pretty good), and who do you think you are to fiddle while Rome burns? Get out there and make a difference!” To which I might reply:

(a) You’ll notice I didn’t say “fool me fource” (or whatever the word for “four times” ought to be), because I agree Rogue One was pretty darn good; and

(b) When you get down to it, there’s a kind of nerdy hipster pragmatism in directing your focus at some tiny, overlooked thing that everyone else is missing because they are too busy caring about the five or six things everybody seems to care about already.

Like music on vinyl, moustache wax, and selvedge denim, hipsters will carry the banners nobody else has time to carry. If anything, the world needs hipsters to prevent the obscure causes you’ve never heard of from falling through the cracks.