Mad Atoms

I want to make a prediction: the ironic hipster reign in pop-culture will die soon. 

I've been feeling this way for a while, but the other day when I passed a hipster clothing store in Hollywood that had a humongous replica of a urinal eating up half its floor, what once might've intrigued me or made me laugh just seemed stupid and boring. It also reeked of the kind of bland un-creativeness that portends a dying trend. 

I'd say a crude but nonetheless accurate way to define a "trendsetter" is a person who looks around, sees what no one else is doing, does that, and then it catches on. So trends, big and small, tend to follow a pretty logical ebb and flow. High waists are in, so next short waists are in. Big hair, then flat hair. Upbeat party music, then introspective serious music. Etc.

And right before there's a shift, the trend inevitably becomes stale and lame. I see the omnipresent Snorgtees/Bustedtees ads pervading seemingly every website I read as a death knell. Wearing a shirt to be funny just isn’t that funny anymore. Target and Hot Topic have overtaken what started in thrift stores. It’s gone corporate and turned into something else. I expect my dad to be wearing a “Vote Pedro” shirt next I see him. 

Irony and sarcasm are simply getting tiresome. I used to find Meta-comedy exciting, I loved anything that ironically deconstructed the formats of storytelling. But everything gets old given time. Anchorman gave way to Step-Brothers. “The Simpsons” stopped being good years ago. Even Adult Swim is starting to feel repetitive. None of it feels outside the box anymore. I mean, hell, "ironic" mustaches are now just your run-of-the-mill cop mustaches.

I’m bored by retro bands and self-referential movies and people wearing shirts for bands they don’t like “as a joke.” If you have a Hanson poster in your apartment I’d frankly be more interested if you copped to loving the group. 

The whole too-cool-for-school attitude that has pervaded the hipster trend is played out. But I sense change. No more winking. It's time to get genuine. 

Sincerity is now punk.