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Halloween Edition Guest post: Jacob Reddick  Slicked with an oil glazed altruism and fuelled by a desperate desire for authenticity, the hipster strives for a uniqueness while moving like the Monarch Butterfly. The perfect example of when in doubt of self, flutter Lemming-like to a mindless social norm. Now don’t get me wrong, none of this is a “bad” thing on the surface. Until you’re sitting on the patio of your favourite Mexican restaurant in the hot humid summer sun, awkwardly navigating a nacho full of guacamole through the sweaty pine scented sadness of your loosening identity.
A strange transformation started to occur... As their beards slowly, even creepily grew stretching out like swirly straws from squirrely shifty eyed millennial’s, they were able to mask their pain of empty pride with comical twirling mustaches, and economic downturn clothing made fashionable. The pretentiously perplexed political prowess of the hipster even exceeds the ability of their lazy lackluster statements, giving way to the psychopath armchair activist and same dank coverage of the confused expectations of beard oil. When does a subculture become a mental illness? My thought is that hipsters may contribute zero as a subculture to society in large, and my fear is that none of what they aim to showcase holds value or meaning, as it was thoughtlessly assimilated from other cultures and the historical significance. A mindless amalgamation of styles for the sake of something that evades our knowing. Or at least mine. Imagine more men grew beards for the challenge of hiking a mountain in the dead of winter to honour ancestors who crashed through wave and cut through forest to provide for us the leisure time that we so easily waste away. Instead, we dainty ourselves with a freshness of manufactured innocence, and shamelessly act in a manner that contradicts with no conviction, our volatile self portrait. The ’not give a fuck’ motto, is a safeguard from vulnerability and as a result limits our capacity for understanding ourselves through another, and with another. We lost ourselves in the self satisfaction of every reflective surface. What about self reflection? Every decision we make formulates the depth of our lives. Give a fuck, but, like, for reals. Perhaps, idealism has been bastardized into a consumerism ideology, whereby liberty lazying into leisure has confused the pursuit of happiness and narrowed it’s focus on social statements made of fabric. Liberty was to set us free, but instead has been quietly conforming us to the shackles that we so proudly wear as our sleeves. Superficiality is at its pinnacle in the ‘leisure class’, but how long will this continue to last? Much has been lost among the bright lights. The flicker in our eyes has been dimmed in contrast, and the noise that surrounds us only serves to deafen our dialogue. My hope? Both men and women make functional, affordable, and fashionable strides to reflect the change we demand from ourselves, and the example we want to set for the future. Reason furthers to conviction, while fashion meets utility in the relationship of art, but with clear meaning. We are ready for change and we want substance. Overwhelmed by spooky gewgaw, Jacob Reddick Happy Halloween;)
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