History
Here’s what you need to know about ‘rebel consumers,’ gentrification and why Americans hate the ‘hipster’ label
Indie musicians. Vagabonds. Corporate art aficionados.
Hipsters are complicated members of America’s more recent alternative movements, but not for the reasons non-hipsters might assume. The meaning of the word ‘hipster’ has changed over time. It’s quite humbling to realize that this influential rebel culture isn’t actually as revolutionary as so-called hipsters would like to believe.
Hipsters can be both incredibly progressive and scathingly insensitive to other cultures depending on how they express their style to others.
Hipsters are a sign of changing times.
But is this change necessarily a movement in the right direction?
Who Were the First Hipsters?
First thing’s first: hipsters aren’t hippies. They aren’t members of the 1950s…
Whether you need a spare tarot deck or…
Fashion
Swear to the stars — never scorn your socks
Your style choice says a lot more about your personality and aspirations than you assume.
I love a good pair of extravagant, eye-catching socks. In middle school, I wore a very boring, very grey uniform. Girls’ breaths fogged up the dewy air as we tugged our too-short stockings higher. We bounced from one foot to the other, staving off the uncomfortable winter mornings.
In eighth grade, the school gods offered my class a taste of freedom. We could wear any socks we wanted, so long as we kept our best behavior.
As if by magic, out came the stripes, the…
Beware the Great Eleven
Mental Health
Here’s what you need to know about the Johari Window, and why you should value authenticity over being ‘right’
“I never make the same mistake twice. I make it five or six times, just to be sure.”
Making mistakes is my jam. If I had a collection of all the terrible dates I’ve endured, all the job applications I’ve bungled, and all the courses I’ve struggled to finish, I’d have a menagerie of mistakes fit for the Queen of England. I’d never run out of material; the archive never stops growing.
My social anxiety makes it difficult for me to feel at ease among friends, but I’m learning to accept my social faux pas in stride. My over-idealistic worldview…
Write when you’re broken. When arguing. Write when nothing else makes sense. Just take care not to let your words get in the way.
“Describe yourself in a way that you wouldn’t normally tell a stranger.”
I squint, as if trying to see past those hazel wire-framed eyes and into the brain of my coffee date, who just had the audacity to call me out like this.
I wonder if he’s just looking for a good story. Should I talk about anxiety? My university? Weird kinks?
I avoid the slog of confessions roiling behind my mind’s eye. I avoid launching into a confusing story with no direction. I avoid over-sharing.
I tell him that I’m a writer.
I don’t mean I’m a writer in…
Diving below the waves or into your local…
Tell me, how does your garden grow?
Mental Health
Here’s why you struggle to trust unfamiliar medications, and what to do when you take what the doctor ordered
The bottle of pills rattles in my sweatpants pocket as I tiptoe down the hallway to check if my friend is still awake.
I’m at wit’s end.
I’ve waited too long to take this medication I’m holding. When I first grabbed the package from my pharmacist this morning, I already felt my throat closing up.
“Make sure to take it at the same time every day, but don’t take it on an empty stomach,” the pharmacist pattered on, oblivious to my growing discomfort. I wiped my damp palms on my sweatpants and struggled to concentrate on her directives. …
Cat Baklarz
|Los Angeles| Environmentalist, Writer, Historian of the Weird. I seek to shield this dimension from ruin, or something.
