evar

The overexposure of hipster jokes

Are they still Hip?
By Jacey Gibb

oking fun at different cliques
P:: been around since the
word clique itself. It’s even

arguable that before a new ‘group’
can emerge to be considered as such,
jokes about them HAVE to be made.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when
the great hipster explosion occurred
but as was expected, along with it
came criticisms. At first the jabs were
everything you wanted in a joke: they
were funny, relevant and original.
Unfortunately, as often happens, with
popularity came overexposure and so
it was: RIP hipster jokes.

A bit overdramatic? Maybe.
But it doesn’t change the fact that
everywhere you look there are
parodies of people doing things
hipsters do or hipsters complaining

about hipsters. The irony isn’t lost
on me. They prefer things that are
unpopular which results in these
things becoming popular. It’s an
unstoppable cycle that will probably
never end.

My main quarrel comes in
the form of how overdone this
mockery has become. Last summer
Honda developed a series of ads
in promotion for the new Jazz, a
car that boasts ‘heaps’ of space.
In one of the advertisements titled
“How much Hipster can you
Pack in a Jazz?’ , countless plaid
donning, environmentally conscious,
condescending hipsters pile into
the vehicle to demonstrate the car’s
impressive capacity. At one point
the lead hipster even remarks to
a passerby ‘look at that f*cking
hipster’, a reference to the website by

almost the exact name. The comment
is no doubt meant to be ironic, which
is what the hipster culture is all about.
The internet is the worst offender
of overdoing the hipster belittlement.
Faster than can be viewed, videos
on YouTube of people imitating
hipsters are popping up while other
websites found their entire basis on
the concept. One of the best examples
of this would be Hipster Hitler. The
website consists of comics portraying
Hitler as a young-spirited, indie
dictator who tries hard not to do what
all the other dictators are doing. The
only problem is half the comics are
simply making the same joke over
and over again. I wish I could rant
about Hipster Puppies, a place where
people can take pictures of their best

friends with thick-rimmed glasses and

PBR cans, but the end result is too

adorable for me to argue with.
Hipster jokes are kind of like
fart jokes: used sparingly in the right
place and the right time, they’re
worth a few laughs. All I’m asking
for here is some moderation. We
don’t want hipster jokes to become
mainstream, now do we?

 

 

Fare-ly ugly

TransLink puts advertisements on new FareCards

By Sharon Miki

ith the U-Pass finally
green-lit and on track for
Douglas College students

this summer, you'd think that we
could give transit issues a rest for a
few months. Still, take one look at
your FareCard this January and its
clear that those scamps at TransLink
have other plans. And they’ re not
pretty.

As of January 2011, TransLink
monthly FareCards are adorned with
advertisements that take up nearly
half of their front surface. These new
FareCard ads are tacky, tactless and,

frankly, not worth the nickel they paid:

for them.

I understand that a bus pass is
not meant to be a beacon of artistic
splendour, it’s just an $81 to $151
slip of paper that allows you to trudge
onto public transit. However, the
passes are paid-for commodities,
purchased by commuters; as such,
there is a reasonable expectation that,
just because we want to participate
in public transit, we will not be
forced to become walking mini-
billboards for products, companies
and organizations that we may not
endorse.

Economically, I can understand

14

the argument that we might not mind
the ads if they’re going to be big, fare-
reducing money-makers. However,
according to TransLink, the ads will
guarantee only $84,000 in revenue per
year, or about $7,000 each month. As
of March 2007, TransLink sold about
131,000 FareCards in a month. So,
roughly, TransLink will make barely
five cents per card sold; in exchange
for advertisements that transit-goers
will carry on their person at almost all
times and will have to look at several
times a day. Not worth it.

Still not convinced? Let’s say
you buy a new car. You buy the
car, even though the price has been
steadily increasing while the quality
and reliability seem to worsen— hey,
you need to get around. You sign the
papers and it’s sort of a clunker, but

you’re happy because you’ve got your

own transportation lined up. Sweet!
Then, before you can drive off, the
salesman walks out and spray paints
your car with the number for his
trampy sister-in-law’s door-to-door
Avon business. You try to protest but
he’s tells you that having the ad on the

If you want to enjoy the fare-

 

it’s clear that any tampering, altering
or defacement of the card nullifies:

saving splendour of monthly
FareCards, you have no choice but to
endorse those that TransLink decrees
you support through the flashing of
your card. Reading the fine print,

its validity. As such, I think I might
start up a little side business selling
specially-designed FareCard holders,
which will cover about half of the
front surface, making it ad-free.

mode of transportation you take with
you everywhere is the price you pay
to keep the future cost of fixing the
windshield wiper down, theoretically.
Would you accept it? I don’t think so.