The Hipster Handbook

by Robert Lanham

Book Overview

A hilarious book that will teach you everything you need to know to be too cool for school: "Your official guide to the language, culture and style of hipsters young and old." --Los Angeles Times

hip-ster - \hip-stur (s)\ n. One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term "cool"; a Hipster would instead say "deck.") The Hipster walks...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400032016
• ISBN13: 9781400032013
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

How to read this book as a 'hipster'

(Short answer: Ironically) If you are reading this book in hopes of becoming a 'hipster', give up, for this book like 'hipster culture' oozes irony and laughs at those who take it at face value. Instead you would become what laymen may term a 'poseur', analogous to the 'fashion punks' who brought punk to the near mainstream in the 80s, and would quickly be revealed by such gaffes as the use of a term like 'deck' with any seriousness or lack of irony. However, 'real' hipsters need not despair. This book can still be read by them without shame and be prominently displayed on their thrift store used coffee table in their small apartment as long as it is done with an excess of irony. Doing so is in fact essential in some ways to remaining a 'real hipster' in the face of the subculture's sudden commodification. With the sudden entrance of this book into mainstream consciousness, as once once 'hip' statements of 'hipsterdom' such as the trucker hat and the messenger bag are paraded around on mass media (MTV and NBC respectively--although any self respecting 'hipster' would only ever be caught watching Queer Eye on Bravo), the essential exclusivity and irony of hipsterdom has come under attack. 'Hipsters' of course must defend themselves the only way they can, with further layers of irony. They must show that they get the joke, that they are not the sheeplike wannabe 'hipsters' trying to be like them by copying their fashions and terminologies a day too late, that they can still tell the 'real thing' and keep their 'club' exclusive in the face of scrutiny by the dumb masses. This book can become another obscure reference by those in the know, not to be talked about overtly, but to be subtly slipped into conversation. And of course a true 'hipster' would never refer to his- or herself as a 'hipster' nor would one identify his- or herself as part of any movement. And of course if you took any of this at face value or learned anything you did not already know in this review, then neither are you a 'hipster' nor will you ever be.With much 'irony', 'j'

A hilarious satire

Lanham's tome of cool is more than a mere handbook.... it is the most well-written and hilarious bit of social commentary to be published in recent memory. He nails the paradoxes and nuances of today's trendsetters and allows their absurdity to speak for itself. This book is a real treat.

Inspired, hilarious stuff!

So what if this doesn't appeal to everyone? Not everyone has the good taste and the inflated ego to be a hipster! The best thing about this book and the reason it succeeds so well, I think, lies in the fact that Lanham understands how silly this project is, which makes it absolutely fun to read. And if you are a hipster like me, you'll really appreciate the Hipster Hairdos for Men and Women, which include such common styles as the Emo Combover and the Wet Banana. Also great are the lists that examine Hipster Music. There really is a logic to them: David Bowie's "Hunky Dory," for instance. Lanham wouldn't pick "Ziggy Stardust" for the simple fact that it's too well-known...Hipster's always seek the obscure stuff.So if you enjoy poking fun at yourself and your lame friends, I recommend this one.

Very hip

Sarcastic and right on the nose. Those who are truly "too hip" probably will hate this 'cause they'll think they're being goofed on. And guess what? They are! Overtly mocks those who try so hard to be different, but in the process act like lemmings.Two other funny, sarcastic books you may also enjoy: NO ONE'S EVEN BLEEDING and DELANO

You are about to be exposed...

A very funny book exposing the varieties of hipsters. A tongue in cheek guide which proves what existed all along: hipsters are merely sheep following others' trends, much like the mainstream schlubs the hipsters themselves loathe. Hillarious but also strangely informative.