HugFire is a creation that has been brewing in the minds of Nastia, Christine, and Seamus, also known as redpanda, manbearpig, and crunkkoala, respectively. We meant to have a more extravagant introductory post, but everyone got too caught up with midterms, etc (you know how we do at UC Berkeley) so I am just going to take the plunge and post an editorial I wrote last week.
Recently, I read an article in
Adbusters about how our generation’s hipster counterculture is basically a signal of the decline of western civilization. Yes, this made me want to giggle, too. The author claimed that hipster culture is uniquely vapid and self obsessed, unlike past counter cultures that valiantly crusaded against their parents’ values in order to spread, uhm, revolution. It seems that all hipsters are hopelessly vain and unoriginal.... oh, are we ever doomed!
Guess what? NONE of the above criticism is unique to hipster culture. At all. The punks in the 1970’s are used as an example of “good” counter culture in the article, a counter culture that really stood for something and had meaning. Does this author truly believe that all of the punks in the 1970’s were working to promote equality among the social classes in order to improve society? Isn’t it more realistic to believe that many of them were following a trend, trying to break away from their parents, and doing what they thought was cool, like the hipsters are doing now? The author claims that hipsters use emblems of the working class, like Pabst beer and v-neck t-shirts, as fashion, therefore draining them of significance. This isn’t a unique “flaw” of hipster culture either: in the 1960’s, for instance, it was popular for affluent, white teenagers to wear African and Asian inspired ethnic clothing. Interestingly enough, that type of clothing is still considered ethnic and particular to those geographic regions. Likewise, working class men of past generations can hold on to their v-necks and Pabst. And, of course, no two hippies or punks looked alike, right? Of coooooourse not.
The hipsters are a group of youth like any other group of youth with common clothing, music tastes, and behavior—that is why we are able to categorize them as a subculture. I doubt that adolescent psychology has rewired itself in the past decade to bring about the “decline of western civilization.” You know what will really bring about the decline of western civilization? This: 
We have better things to worry about than a group of American Apparel clad kids destroying life as we know it.
redpanda
With her style, her skirt, and her in general.
And the finished product: 
