Party Technique

Howard Goldstein awoke one day to find that he was no longer capable of enjoying himself. Little things would irritate him, like the way his desk was in front of a window that faced the sun, which obscured his view of his laptop computer. He trudged through the day without vigour, and almost resented it when he was forced to leave the comfortable solitude of his bedroom to attend a friend’s birthday celebrations.

Rather than accentuating the positives or negatives of the party, Goldstein’s beer was just...beer, he thought. He nevertheless endeavoured to get drunk, and succeeded. The so-called social lubricant never quite came into effect, and he walked from person to person, drinking some more light alcoholic beverages and wondering if there would be some conversation that would suit his, frankly, Goldstein pondered, particularly anal rhetorical standards. Aside from conversing enjoyably with a couple of good friends, he could only think about the emptiness of the situation. Internally, he continued to grumble. The music was too loud. The chart hits all work to a very uninventive formula. The quips that generally provided the crux of his social activity would lose effect if shouted over the  lowest-common-denominator pop garbage, because the phrasing is so necessary. Eventually, he decided to retreat to the host’s empty bedroom and roll a joint.

Goldstein took his tin out of his satchel-style bag and produced all the necessary components for smoking some pot. However, no sooner had he licked the sticky strip of the rolling paper, than he was no longer alone in the bedroom. Rather than, as he hoped, being any of the attractive female guests he had neglected to converse with, he was now accompanied by God himself.

“Howard,” asked God “why don’t you just go and talk to your friends?”
Goldstein figured he should address the question front-on, and make his own queries later
“It’s so vacuous out there. The conversation’s inane, some of the behaviour’s obnoxious, the music’s shit, and I don’t really have a connection with anyone.”
“Man up. If you want to be friends with people, rather than just an acquaintance they occasionally see slinking through the hallway with a drink, you have to make the effort.”
“Hey, with all due respect,” posed the affronted Goldstein “you don’t exactly go out of your way to be everyone’s best buddy. Frankly, I don’t even believe in you.”
“No shit. I’m the one true Lord; I’d know if you actually followed me.”
“Well, I burned one a little bit ago, so, y’know, maybe, mixing that with drink is having an adverse effect on me.”
God laughed “Sorry, Howard, but your weed’s not that good.  Why don’t you believe in me? Never wonder how you got here?”
“I’m no expert but, surely, science has got that covered at least to an extent...and it’s not just an existential matter, anyway.”
Goldstein paused and thought for a second “Well, both my parents renounced their religious upbringing long before I was born, so I grew up in a secular environment, as much as my junior schools tried to convince me to think otherwise.”
“Do you never think that you might have  thought entirely differently if your formative years were spent in devotion to the idea of me, or any religious belief system, even?” asked God
“Yes, but indoctrination from birth tends to instil an almost inherent faith in people, which they are hardly even capable of questioning. To be honest, I just can’t get behind the idea of an omniscient, omnipresent deity  who is...y’know...do you not see any flaws in logic in that? It’s kind’a fairytale-ish.” said Howard
“Ah, but perhaps if you were born into a Religious family you’d see everything from an entirely different perspective. You’re a product of your environment. What sounds ridiculous to you is more than plausible to, well, a vast majority.”
“Typical Religious person, always evading the question in a debate.”
God chuckled “Look, we’ve got sidetracked. What do you expect when you walk up to a group of guests who are supposed to be your friends?”

Goldstein, who had been sidetracked by God’s sudden entrance, finished rolling, and began to pace the room.

“I don’t know. I guess I have an expectation that everybody is on the same wavelength as me, but not everybody has the same set of...values, ethics...I won’t say morals...as I do. Actually...I’ve been meaning to ask you, do you think Religion is necessary as a moral code?”
Again God, who seemed to be in good spirits, laughed heartily “Oh, no, no, no, absolutely not. Shit’s pretty self-explanatory. I mean...do not kill? Do not steal? Kind’a goes without saying, right?”
“Thank you!” Goldstein lent out the window and lit the spliff. He inhaled deeply and then carried on “Well, it’s just...I put on some Wu-Tang Clan back in the main room.”
“Yeah...”
“Yeah, well, I guess you’d know. You’re God, after all. After about twenty seconds, I was told that nobody enjoyed it, and they took it off. You know what they put on after that?”
“I do, but carry on.” said God
“Nickelback. Fucking Nickelback. Really the most atrocious, artistically worthless bullshit music I can immediately think of. I had to be talked out of leaving.”
“Yeah, that Rock Star song is pretty abominable. But, hey, everyone likes it. It makes ‘em happy. Hey, give that here” Goldstein handed his maker the spliff “What’s that Big Brother & the Holding Company album? The one with Piece of My Heart?”
“Cheap Thrills?”
“Yeah, Cheap Thrills. That just about sums it up. You can’t expect everybody to have the same elitist tastes as you. Even if, between you and me, I’m with you on this, you’ve just gotta accept that stuff like music isn’t as integral to the lives of most people, as it is to yours. Accept the disposable product. Whatever makes ‘em happy, y’know? Don’t get worked up about it. You can smirk condescendingly instead. And shit, find some fucking other stuff to talk about. Music, films, yeah, great, but most people just like listening to them and watching them, not listening to you recite the production credits. Get engaged with their lives. You make it awkward for yourself by more-or-less refusing to be friendly without irony.”

At this point Goldstein realised that, even if God was now lying on the bed with his eyes shut like a novice stoner, muttering about food, he was probably right. Goldstein finished off his joint because, waste not want not, and then he stirred God, and they headed into the party together, to pragmatically find some good conversation.

“Hey, you see that chick over there?” asked God “Reckon you could introduce us?”

Beach Boys release new single, is not a masterpiece of "God Only Knows" size proportions

However, it does contain the word "God" in the title, so that's gotta count for something. Right?

Yes, arguably the best psychedelic pop group of the 1960s have commenced their official 50th anniversary reunion tour, which is mostly significant because it represents, at long last, an admittance by Mike Love that the group of session musicians he's been touring with for over a decade are not actually the Beach Boys. However, you don't need me to tell you that Mike Love's an asshole (although I will spend a great deal of this post doing so); the sheer, inordinate amount of Google search results for "mike love asshole" speak for themselves. Unless at some point he decided to make a quick buck in the porno industry, there are a lot of people who don't like Mike Love.

Four guitarists? This band must be heavy as shit!

At a Beach Boys show in 2012, you are presented with the band's classic lineup of Love, Brian Wilson, Bruce Johnson, Al Jardine and David Marks...wait, wait, wait, what? Now, perhaps there was a typo in every single one of my Beach Boys CDs, but surely, aside from a brief reappearance in the late '90s, David Marks hasn't played on a Beach Boys album since 1963. Two years before Bruce Johnson joined the band. So, this is less a reunion than an amalgamation of whatever former Beach Boys happened to be sitting around on their asses and were willing to help Love rake in some dolla. I can imagine the conversation now...

RECORD COMPANY MAN: "Whoa, shit man, just realised...Carl and Dennis are dead. How are you supposed to reunite and make some cash?"
[Snorts enormous line of coke and ground-up tofu]
MIKE LOVE: "Hey, hey, chill. The Beach Boys are still the same lean, clean, money-making machine they always were.
[MIKE eats a child, because he's an asshole]
RECORD COMPANY MAN: "What's the plan, Mikey? You wanna sue Brian again?"
MIKE LOVE: "Nah brother, Brian's in the Beach Boys again now. Didn't you get the memo?"
RECORD COMPANY MAN: "No, I'm a cretin. I think I snorted it. What are you going to do about the missing members?"
MIKE LOVE: "You remember that David Marks guy?"
RECORD COMPANY MAN: "No. Who the fuck is David Marks?"
MIKE LOVE: "You know...that dude who played guitar for us?"
RECORD COMPANY MAN: "Mike...I've lost track of the amount of session musicians the Beach Boys have had over the years."
MIKE LOVE: "Hey, fuck you! I'm an asshole! You think I don't know what I'm doing? Eh? Eh? Fuck you! You misunderstand me. He was an official member."
[MIKE is tired out from his tirade, and snorts a line of money]
RECORD COMPANY MAN: "Suck it. Seriously?"
MIKE LOVE: "Yeah, back in the '60s."
RECORD COMPANY MAN: "You were pretty hip in the '60s."
MIKE LOVE: "And he didn't play on that Pet Sounds cockjuice or that SMiLE cowshit. Just the surfing crap."
RECORD COMPANY MAN: "Ok. Call up this Damian Sparks fella. He can join."
[Maniacal cackling]

Even Dennis and Carl Wilson are participating in the reunion from beyond the grave, presumably because Mike "asshole" Love bullied them into doing it. The saddest thing is, they're slaves to the record company; despite the fact that this band contains Brian Wilson, arguably the greatest pop melodicist ever to live, Capitol don't even trust the group with selecting the tracks for their new album. Come on Capitol, they're big boys now. Then again, it'll probably be full of half-baked self-parody surfing bullshit, because they're a group who've never worked out why they were so great.

Now, let's all sit back and listen to the ferociously multitracked, MOR strains of the sexy new jam from my main men from Cali State, the Beach Boys...

The Grim Specter of Writer's Block

Writer's block is the worst thing in the world. Sorry, Ugandan victims of human rights violations. Sorry, San Diegan witnesses of Jason "hey look at my son, isn't he cute, give me money, praise Jesus, fuck you" Russell's bout of public masturbation. Sorry, those of you having made the mistake of reading the article. Whatever personal traumas you may be experiencing, what I'm going through is infinitely worse. Hey, your mother may just have died, but I'd've killed her myself it meant a page full of non-contrived words. I'd even have got down with some necrophilia if it meant a few snappy one-liners.

I'm not the only person to have experienced this. [No shit, but I've gotta keep the article moving, yano?] Some are wonderfully and beautifully talented enough to actually spin their writer's block into a satisfying web of self-indulgent-but-creative storytelling. The Coen Brothers did this with Barton Fink, in which John Turturro plays an acclaimed playwright who moves to Hollywood to write movies, can't find the inspiration to write, and then John Goodman turns up with a head in a box or some shit and it gets really fucking weird. Charlie Kaufman repeated the trick when he was hired to adapt a (presumably really gay) book called The Orchid Thief and instead wrote Adaptation, a shit-hot movie starring Nicolas Cage as some guy called Charlie Kaufman who's hired to adapt a (presumably really gay) book called The Orchid Thief. Cage also plays his fictitious twin brother Donald, and once the writer's block and self-loathing shit is played out, Meryl Streep starts snorting green coke that comes from Orchids and there are crocodiles and it gets really fucking weird.

I don't, however, think I have the same writing abilities as Joel & Ethan Coen or Charlie Kaufman. These people are visionaries. Perhaps I'll get better as I get older, but right now I have about fifty pages of a screenplay [different to the one I wrote about on here a while back, although I ripped off a few ideas] and I know how to end it but it's got very outlandish and I don't know where to take it until those completely-mapped-out final scenes. Perhaps I should act like a pregnant lady and let nature run its course, jotting down ideas as they come, but I want to get to the good bits, and right now it's like there's a baby coming out of my gaping vagina, in the form of some really shitty scenes with terribly unfunny and unnatural dialogue in an otherwise quite funny comedy script. Letting nature run its course would take months on end, and would prove I'm not the behemoth of an artist I like to tell myself I am. I'll probably just smoke pot and see what happens.

FOOTNOTE:
Hey, and, y'know, fuck you, the New York Times. Your offer to let me view a most-likely very brief review of a Woody Allen-directed play from 2003 for MONEY is as appealing as I'm sure you find the offer I'm about to present you with, to suck my fucking cock.

Mortality

 

Mortality

With coffee in hand, nothing can stop you.
The world is your oyster and I believe
You when you say
“Today
I will be perfect”

Awake early each morning to prepare
To face your never-ending fight
Against your hair.
Plucking out the greys and sacrificing them
In the noble name of self-preservation.

You shall not decay,
Today is your day

And you will look
Exactly
Like that person in the skin-care adverts.

Guinea pigs on their treadmills
Running away from themselves
And burning off that burger.
TV says work harder.

The stressful 9 to 5 to pay your bill
For beauty products battling your stress lines.
Being alive is not living, it’s
Denying your mortality one pill at a time.

You shall not decay,
Today is your day

But your casket looked the same.

Motion: Facebook likes have just made desperate attempts at affirmation and general attention-seeking socially acceptable 2012

TRANSCRIPT OF COURT PROCEEDINGS:

JUDGE:
Right about now ASSP court is in full effect, Judge residing, in the case of ASSP versus Facebook’s “Like” System. Prosecuting attorneys are Jack Frayne-Reid and Harvey motherfucking Slade. Order, order, Jack, take the motherfucking stand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help your cracka ass?

JACK:
You’re goddamn right I do.

JUDGE:
Then why don’t you tell everybody what the fuck you gotta say?

Although this may end up being equivalent to the episode of Mad Men in which Don Draper types a full-page ad for the New York Times named “Why I’m Quitting Tobacco”, cigarette in mouth, I feel obliged to highlight a shocking new craze of addiction sweeping the youth of today; the addiction to Facebook Likes. In search of getting their fix, from a complimentary click of this oh-so-illusive button, your average child, teenager, or young adult will plaster fifty pictures of Friday night’s bout of Darth Vader-mask-clad drunken sodomy over their wall, with their desperate lust for online approval leaping out of their fingers as they send a couple about to select friends on Chat, hoping and praying to Mark Zuckerberg that a peer sees the picture, lightly chuckles, and then clicks the button. Perhaps they’ll even attach a “LOL” or an example of their witty repartee in the comment section, which you too can Like, returning the favour. But don’t hold your breath.

Yet, don’t take my derision the wrong way. I feel comfortable enough around all you guys to admit, I too am a Like addict. But I know I can seek help, somewhere, perhaps with a change of the fickle cultural tide. I’ve tried using Twitter, believe me, but nobody retweets my shit, so it’s too much like going all-out Cold Turkey. It’s even the same with Blogspot, as much as I hate to say it; although a shoutout must go to Ben, the one guy who reads, or at least comments on, my articles here. My last fix was on March 23^rd 2012 when, in a vengeful mood of loathing the self and loathing the system following a University rejection, I posted “I've decided not to go to Westminster University, for many good reasons. For a start, they rejected my application.” 11 Likes. The euphoria. It didn’t matter that the quip was more-or-less plagiarised from Woody Allen’s mediocre Hollywood Ending; I got high off those Likes. Sometimes I even Like people’s statuses tactically in the hope that they owe me one and they’ll bequeath my next Status with a warm, satisfying Like.

I’ve repeated the trick again recently with a comment or two, but as it goes, I’ve fallen from grace, with relation to my mid-2011 peak as an auteur of Statuses. The Like-related activity I most regularly partake in is when I watch a film and think “hmmm, this is pretty cool. Wouldn’t it be super-awesome if all my friends on facebook knew I like it, like the fucking cultured G I am?” So I Like films. Lots and lots of films. I’ve done this with music as well, but not with very many books because I’m probably nowhere near as intelligent as I like to tell myself soothingly at night while I lie in bed trying in vain to get some goddamn sleep for once.

However, my personal struggle aside, there is a greater evil in the world of Facebook; sloganistic, populist Like-mongering that’s far too anonymously simplistic to even be classed as sentimental. When an idiot pulls out all the stops and posts a picture of cancer patients with the moniker “LIKE IF YOU’RE AGAINST CANCER – DON’T LIKE IF YOU'RE NOT” they might as well be not only slapping you around the face with their cock, but doing so to the entire human race. The very idea that there is some twisted misanthrope, somewhere, sniggering behind their computer as they maliciously NEGLECT TO CLICK A THUMBS UP BUTTON because they really, really fucking love cancer and are categorically not against it, is pretty insulting to humanity. This always sounds like a pathetic attempt of personalisation with such a serious issue, but I have had family members who’ve died of cancer. I don’t like (not Like) the illness. I’m certainly against it. And I certainly don’t need to Like a picture to show you that.

But people on Facebook love (perhaps there should be a Love button?) to show they care. I’m sure all you homies Liked the viral video KONY 2012...I sure did. But then, I thought it was important. Everyone else was liking it! What was I supposed to do? Be a cruel, heartless bastard? We all Liked that goddamn thing. Some of us even shared it on our Walls. And then...we forgot. OK, some of us grew disillusioned with the strange, financially irregular, Bible-bashing, publically masturbating Invisible Children charity. But most of us...just forgot. Because to show appreciation of something on Facebook is a fickle thing. I like Likes, but I kinda wish they’d get rid of it and people had no choice but to comment, and actually express views that are, like, from their minds and stuff.

Now, I’m going to post this on Facebook. I wonder how many people will Like it?

Example Scene #1

FACEBOOK:
Pull your goddamn ass over right now

HARVEY:
Aw shit. Yo what the fuck you pulling me over for?

FACEBOOK:
Because I feel like it! You see this bitch's status? You didn't like it! You gonna hurt tha goddamn ho's feelings. Just sit yo ass finger on the Like button and shut the fuck up!

HARVEY:
Man, fuck this shit

FACEBOOK:
Alright smart-ass, I'm removing my fuckin' Like from yo ass's status!

Hi everyone, my name's Harvey and I'm a Like-aholic.

It all started back in 2007, when I first got my Facebook account. Yeah that's right, I was posting statuses crying for attention back when you were all still spouting luv on each other's Bebo walls. Those were the dark days though; I remember when I first started using Facebook the status box automatically came with 'is' after your name, so you couldn't write a status without beginning it with the word 'is'. Harvey Slade is Superman, Harvey Slade is really fucking cool. This coerced third person didn't last for long however, and after that it became optional. And then it disappeared altogether. And then...

That's when it happened. No longer did I have to gauge my self-importance on guesswork of how much people may or may not have enjoyed my inevitably witty, intelligent and informative statuses. Harvey Slade is in Geography. No longer did I have to throw these works of art out into the dark abyss to remain unblemished and unmeasured but for the semi-conversational, poorly written comments from those half-acquaintances whom I added in the midst of the 'whoa a new social network? Best take some new pics with my camera phone in the mirror and upload them to catch the hype' phase. Harvey Slade is on Facebook.

Tyler Durden once said that self-improvement is masturbation. Well, so is writing Facebook statuses. Apparently over 500 million people use Facebook; jerking themselves off with one hand and adding the finishing touches to their own personal take on just how much of a hangover they have this morning omg lol with the other. Zuckerberg's no idiot, we live in a world where thousands of people every day end up sending viruses by clicking links saying 'Find out who's viewing your profile!'. We live in a world where people evaluate their houses not to sell them but just to find out how much they're worth. People like to know where they stand and they like to find their value. People like to feel affirmed and people like to be built up, it's human nature. Facebook has essentially become a globalised tool for affirmation, where people can upload photos of themselves with their tits out so that the chavs from 3 years above who have 2 kids and once fucked their older sister can like them and make them feel attractive, and wanted. People can upload statuses saying how shit a day they've had so that people can comment and even though they inevitably deny them because naturally arrgh ffs i don't want to talk about it sorry xxx, they get to feel like people actually do care about them.

It's a dirty habit, but we all have it. In our capitalist society, Zuckerberg has managed to tap into the greatest resource of them all - human nature. In this great dick measuring contest the sticky mess left in the middle is your home page cluttered with people you don't care about saying things you don't care about but you still go back. You hate it, but you still go back when you've got that gem of a status, don't you? When you pass your driving test there's only one place you're headed and it's certainly not your grandma's to show her the epic wheel spins you can pull off in your K-Reg polo.

I know this better than most, having started working real life part-time to manage my full-time Facebook commitments. I'd always been a good status writer, I'd regularly pick up 8 likes or so, but it was when I got that 32 like status just over a year ago things really started to kick off. This level of likeage is not uncommon, but what made this special is it did not involve passing a driving test, getting an offer or conceiving a child. It was merely about receiving the School's Friday email a few days late. I remember in school the next day people were genuinely talking about it and congratulating me on how well I'd done. Since then I've mustered up a further 8 statuses with over 20 likes and become infamous for my Facebooking skills. I've had numerous people come up to me and say how they love reading my statuses - a trend that has now even travelled with me to Nottingham - and even a few people go up to my sister and tell her the same thing. And no, I'm not joking.

A few of my friends stopped liking my statuses long ago out of envy and hatred and quite a few have tried hijacking my statuses to stop me being such a smug little prick but they've all fallen in the wayside and my statuses have chugged onwards unfazed. In many ways you might say I've won Facebook - but in the greatest dick measuring contest of them all I ask you what is really 'winning' when you only end up surrounded by nobs and covered in semen, jumping up and down as 'Joe Thomas liked your status' appears on your computer screen.

Nobody 'wins' Facebook, because everyone's a loser. It's just a crowd of people bumping into each other and clamouring for attention. Some will get lots of attention and others will get pissed off at not getting any attention and try hunting more attention by writing another status about it - but we're all losers. We're all victims to the same basic attribute of human nature, it's just some are better at it than others.

And when I post this link on Twitter I am going to go onto the settings tab of our blog management page and check how many people have viewed this post at least 10 times before tomorrow has ended. Life, like Facebook, is also a huge dick-measuring contest. But you'd be a fool to never look down at your groin and pretend you don't give a shit if you have a tiny wiener or not.*

"thats a good status slade, many potential likes are available, just hope you took into account the 3 rules of statusing, 1) look at all potential likers online 2) time it so no-one else puts a shit status at the same time, which could affect yours 3) dont base your potential likers on everone, some are too popular, even for you"

- Joe Thomas, 2010

*"The preferred spelling of 'wiener' is W-I-E-N-E-R, although E-I is an acceptable ethnic variant" - Martin, The Simpsons.

JUDGE:
Facebook, the jury has found you guilty of being a vanity-fueled, capitalistic drone muthafucka.

FACEBOOK:
Wait, that's a lie. That's a goddamn lie! I want justice! Like this status! Fuck you, you no-like muthafucka!

The science of being hipster

In my mind, there are two types of hipster:

1.) That kind of hipster who tries to hard. These guys will go out of their way to make their appearance look hipster and for them being hipster is an external thing - it's something for people to engage with and to notice. They'll intentionally seek out alternative clothes, hairstyles and glasses and they'll wear their indie music taste with an unfortunately heavy mix of arrogance to pride.

2.) Natural hipsters. Now before you all jump the gun and tell me what a massive cunt I sound for possibly believing there is something natural about a social culture, I note that the phrasing itself is unfortunate but it's as close as I can get to saying what I mean. This kind of hipster won't don a Smiths shirt because it makes them look hipster, they'll buy it because they love The Smiths.

And there lies the difference, I think. As with my outlook on morality it comes down to primary intentions. A natural hipster will never have the primary motive of giving off the image of being hipster; the image naturally attaches itself to them because they just end up fitting all of the labels that we tag along to what it is to be 'hipster'. The try-too-hard hipster will instead have the primary intention of being hipster; they treat it as a means to an end whereas the others merely treat it as the end itself. For the try-too-hards being hipster is fashionable - it's a vehicle from which they can achieve their ultimate goal of coming across as cool, indie or 'different'. Or, as I will perhaps more controversially propose now, to look like a massive twat.

The fact is that being a twat is a whole lot more appealing in society than we like to admit - perhaps it's because we're in denial that we can subscribe to such a science, but it's true. People make millions out of being nothing more than a massive twat - see Piers Morgan - and being a twat has traditionally always been an attraction to the opposite sex. It's that self-acceptance of being a massive douchebag, flaunting it and running it as your own that many people, whether they admit it or not, find so appealing. For the try-too-hards, the 'hipster twat' subculture is a fantastic opportunity to outwardly be a complete douchebag and for people to still find it cool.

I'm not a fan of the try-too-hards. I made a blogpost ages ago (http://adventuresofasuburbanstreetposse.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/on-hipsters.html) about my realisation of becoming hipster and it's the kind of people who don't try, at all, who make hipsters so fucking cool. Hipster came to me more than me going to it, so to speak. For the try-too-hards it's just an social vehicle, but there are many really fucking cool people in the world who listen to fantastic bands, have that cool alternative sense of humour and dress-sense and don't mean it solely with the intention of being hipster - it's just how they are. They're the ones who have the labels put upon them, whereas the others seek the labels out and put them on themselves.

I'm not saying that these 'natural hipsters' aren't aware that they're hipster - of course they are. It's become such a buzzword in society that there's no way they won't have been subjected to 'you're really fucking hipster' at least once or twice. They'll be aware of the premise, but they'll be comfortable or indifferent with it. Perhaps most fittingly it's that sense of indifference to labels that truly encapsulates what it is to be hipster.

This could be another attempt at my subconscious to reassure me that I'm not a massive twat, just like my last blog post on being hipster. But I'm recently seeing with a bit more clarity this whole hipster scene and this is how I break it down. Don't hate on hipsters - hate on the people who try to be hipster. The difference lies in that the true/more likeable hipsters will not go into a shop and buy those really tight orange trousers and buy them to look even more hipster - they'll buy them for the sake of it. Because they like them.