Look around campus one day. Really look. Ignore the sensitivity training that has been force fed to you in nearly every class and start putting the people you see into groups. Certain groups will begin to appear: nerds, jocks, that odd sect of people for which descriptive nouns have yet to reach, and many more, for our student population is quite diverse. At the end of your survey, you will inevitably be left with two predominant groups: bros and hipsters.
Bros and hipsters are divided not by wealth, but by how they feel about it. The answer to the question, “How do I feel about being middle class?” provides a road map for social development in these two groups. If you are a bro, by definition you embrace the flavor of the middle class and adopt a lifestyle meant to embrace and promote your status. On the other hand, hipsters reject their middle-class status and adopt a lifestyle at odds with it.
Hipsters, in their purest incarnation, are the coolest people you will ever meet. In fact, they are so cool that the adjective loses its positive connotation. Their coolness is the start of their war against their middle class upbringing, as the chief export of the middle class is lameness.
They use their defining characteristics to distance themselves from their association with the middle class. Their garb is the antithesis of standard-issue middle-class attire. With their clothes either costing pennies or more than your rent, neither their price nor their flare will ever be found in a Land’s End catalogue .
Hipsters reject the regular means of transportation, as this could be seen as conforming. Instead, they turn to bikes and skateboards for travel whenever possible. Their transportation practices coincide nicely with another of their common passions, the environmental causes they pursue. From organic coffee to hemp binders, hipsters are single-handedly saving the environment. This is a great cause, and I hope they continue, but we also cannot ignore that it helps them accomplish their own goal of distancing themselves form the middle class. What is a better staple of the middle class than environmental degradation?
Before I venture into the world of bros, I would like to note that for the sake of argument I will be using “bro” as an umbrella term to describe the women and men who fit the description. A descriptor for the female counter-part to the masculine “bro” has yet to be established without insinuating demeaning undertones.
Bros are the foil of hipsters; thus, their aim in life is to perpetuate the status quo. Whether they are wearing boat shoes, mid-level designer labels, listening to classic rock, the music of their parents or enrolling in business classes, each of the activities adopted by the bro culture must allude in someway to their middle class status. And, while all those in fraternities and sororities are not necessarily bros, they are the earliest form of a homeowners association a bro will encounter.
Both are snobs about beer.
In the end, the fate of bros and hipsters is predictable. After college, bros will migrate out of the city and find a plot of land in the suburbs to nest and raise their young. Hipsters, if they ever leave Cup-of-Joe, will embark on a pilgrimage from city to city, constantly searching for themselves.
Although they may end up widely separated, there’s no need to be saddened by this news. Bros and hipsters need each other to exist; there is nothing for hipsters to rebel against without bros and no reason for bros to perpetuate the status quo without the constant threat of hipsters. Their dependent relationship will surely endure until they become far too old to care.
