"Your dad was meta as fuck"
April 25, 2011 3:56 PM   Subscribe

 
This makes me grin big time. Thanks!
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:04 PM on April 25, 2011


This is just My Parents Were Awesome without the moms.
posted by Scoo at 4:06 PM on April 25, 2011 [8 favorites]


Is "dad" a stereotype now?
posted by LogicalDash at 4:07 PM on April 25, 2011


Here, have a real hipster dad.

Raul Meireles of Liverpool FC, and his adorable daughter.
posted by The Giant Squid at 4:07 PM on April 25, 2011 [3 favorites]


Ah yes. Group together the various cliches about modern hipsters, find photos in which fathers exhibit them (hardly surprising, as it's not like hipsters invented tube socks or bears), and then post the photos labeling the people in them hipsters.

At least this doesn't have a mocking tone. But I feel sure some who see it will.
posted by Astro Zombie at 4:09 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


bears?

I wish I could leave it in the hopes that bears would eventually become a hipster cliche, but I meant beards.
posted by Astro Zombie at 4:10 PM on April 25, 2011 [9 favorites]


OMG, Chek Root Beer in a steel can.
it is 1976, Fourth of July, I bought my first pack of BlackCats, saw Missy X change her bra in the woods (with her permission) did not narc on ronnie smoking weed in the jungle gym cement tubes and generally had a blast.
posted by clavdivs at 4:11 PM on April 25, 2011 [17 favorites]


I thought if a trend was adopted unironically, it didn't "count."
posted by Bromius at 4:12 PM on April 25, 2011


I like that the general assertion of the posts isn't that "your dad is a hipster," but that "ALL dads are hipsters"
posted by DeltaZ113 at 4:13 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]




bears?

I wish I could leave it in the hopes that bears would eventually become a hipster cliche, but I meant beards.



BEARS VS. VIKINGS (Vice Magazine)

posted by The Whelk at 4:13 PM on April 25, 2011 [2 favorites]


Cool blog but the writer is wrong about two things. This isn't a cafe racer and this isn't a moped.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 4:14 PM on April 25, 2011 [8 favorites]


Good point Bromius, though irony with-in a trend adopted for the purpose of utility fits the hipster criteria.
posted by clavdivs at 4:15 PM on April 25, 2011


of course i am making this stuff up.
posted by clavdivs at 4:15 PM on April 25, 2011


I think every single one of these could be my dad. (Except the photographer whose eye was shot...we skipped that one.)

Just more evidence that my dad is a badass!
posted by chatongriffes at 4:15 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


I got a cheap laugh. I don't mind "hipster" humor when it's not mean-spirited.

And my dad did give me my first beer, a PBR, in like 1984.
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:15 PM on April 25, 2011


As you can plainly see, I am an awesome dad - can I submit myself?
posted by Artw at 4:16 PM on April 25, 2011 [4 favorites]


I'm a sucker for humor that involves "hipsters".
posted by Evernix at 4:16 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


Man, it's just wheels within wheels, isn't it, clavdivs?
posted by Bromius at 4:16 PM on April 25, 2011


bears?

I wish I could leave it in the hopes that bears would eventually become a hipster cliche


Me too, due to personal bias in favor of my Bear. Also, my Bear actually could have posed for many of these shots. Some people's Dads are other people's Husbands.
posted by bearwife at 4:18 PM on April 25, 2011


Love the new romantic "Thompson Twins are the best band in history" hairdo on the, uh, kid in this picture.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:19 PM on April 25, 2011


you bet Bromius. Artw, if the robot mask is modeled on a robot pre-1980, you are hip. The ball could effect the -ster aspect. well done sir.
posted by clavdivs at 4:20 PM on April 25, 2011


Well, this one's bullshit, having clearly been photographed post-1999.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:22 PM on April 25, 2011 [3 favorites]


Smiling in pictures always makes you look younger. My grandparents look SO OLD in their formal family portraits from the fifties, sixties and seventies, but they look so much younger and livelier in shots from the eighties and nineties.
posted by infinitewindow at 4:28 PM on April 25, 2011


Where did you get all those pictures of me?
posted by tomswift at 4:29 PM on April 25, 2011


Eh, old photos of people looking out of date compared to modern times and looking young with odd facial hair and whatnot... It has nothing to do with current-day hipsters, and mostly is harmless, but doesn't really do a lot for me.

You know, other than all that great facial hair.
posted by hippybear at 4:32 PM on April 25, 2011


You mean people did and wore what they wanted BEFORE ME? Good. Glad to hear it. Everyone else should start.
posted by cmoj at 4:33 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


I wish I could leave it in the hopes that bears would eventually become a hipster cliche, but I meant beards.

Technically, a Bear could be a Beard. And a Dad.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:38 PM on April 25, 2011 [6 favorites]


Somewhere out there is a picture of my dad in an orange t-shirt with the Farrah Fawcett swimsuit iron-on transferred on it.

I know a few people who would kill for that shirt today.
posted by Lucinda at 4:41 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


Your dad knew what grunge was before you did and he had the shirt tied around his waist to prove it.

Um. This was not a grunge thing. I have no idea.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:47 PM on April 25, 2011


...but doesn't really do a lot for me.

Same here.

But, then, my dad is 91, so a lot of those photos could be me. I'd like to claim that I looked infinitely better, but, unfortunately, I am in possession of photographic evidence that damningly proves otherwise.

Love the new romantic "Thompson Twins are the best band in history" hairdo on the, uh, kid in this picture.

Leave the kid alone, because growing up with art like that on the walls can only be scarring.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 4:50 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


None of these people look even remotely like my Dad.
posted by jonmc at 4:51 PM on April 25, 2011


I'm not too hipster to like this photoblog. Come on, this shit is FUNNY:

Your dad didn’t give a fuck before you did. He smoked, drank, fucked, fought, and pissed into the wind of life. Then one night, while jacked on mescaline, he screwed your mom. It was just supposed to be one night. But, that tryst became bastardized when you were conceived from it. Your dad had to settle down. So hipsters, next time you’re out drinking on a Tuesday night or biking without a helmet, remember you’re the bastard love baby of your dad’s not giving a fuck attitude.


posted by madred at 4:51 PM on April 25, 2011 [5 favorites]


I like the way all those dads are like twenty years younger than I am. No wait, I mean I hate that.
posted by Decani at 4:51 PM on April 25, 2011 [3 favorites]


people doing 70s stuff because it's the 70s != people doing 70s stuff because it's so hot right now
posted by DU at 4:52 PM on April 25, 2011 [3 favorites]


he's hip he's cool he's 45
posted by robbyrobs at 4:53 PM on April 25, 2011 [2 favorites]


(I'm noticing no Dads in uniform in Vietnam, or married and having kids right after coming home, is what I'm saying)
posted by jonmc at 4:54 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


people doing 70s stuff because it's the 70s != people doing 70s stuff because it's so hot right now

Yeah, well that was the joke. Only now that you've gone & explained it, you've ruined it for everybody.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:57 PM on April 25, 2011 [11 favorites]


I ruined a joke for Ubu once.

Once.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:01 PM on April 25, 2011 [3 favorites]


Well, my dad did have the greatest collection of skinny ties evar.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:01 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]




Or, what Sys Rq said.
posted by Dr-Baa at 5:11 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


I like the way all those dads are like twenty years younger than I am. No wait, I mean I hate that.
If it's any consolation Decani I always assumed you were about 16.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 5:25 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


In other words, modern hipster dudes dress like your dad did, making what was once embarrasingly out of style retroactively appear cool.

I think I am officially tired of Tumblr.
posted by emjaybee at 5:29 PM on April 25, 2011 [2 favorites]


Well, my dad did have the greatest collection of skinny ties evar.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:01 AM on April 26 [1 favorite +] [!]


Thorzgrandad
posted by kersplunk at 6:00 PM on April 25, 2011


Oh great the hipsters have started breeding now. Quick someone revive thirtysomething.
posted by humanfont at 6:03 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


Thanks to how Safari truncates titles in the tab bar, this window is currently labeled, "Your dad was me..."
posted by ardgedee at 6:04 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


The skateboarding one made me feel ancient, because Thrasher was really popular when I was 13...
posted by desjardins at 6:06 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


My dad has a garage jam band and drinks more tequila than me. Hell, he used to skateboard vert so early on he and his buddies helped invent the sport. He even used to design and print stickers and shirts for Vans.

My dad is so hipster he makes me look square.
posted by loquacious at 6:13 PM on April 25, 2011


My dad is so hipster he makes me look square.

Thank god for Huey Lewis!
posted by Sys Rq at 6:14 PM on April 25, 2011


I listen to hipster Dad rock, and I like it.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:26 PM on April 25, 2011


And I do have a photo of my dad wearing a cape and a mustache. And he encouraged me to buy my first set of Cons.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:27 PM on April 25, 2011


Tube socks? Short shorts? Short jorts? Tank tops that reveal midriff? Flannel? Deep v's? Cats? Dance parties? Protesting? Mustaches?

Apparently your dad was hip. And GAY GAY GAY.

posted by PapaLobo at 6:54 PM on April 25, 2011


It's pretty good, but I can't read it without a slight aftertaste of those godawful Canadian Club ads. I like Scoo's link better.
posted by en forme de poire at 7:01 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


Your Dad read comic books before you did. His Super hero’s weren’t pansies like your politically correct pussy push overs now. They were real heros, heros who saved the world and fucked the girl every 25 pages.

...yeah, kinda over this one now.
posted by en forme de poire at 7:06 PM on April 25, 2011


It's pretty good, but I can't read it without a slight aftertaste of those godawful Canadian Club ads.

Ha! I've met one of the men in these ads. This one, the fellow in the lower left hand corner with a woman on either arm. He's the "Brand Ambassador" for Canadian Club. He was in town to show off some of the brand's upper shelf liquors. He's tan, handsome, well-dressed, and, if I recall right, has a gold pinkie ring and tinted glasses; pretty much pure rat pack. He's somebody's dad, I'm sure of it (one of the two women in the picture actually ended up his wife; the other was an ex girlfriend), and he's definitely an older version of hipster.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:29 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


This one, rather.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:29 PM on April 25, 2011


It's 1978, I'm ten, and I'm with my family in San Francisco, on a trip that would change a lot of things. I've got my Instamatic with a whole unused flash bar and two extra 126 cartridges and my father keeps interrupting as I'm about to take a completely mundane shot of our cable car on a turntable as a well-rehearsed tour guide drones on with a stunning assemblage of facts and figures that mean almost nothing to me.

"Remember your composition, son," he says, pointing out the shot I was preparing to enshrine in the little square of a 126 frame. "Try not to center everything, and look for the most interesting thing in your frame, even if it's not the most exciting thing in it. Find the heart of the picture, Joe-B."

It always made me a little crazy when he did that. I was nowhere near approaching that level of zen composure, and my snapshots reflected that, but there was a difference between how people in my family took pictures and how normal families did it. Where most people would pull up at the Fotomat at the edge of the parking lot in our shopping center, where George Wallace was shot six years earlier, or where they'd chuck a few cartridges into a York envelope, we'd do it the hard way. You'd end up in the darkroom, with Dad cracking open those cartridges with a tool he'd made for the purpose, then wind the film into the chrome spiral holder for the developer tank.

Most kids were not accomplished at dodging and burning at ten, but this was the life we had. My brother was a natural, and went into photography as a line of work, decades later, but me—I just had to work so much harder at it.

"See," he says, pointing out an older woman in a hat that looked like someone had dumped fruit salad onto its floppy brim from a considerable height, "over there, there's a woman whose hat looks like someone dropped fruit salad onto the brim from a considerable height. See how her face sort of looks like her hat?"

I snicker, then put a hand over my mouth when our quarry looks our way. I can't really talk, seeing as I am wearing, for some incomprehensible reason, a rather filthy baby blue bucket hat with a white band that was swiftly becoming a tan band. Dad just looked like Dad, in his customary late seventies Greek fisherman's hat, suspenders, and his perfectly groomed handlebar mustache waxed into two perfect loops like a 1911 sideshow talker.

"I can't take her picture! She's looking!" I say, shy like a three year-old.

Later that night, we would stop at a restaurant so luxuriant with ferns that you could hardly move without a delicate tendril tickling your ear, and I don't have the foggiest idea of what we ate or did, because about halfway through our meal, a policeman shoved a man in a vest and assless chaps against the window next to our table and none of us could possibly do anything but stare at those buttocks stuck to the window like a microscope slide and giggle uncontrollably until the head waiter ran out and asked the cop to move his interrogation elsewhere.

As we strolled back to our hotel, a group of highly animated men came up on us from behind, briefly surrounded us, and passed on by, leaving a trail of gossip and menthol smoke.

"Mom!" I said, pulling at my mother's sleeve, "All those guys look exactly like Dad!"

This, for some reason, struck her as completely hilarious, and she'd only barely recovered from the man in chaps, and when I added that those men looked like they must be really good friends, because some of them had their hands in their friends' back pockets, she laughed even harder.

"I think they're just borrowing each other's combs," she said, and snorted. My father just sort of sneered at her, but he chuckled, too.

Years down the line, he explained that the mustache was what some people call a "hook."

"You need to cultivate a few key affectations, Joe. You don't want to go so far that you look like a freak, but you don't want to be a nameless schlub, either. The mustache is like a calling card, but it's just enough."

"You mean like my hair?" I said. It was the mid-eighties and I'd somehow happened upon enough L'Oreal Colorrific Mousse to maintain a mountainous and lurid "Titian Gold" (i.e. orange) coif that the band A Flock of Seagulls would have found a little extreme.

"That's not a calling card. That's a neon billboard with a cowboy that blows actual smoke rings. You really need to find something a little more subtle."

"I really don't go for affectations, Dad," I said.

"Cock-a-doodle-doo, then," he said.

His look mutated over the years, too, going from a sort of youthful Snidely Whiplash to an Edwardian sort of sophistication to the full beard, which went white and turned him into an exact doppleganger for Santa Claus, albeit one with an unfortunate predilection for dancing in his underpants to Frankie Goes To Hollywood while your friends were around. He was also a bit of a hoarder, always convinced that it was possible that civilization might fall, so he stockpiled his chosen brand of mustache wax by the gross, and when he fell, I inherited a lifetime supply of wax.

It all just sat in a box in the closet during my sackcloth and ashes years, where I wore a half-groomed mouth donut and baggy, oversized clothes that looked like I'd woken up tangled in the bed linens, struggled to get out, then just said "fuck it" and wore the whole mess to work. Time dragged along like that for a while, until a few cosmological earthquakes put me in a new line of work, where I wasn't just another prairie dog in cubicleland, and I reacquainted myself with the concept of a tidy affectation to make myself a little more memorable in the realm of people who might be able to offer me even more new worlds.

Carved out the bottom of the mouth donut, which had gone bright white anyway, and ended up with a nice little horseshoe. We're supposed to like mustaches ironically these days, but me—I love them completely non-ironically, and the people who think they have no purpose beyond accessorizing a fixie have clearly never experienced the particular pleasures of having one delving into an armpit or other sensitive region. When it grew out a bit, I was pleased to find that it naturally formed two white inward-curling hooks under my chin, and was even more pleased to find that I could raid my stash of 'stache stuff to fine tune it into a very nifty little affectation, indeed.

Now and then, I heard the "hipster" epithet bandied around my viciinity, but that's just the fashion. Somehow we've all forgotten that everyone's a doofus extraordinaire in their youth, and it's just become a seemingly endless well of humor, like jokes about mimes and how French people love Jerry Lewis, but it's just so hilarious that it'll simply never get tired.

"Check out this guy," some wiseacre stage-whispers to his friend in the way you whisper when you want someone to hear your oh-so-sophisticated critiques of their unforgivable social unacceptableness, "Someone oughta tell him that your facial hair should not be more interesting than you are," he said, repeating an oft-repeated insult, and I had a little pang, like you do, even when you know people aren't right.

I had a little pang, and then I remembered that I run a giant novelty clock tower advertising a tranquilizer-laden stomach remedy for a living, have a Citroën sitting in my back yard, had Placido Domingo sit in my lap professionally in an operatic context, and have beehives. I'm at least marginally more interesting than my facial hair, but I didn't correct the critic's little slur. Being properly adjusted to life on an out-of-control Tilt-A-World means remembering that most of the people who really, really, really hate things usually don't make things, either.

Besides, the mustache is pure Titian gold at the Eagle, and I say that completely without irony.

I sit up, having just managed to fall down a set of weirdly stubby stairs at the Winchester Mystery House that the tour guide just explicitly forbade us to try out, and in the course of regaining my composure and realizing that the guide and our entire tour group had somehow missed hearing my tumble, I see my father has fallen back a bit, and is standing by a window, rewaxing one of the loops of his mustache. I carefully raise my Instamatic, catching him in the moment, and it's composition, set off enough to frame everything just right, with a fingertip drawing out the long, still-ginger strands with a little twist, and bulb no. 5 goes off like indoor fireworks in the stultifying stillness of a tour guide's spiel.

"Sir, there's NO flash photography in the Winchester Mystery House, please!" says the guide.

My father looks over, seeing me through the cyclopean eyeball of the little plastic camera, and grins broadly, twirling the loop tight before gesturing for me to rejoin the group, and we fall back in line. It's 1978, he is exactly the age I will be in 2011, he is like the yo-yo that glowed in the dark from a favorite song, still special and still dangerous, and I haven't got a single clue where I'm headed, but I feel like it's bound to be somewhere good.

Somehow, irony has nothing to say to me.
posted by sonascope at 7:30 PM on April 25, 2011 [91 favorites]


I, for one, found this tumblr delightful, and thought that most of the captions were chuckle-worthy. Mostly, though, I really like the pictures--the writer seems to be slightly selective in what's posted, which I think makes the blog more enjoyable than it might otherwise be. Also, since my dad graduated from high school in 1971, many of the dads pictured resonate with me and my memories of his mustache and flannel (often supplemented by photos I've seen of him from that decade through to the 80s).
posted by nonmerci at 7:39 PM on April 25, 2011


We're supposed to like mustaches ironically these days, but me—I love them completely non-ironically

I'm completely with you there. Moustaches are great, perhaps the most essential part of facial hair. Even a fantastic beard can be ruined by having a weak moustache (IMO), and a weak beard can more than be compensated for by having a wonderful moustache.

Never understood that whole Amish beard look, personally. That's taking off the best part!
posted by hippybear at 7:42 PM on April 25, 2011


In the mid 80s, when my older brothers were going to their first concert (The Smiths) my dad made the point of dressing as hideously lame as possible just to psych them out, since he of course was going to be accompanying them.

In short, my dad was ironic before being ironic was ironic.
posted by Navelgazer at 8:42 PM on April 25, 2011


I was just at a show at a skate shop in Dearborn on Saturday night, and I was NOT the oldest person there...mom and dad brought their 14yo daughter, who looked like she wanted to melt into the floor while dad air-guitared to Idol and the Whip in his stretched-out polo shirt and Wrangler jeans. I want to see how that guy will be made retroactively cool in 30 years on some photoblog-of-the-future.

I did find it hilarious, though. My dad was cool enough never to chaperone me to shows.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:50 PM on April 25, 2011


Um. This was not a grunge thing. I have no idea.

I was wondering about that too. Because I do this all the time. I know it's not, you know, all that stylish, especially since I'm as likely to be doing it in jeans as in a dress, but it's pretty practical.
posted by NoraReed at 9:27 PM on April 25, 2011


I think those of you sipping on your ice cold Haterade are missing out. These brought up some chuckles and then I got to this one:

Your dad ate local fair trade produce before you did and he has dirt under his finger nails to prove it. Your dad had a green thumb and leather tanned neck. He worked in the garden and grew his own food, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. So hipsters, next time you’re asking the waitress if the tomatoes in your salad were ethically grown, locally produced, fair trade, sustainable and if the workers were given a livable wage, remember this…

Your dad was the leader of the eating local trend, he contributed to society and you’re just a giant succubus at the teat of it, who contributes nothing, but feels the need to bitch about everything…

and to conclude this conclusion, grow up hipsters, grow a pair and add something to culture other than shitty art and bad music.


I kind of love that. I think back to growing up in the suburbs of Detroit. My parents grew vegetables in the backyard and cranked a lot of Tull and Zappa. We put together model cars in the basement. Dad's impeccably waxed handlebar mustache. Mom painting dinosaurs in my brother's room. Dad drank Stroh's down at their brewery on Gratiot. He took me to concerts downtown. He's built fences and decks and knows his way around a car engine. The "hipster" theme is the pithy joke veiling the underlying thing: your dad was quite likely much cooler than you, and you could maybe take a few pointers from him. And maybe shave your smug face.

Ultimately, this is in praise of the awesome men who would unwittingly go on to raise a generation of graphic designers.
posted by Maaik at 9:40 PM on April 25, 2011 [7 favorites]


We're supposed to like mustaches ironically these days, but me—I love them completely non-ironically.

You can tell the difference between someone who is sporting an "ironic" mustache and someone who is not. (Sonascope's mustache is a prime example of the latter. It is glorious, a work of art, and anyone who mocks must be doing so out of jealousy.)


I will briefly mention my Dad's facial hair, which has gone through many amazing and elaborate permutations since I could remember stuff in the early 70s. Mustaches, full-length beards, and most commonly, immaculately groomed mutton chops.

My Dad rode a moped (a real one, a vintage Puch) mere months before I did, and I wish I had a picture of this happening, because he is 6'4".

Other than that, yeah, he did a lot of these things.

Not only did he camp, he MADE our tent himself. I am unsure if it was poverty, creativity, or both that inspired him, but inspired it was. He used a recycled canvas shop awning and sewed it into a huge-circus like tent. He made all the stakes out of dowels. It slept a family of five (or a slumber party of a dozen little girls) comfortably, weighed forty or fifty pounds, and wasn't even remotely waterproof. Much cooler was the geodesic dome he made from pieces of dowels and garden hose, which he then draped with a silk parachute from WWII. (He still loves Bucky domes - he built an elaborate Bucky ball out of straws and has one hanging from the roof of his workshop.)

He definitely made animation before me. He and Mom made claymation on our kitchen table, with a cheap little 8mm camera. I was pretty young, but it made me aware that animation was something that didn't just magically happen, that it was a series of many pictures and it was a lot of work but look you can make cartoons yourself and it is SO COOL.

There were (and are) always projects happening in our house. Every day, something, or several things, were being built, made, sewed, painted, played, sung, programmed, planted, rehearsed, written, or destroyed to make room for another thing.

I think I might be turning into my Dad*. I think I am OK with that.

*Without the facial hair.
posted by louche mustachio at 9:40 PM on April 25, 2011 [3 favorites]


Is this turning into a thread about awesome Dads?

Sweeeeeet.
posted by louche mustachio at 9:46 PM on April 25, 2011


Maybe it's because my parents just travelled halfway across the world just to visit me (left for their 3 leg, 20 hour return journey a couple of hours ago), or because we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday yesterday, but I really enjoyed this post. I read it less as a condemnation of "hipster culture", whatever that is supposed to mean (not from or living in the US), and more a celebration of our dads and a recognition that their youths were ever as interesting as ours: they had their own culture, enjoyed music, drinking, and had their own quirks and fashion sense. The 60s/70s were awesome. A photo I recently saw of my dad wearing a flannel shirt and skinny 29-waist jeans was a revelation.

I miss our white Volvo 240 station wagon. Going back to the Swedish university town I was born last summer, I saw that a number of its brothers are still on the road.
posted by Aiwen at 10:24 PM on April 25, 2011


So much of 'hipster' styles are just borrowed from our parents generation. I did have a weird moment where I was talking about I'm Not There and Bob Dylan and my mom was like 'I get Dylan. that whole Rolling Stone song' and I just cringed, because she didn't seem cool enough. But then my parents did live in New York around the time that everyone is repeating. The whole Dylan/Lou Reed/Bowie/Warhol scene inspired so many of today's hipsters.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:26 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


sonascope's post makes me want to be a better dad.

I'll get right on that.
posted by fullerine at 10:28 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


I mean part of the whole 'hipster' thing is repurposing older styles. So if people are doing the whole rural/freak-folk thing as a callback to the 70s California country rock scene than it's not surprising that the generation that originally lived through it would look like that. One of the problems for me growing up is that my parents generation was cooler than ours could be and pretty much all the stuff I listen to is like a not as good version of music my parents listened to.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:34 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


Hickster.
posted by The Whelk at 10:58 PM on April 25, 2011


One of the problems for me growing up is that my parents generation was cooler than ours could be and pretty much all the stuff I listen to is like a not as good version of music my parents listened to.

So listen to older music. It's still there, it's still wonderful. There's lots of good new music, but some of that older stuff is pure magic and shouldn't be dismissed simply because it's not "current".
posted by hippybear at 11:00 PM on April 25, 2011


I'm okay with me mom and dad being cooler then me.

That's fine, they're rockers. It happens.

The upside is if my mom gets all upset about my brother having a bong on his room I can pull out of a photo of her doing lines with Mark Mothersbaugh and say,q welllllll you wanna explain yourself?
posted by The Whelk at 11:03 PM on April 25, 2011 [2 favorites]


I was about to say none of this applies to my dad, because he was hopelessly unhip and not really interested in popular culture, even his popular culture. But then I remembered that one of about 6 records he owned was Johnny Cash, which we sneered at until sometime in the late 90s or whatever when we realised Cash was amazing. So there's that.

In the mid 80s, when my older brothers were going to their first concert (The Smiths) my dad made the point of dressing as hideously lame as possible just to psych them out,

Holy shit your dad is Morrissey?
posted by Infinite Jest at 11:58 PM on April 25, 2011 [2 favorites]


Hmm.. Mu dad flipped a BRDM (armoured personell carrier) once. All I ever flipped was a damn Pontiac Grand AM...
posted by c13 at 12:07 AM on April 26, 2011


Did the men in the BRDM flip him back?
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:12 AM on April 26, 2011


Actually, no. They had to wait for the others to come and flip them back.
posted by c13 at 12:23 AM on April 26, 2011


"Your dad wore short shorts before you did and he has the upper thigh tan lines to prove it. It takes a certain kind of man to pull off wearing what most would consider lady attire, but your dad was that man. He walked around with the kind of confidence that said he could properly sex any women, mollywhop any man and escape any law. People today call it swag, but your dad didn’t need a name for it because he had it everyday."

I thought it was great. My dad was a badass too. He climbed a bunch of rocks, rode bikes hard (still does), then became a professor. Love you, dad.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:52 AM on April 26, 2011


If his stories are true, then my dad partied in a hotel room with Screamin' Jay Hawkins, played bongos onstage with Rare Earth, probably got suuuuuper high while watching Ted Nugent play for free any number of times and was among the first to see Iggy Pop chase people around in the audience.

My dad introduced me to the MC5, and for that, I am eternally grateful.
posted by Maaik at 4:29 AM on April 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


Just because it has the word 'hipster' in it, I was prepared to hate this. However, it's fantastic. I think I might need to send in a couple photos of my dad.
posted by Ickster at 5:08 AM on April 26, 2011


Seems like all men from the seventies/sixties had that same damn skinny build. Too much coke?
posted by Malice at 5:28 AM on April 26, 2011


Nah, not enough HFCS. Back in those days, people ate real food.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:46 AM on April 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


Seems like all men from the seventies/sixties had that same damn skinny build. Too much coke?

As someone who was alive in the 60's and 70's I sometimes do a doubletake when confronted with a large group of my fellow americans because they are a large group. The difference is noticeable. When I picture my dad and uncles in the 60's compared to my male relatives now the difference is 20+ lbs.
posted by readery at 5:52 AM on April 26, 2011


I thought if a trend was adopted unironically, it didn't "count."

Yes, exactly. The hipster is not *what* they are wearing, but *why* they are wearing (or doing) it.

Guy in the late 70's wearing short shorts and a high school gym class shirt? That's all the clothes he had to play softball in.

Guy doing it now? To fit in with the hipsters and give the appearance of their lives being somehow "more" than they really are. they look at pictures like this, and try to co-opt the joy those people are having by making it look like they are a part of it too. Evidence: that goddamn vintage photo app.
posted by gjc at 6:32 AM on April 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


Seems like all men from the seventies/sixties had that same damn skinny build. Too much coke?

No, that's what people are supposed to look like.
posted by gjc at 6:37 AM on April 26, 2011 [6 favorites]


Evidence: that goddamn vintage photo app.

Words cannot express how much I hate that thing.
posted by desjardins at 6:50 AM on April 26, 2011


Dads don't often get enough credit for the good they do. I'm as much my mother as I am my father (meaning what I like and what I do with my time comes from each of them equally), but a lot of *how* I do what I do is my dad through and through. I'm grateful that we're talking again after a 13-year silence because I can really appreciate that fact.

Need to dig out the pics of my dad in awful 70s attire.
posted by grubi at 6:58 AM on April 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


No, that's what people are supposed to look like.

That's what fashionable people in the 70s were supposed to look like.
posted by electroboy at 7:14 AM on April 26, 2011


I just came here to have it on record that my Dad is a dude. He abides. He also makes the BEST bacon and egg sandwiches in the World.

The older I get, the more I become like him, and I'm cool with that.
posted by arcticseal at 7:15 AM on April 26, 2011


Evidence: that goddamn vintage photo app.

Words cannot express how much I hate that thing.


Skiamorph: As aspect or form of something that once served a piratical purpose but is now purely decorative. See: rotary configuration on modern forms, decorative columns, etc.
posted by The Whelk at 7:23 AM on April 26, 2011 [2 favorites]


Hipster? No no no, he was a HIPPIE. There is a difference. Unless all the skinny pants kids in my neighborhood are playing spoons and running grow ops...
posted by jtron at 7:28 AM on April 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


Ultimately, this is in praise of the awesome men who would unwittingly go on to raise a generation of graphic designers.

Yeah, effete graphic designers, man up already! And bring me some Canadian Club and a DVD of 300 while you're at it.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:20 AM on April 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


My dad is a huge Kingston Trio fan, but he and his big brother also checked their Covette's engine's timing by holding a sawed-off broom handle between the engine block and their forehead. He also attended parties in a tux jacket and shorts.

My dad contains multitudes.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:21 AM on April 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


And bring me some Canadian Club and a DVD of 300 while you're at it.

Yikes, where to begin with that.
posted by electroboy at 8:32 AM on April 26, 2011


This has been a fun thread, which I'm happy for. I posted this as I thought it was a lighthearted tribute to dads, with some nice snarking commentary to go along with it. That, and the fact that a lot of the facial foliage contained therein needed a wider audience.
posted by ob at 8:34 AM on April 26, 2011


Never understood that whole Amish beard look, personally.

It's the whole eating food thing.

My dad is a huge Kingston Trio fan,

Yeah, mine too. As '70s as he was at times, I don't think he could ever pass for a hipster.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:15 AM on April 26, 2011


The Whelk: something that once served a piratical purpose but is now purely decorative.

Did you mean practical, or did you actually just use my favorite word?
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:24 AM on April 26, 2011


whatever makes you feel better.
posted by The Whelk at 11:26 AM on April 26, 2011


If it's any consolation Decani I always assumed you were about 16.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 1:25 AM on April 26


Oh, I bleed! I bleed!
posted by Decani at 11:43 AM on April 26, 2011


I would vote the veto the entry of Arizona and theother Tea party states into the EU on the grounds of The Crazy.
posted by Artw at 11:57 AM on April 26, 2011


Is this turning into a thread about awesome Dads?

yes! my dad's still sporting the huge mustache he grew in the 70's when he needed to look older, because he was boss of a lot of people who were older than him. In his youth he managed a skiffle band and raced motorcycles. Not fair to leave out mom though, she put dad through university doing clothing design in her own store. Her clothes were awesome!

Are they still cool now? hell yea, they just bought a boat, and will probably be naming it Serenity, because my mom digs Firefly.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 5:52 PM on April 26, 2011


So listen to older music. It's still there, it's still wonderful. There's lots of good new music, but some of that older stuff is pure magic and shouldn't be dismissed simply because it's not "current".

I do listen to older stuff. That's how I got into the new stuff that sounds like old stuff.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:23 PM on April 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


doing lines with Mark Mothersbaugh

If this was Mad Libs, Mark Mothersbaugh is not who I would've chosen for "famous person."
posted by clorox at 6:31 PM on April 26, 2011


We grew up in different circles clorox.
posted by The Whelk at 6:40 PM on April 26, 2011


The skateboarding one made me feel ancient, because Thrasher was really popular when I was 13...
posted by desjardins


Take a closer look at those wheels. Clay. This picture precedes the polyurethane wheel revolution. I had an old Black Knight skateboard with clay wheels...what a nightmare those were.
posted by Chuffy at 1:43 PM on April 27, 2011


Correction: urethane wheels.
posted by Chuffy at 1:56 PM on April 27, 2011


I thought I would hate this more than I did. congrats to the blog for avoiding poisonous tones that would illicit immediate snark, instead of say, heartwarming nostalgia.
posted by Theta States at 10:56 PM on April 30, 2011


« Older Gotta die sometime and from something.   |   Please don't Litter Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments