For Special Snowflakes Only!

January 19, 2016 4:40 PM

Peggy O'Brien and Steve Rosenthal made a commercial for everyone who’s sick of touchy-feely commercials about hipsters. Peggy and Steve, previously on MetaFilter.
posted by mattdidthat (72 comments total)

"leave the creativity to the professionals, like us"
posted by pyramid termite at 4:54 PM on January 19, 2016 [14 favorites]

To be fair, kazoo orchestras have a long tradition as supplemental filler in Down East Maine town parades, generally sandwiched between Miss Lobster and those small shriners cars.
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:55 PM on January 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

I watched it twice, just so I could count the things the director expects me to hate on but which I actually thought were pretty cool.

There were twelve. But I like artists and deserts and taking photos and guitar circles (sometimes) and glowing things and quirky art projects.

And so the final line: Grow the fuck up, Love, adults just struck me as nasty. I've reached the point where I'll take the hipsters over the hipster-bashers any day.
posted by kanewai at 5:00 PM on January 19, 2016 [62 favorites]

I enjoyed this on the level of mocking the patronizing ad cliches that it does, but I'm not sure I'm seeing the line between, "teachers need money that banks' lobbyists are snatching up!" and "it's because of burning man!"
posted by Navelgazer at 5:03 PM on January 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

hipsters did 9/11
posted by gwint at 5:05 PM on January 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

regarding the previously on mefi:

flash video... now that's a thing i haven't seen in a long time, a long time.
posted by entropicamericana at 5:05 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

hipsters did 9/11

*plays "flight of the valkeries" by the wagnerian bohemian international kazoo orchestra*
posted by pyramid termite at 5:08 PM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well, that was a lot of kind of strange bitterness.
posted by geegollygosh at 5:11 PM on January 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

I think people doing crazy things outside has become a shorthand for "your hobbies and creative pursuits" in commercials just out of practicality. If a commercial honestly depicted creative people doing creative things, it would just be shots of people on computers.
posted by a dangerous ruin at 5:15 PM on January 19, 2016 [34 favorites]

I do like that all the footage is lifted from actual commercials. Lots of Apple ads I recognized.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:15 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hipsters are jock/nerd synthesis.
posted by nom de poop at 5:18 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Isn't this little video exactly the kind of thing that this little video is trashing?
posted by crazylegs at 5:20 PM on January 19, 2016 [9 favorites]

Aren't we all, in the end, The Worst?
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:21 PM on January 19, 2016 [25 favorites]

Here's my hope that we can have a thread about hating this video instead of doing $hipster_thread++, because I definitely hated this video.

(Also, did they just cut up a bunch of ads and such? I could swear I recognized the bit with the sparklers from some startup advertising or something.)
posted by brennen at 5:22 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

What is the metal thingy with eight keys strapped to the girl's wrist at fifteen seconds in?
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:23 PM on January 19, 2016

"Sure, lobbyists are rewriting banking legislation and making a ton of money that should go to teachers, but that doesn't make you any less of a precious snowflake."

Guys, stop making art and having hobbies! Don't you know it's literally taking money out of the pockets of teachers??? QUICK, buy a suit and briefcase and get on the grownup bus to responsible town so the mean lobbyists can't rewrite any more banking legislations!
posted by davejh at 5:26 PM on January 19, 2016 [14 favorites]

Harsh.
posted by unliteral at 5:29 PM on January 19, 2016

This video failed in its purpose because it did not make me hate hipsters. It made me hate advertisers who target hipsters, and the people who made the video, but it did not make me get my hate on for actual hipsters.
posted by pjsky at 5:31 PM on January 19, 2016 [20 favorites]

DAE hate art?
posted by brundlefly at 5:31 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I sort of kind of like ads aimed at hipsters because like, watching that rather uninspired mock add, I like the colours and how the camera moves and wobbles, I like the sepia and bokeh and it's cooler than a car going down a highway or whatever. Like, whatever adds a little more diversity to the ad scene is nice, it makes ignoring them before the movie at the movie theater far more pleasant.

BUT, I was commuting from Maple Ridge to Vancouver and the Skytrain passed by an ad that I could NOT stop snickering at. It was a poster for a car that just said "Don't Be A Conformist" or something like that. White background, silver car in the center, DON'T BE A CONFORMIST BUY THIS CAR. It was early (OK it was past noon) but I was tired and I thought the thing was absurd. It reminded me of that really tasteless Superbowl car ad.
posted by Neronomius at 5:32 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Honestly, I don't mind the twee little "enjoy creativity!" ads all that much. I certainly don't consider engagement with the arts and with civic responsibility to be mutually exclusive. What I can't stand are the ads with the smug bearded hipster (actually too old to be millennial, but never mind that) pitchmen who patronize the audience like they actually were Steve freaking Jobs, and the faux-surprised/delighted/quite-possibly-soulless consumers who marvel at their "clever" products. To wit, Chevy and Capital One (which is apparently sufficiently ashamed of its "we look at banking and say: really?" ads not to have them on Youtube). I am seriously considering writing a horror story featuring these guys. NOBODY LIVES.
posted by praemunire at 5:46 PM on January 19, 2016

And so the final line: Grow the fuck up, Love, adults just struck me as nasty. I've reached the point where I'll take the hipsters over the hipster-bashers any day.

It was indeed nasty. There's a nicer (if not always fully nice) way to make fun of self-indulgent young people, but this definitely was not it. And there's a way to criticize advertising that is appropriating youth for commercial gain, but this also wasn't it.

The happy glowstick bicycle people are welcome on my lawn, but the people who made this thing should stay home and be cranky alone.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:48 PM on January 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

A+ for sentiment; C− for execution.

(That genre of peppy, twee ukelele music that's de rigeur in every single goddamn commercial targeted at anyone under 40 has got to die.)
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:49 PM on January 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

Ok so on reflection, my earlier comment in this thread is also not that great. Sorry. It's been a long day involving lots of nausea and sudden notice that I have to move out of my apartment and I suppose in some editorial framings I am a "hipster", or at least I am a person with a bunch of weird friends who make random shit for a living and take pictures and whatnot. Anyway. Off to figure out where the fuck I'm living now. Have a good night everyone.
posted by brennen at 5:51 PM on January 19, 2016

I'm a grumpy old guy, but I liked most of the things in this video. I LIKE people having fun. I like people making stuff, even silly stuff. Smiling is not a bad thing.

Plus, people who do this stuff likely have to do plenty of things they don't want to do, just like the rest of us, so why begrudge them a little harmless amusement?

Who ever wrote this needs to go out and do some of the things they're making fun of.
posted by cccorlew at 5:59 PM on January 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

Hating on harmless people is about as annoying as whatever they do that annoys you .
posted by Liquidwolf at 6:03 PM on January 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

"Hipsters" doesn't mean anything more than "Somebody younger than me who seems to care about something I don't", and it makes me tremendously sad that somebody woke up and though, you know what the world needs more of? Hating on young people.

If you watch this video muted, it looks like a bunch of young people making their own fun and enjoying their lives, up until that last caption, and if you close your eyes and listen to it, it sounds like a republican sophomore trying to justify why nobody invites them anywhere fun. There's no comedy or joy in that dissonance; it sounds like somebody's desperate secret wish that they hadn't wasted their youth away being Very Very Serious, and resent seeing other, younger people obstinately refusing to make the same mistake.
posted by mhoye at 6:14 PM on January 19, 2016 [15 favorites]

Yeah, you can't be a creative person without a high-end consumer product!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:15 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Dear adults, we are having more fun than you. Don't be jealous. Love, people who like fun.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:37 PM on January 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

Dear people getting mad at this video, it's just a funny video, relax.
posted by doctorfrog at 6:40 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

This video was such a hipster project. And hating on hipsters is like so mainstream now, I used to be into it but now: meh. I hate things you've probably never heard of.
posted by freebird at 6:41 PM on January 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

This made me laugh and I feel unfeigned remorse that it did, but it did.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 6:44 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I guess ... as someone who the economy (I'm talking to you, OLD PEOPLE!) has kind of screwed over, leave me my silly hobbies. Leave me my abstract paintings and synth music and plans to write silly Kindle books on really specific topics ... because ... what else do I have? I can't afford to buy a house (like, ever). I drive a car that's 25 years old. My retirement plan is death.

That's why the "lobbyist" line struck me as odd. So ... wait, I should go do something about that? Because I can go take on the big banks and big business that got me into this mess? By myself? By not making my synth music or whatever? Or is ads for big banks what this is criticizing? I'm not sure what the point of this is. I'm apparently missing it.

I do think there's something to be said about trying to market to the hipster demographic by selling us things we really can't afford so we can feel special or whatever ... but ... give me a world where I can actually grow up and do "adult" things and maybe I will decide to do so. Until then ...

(I'm probably quickly ageing out of being a "hipster" but I've had some bitterness this week about Where My Life Has Ended Up and it's only Tuesday, so ...)
posted by darksong at 6:47 PM on January 19, 2016 [16 favorites]

Dear people getting mad at this video, it's just a funny video, relax.

That would be sage advice if it were funny.
posted by OHenryPacey at 6:48 PM on January 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

OK, after seeing this video I've finally changed my mind about hipsters.

I LIKE HIPSTERS NOW. HIPSTERS ARE GREAT. I'm going to buy myself some kind of retro gentleman's hat and learn to play the ukulele. I might be too old but I'll give it a try. Let me know when the light-up bicycle rally is and I'll try to make it.

Seriously, this video was the worst. I get where they're coming from, but the political line didn't really belong there and the rest was just "Dear hip young people, stop doing cool creative things."

I am sure there are many things that we can do about underfunded schools or whatever, but I'm pretty sure people who ride glow-in-the-dark bicycles and make electronic music aren't the problem here. In fact most of them probably voted for liberal candidates just like the people who made the video did. Hell, some of them probably spent thousands of hours campaigning for a candidate and then took some time off for pottery and paint-flinging.

Heck, some of those "hipsters" probably have done something more useful than being the editor for a TV show featuring Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
posted by mmoncur at 7:01 PM on January 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

Woosh.
posted by uosuaq at 7:11 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I watched that entire thing on mute like: that's cool, that's cool too, ... wait what...

I'm as against yupsters playfully engaging with friends and family through social media enabled dishwashers as anyone, but... yeah. This kind of thing is ok.
posted by ethansr at 7:18 PM on January 19, 2016

> DON'T BE A CONFORMIST BUY THIS CAR

"But the Man can't bust our music."
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:21 PM on January 19, 2016

Apparently, you can't splash paint on things AND care about banking. It's either one or the other. And somehow, caring only about one thing makes you an adult?

I thought adults could multitask. How about splashing paint on banking lobbyists?
posted by FJT at 7:26 PM on January 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Woosh.

I'm not sure what just whooshed by me. Can you spell it out?
posted by teponaztli at 7:31 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Apparently, you can't splash paint on things AND care about banking. It's either one or the other. And somehow, caring only about one thing makes you an adult?

It's especially dissonant because of course the other Cranky Old Person stereotype about hipsters is that they're all Occupy types who are ruining the economy by """"""opting""""" (seriously, I cannot use enough scare quotes on this piece of nonsense) out of the Traditional American Dream with its way-too-big homes and way-too-big SUVs and immaculate grass lawns in the middle of the fucking desert and whatever else.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:40 PM on January 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

Ha Ha. Young people doing fun art-related things. Instead of being teachers (the one grown-up occupation they mentioned). Well, I started doing art stuff forty years ago and and I haven't stopped. Have I grown up? I don't know, I did spend thirty years as a teacher. But I still spill paint on stuff and take artsy Instragram pictures and feel like a 22-year old. I guess I'd have to live in NYC to make a video like this. Ooops. Just dissed half my friends.
posted by kozad at 7:50 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure what just whooshed by me. Can you spell it out?

Pretty sure that was just the sound of this video's humor missing the mark.
posted by davejh at 8:09 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wait, we don't hate hipsters anymore? I never get the memos.
posted by evilDoug at 8:17 PM on January 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm bemused that "you're an individual! don't conform! buy our thing!" is still a successful, recognizeable advertising tactic. It pissed me off back in the early nineties, when I was in high school.

I came here to add to what escape from the potato planet said: ukuleles in ads must die. Also, whistling, clapping, toy pianos, church bells. I swear those became universal language for "this is an ad" at the same time the economy tanked in 2008, and they continue to insist that life is 100% happy and there's no reason to question it.
posted by gusandrews at 8:20 PM on January 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

It seems like glowing bicycles would be an important safety feature.
posted by dirigibleman at 8:45 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well, that was a lot of kind of strange bitterness.

The kind I enjoy. I laughed.
posted by bongo_x at 9:43 PM on January 19, 2016

So hipsters who use technology for their creative projects are The Literal Worst?

Thanks, Internet comedians who remix other people's advertising and post it on YouTube.

Oh.

Wait....
posted by prismatic7 at 10:35 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

When did we stop hating advertisers and marketers?
Fuck. They won.
posted by fullerine at 10:50 PM on January 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

I need one of those glowing bicycles to live. Regardless of my current or impending snowflake status.
posted by sldownard at 11:30 PM on January 19, 2016

As a hipster, I'm going to lie on this couch and feel remorse for past actions without a good reason
posted by solarion at 2:47 AM on January 20, 2016

Somebody appears to be a bit angry.....
posted by HuronBob at 3:53 AM on January 20, 2016

Also, as a true "old person"... we do not feel this way about this stuff, we find it interesting and sometimes amusing...

I suspect the writer of this little piece is UNDER the age of 40, and may even be hipster age, but got left out by her friends in high school, and probably is still mad at Bethany for that time she took Josh to the desert and slept (and other things) under the stars and then went to see the Shaman... 'cuz Josh never called her back and now he and Bethany have two kids and bikes that glow, and she's stuck with Steve who is just angry and bitter and wears a suit.. Damn Bethany, damn her to hipster hell!
posted by HuronBob at 3:57 AM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

I know I'm not gonna convince any of the video's detractors, but: to say that it's mocking young people or creativity or fun rather misses the point. It's mocking a specific kind of affected, twee, self-absorbed young-urbanite culture (and the dumb, formulaic ads which pander to them)—a culture which thinks that making a finger painting or a cigar-box ukulele or a Brownie-camera snapshot is just an impossibly creative and iconoclastic act, that they're a total Manic Pixie Dream Person who lives in a Wes Anderson movie.

It is possible to be young and creative and fun-loving without adopting this particular modus operandi.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:09 AM on January 20, 2016 [6 favorites]

What is the metal thingy with eight keys strapped to the girl's wrist at fifteen seconds in?

AUUG Motion Synth
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:34 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Interesting. Thanks, Johnny Wallflower.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:38 AM on January 20, 2016

Hipsters are jock/nerd synthesis.

Only since the merger of the Hipster and Bro subcultures a few years ago.

There is probably a space somewhere for a thinkpiece titled “The Hipster Is Dead: Long Live The Hipbro”, but damned if I'm going to write it.
posted by acb at 5:44 AM on January 20, 2016

It's mocking a specific kind of affected, twee, self-absorbed young-urbanite culture (and the dumb, formulaic ads which pander to them)

But does that culture even exist or do you just believe that it does because you've bought into the advertising?
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 5:46 AM on January 20, 2016 [6 favorites]

People don't run multi-million dollar ad campaigns for things like iPhones without studying what works, and if telling consumers that they are whimsical free-spirited sexy art geniuses just like the people in this little film that plays over the plaintive piano music soundtrack, and who have the newest phones is what works, then of course that is what they do. Maybe if they mostly wanted to sell phones to old people, an ad campaign with the message "hey your life is a pointless hell with no hope of relief but this phone will help you endure the march to grave a little bit easier" would carry the day, but as is, we're stuck with optimism and a celebration of life's possibilities.
posted by thelonius at 6:02 AM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

People, whether young or old, are generally terrible.
posted by entropicamericana at 6:27 AM on January 20, 2016

People, whether young or old, are generally terrible.

This. Though many manage to convince themselves that they, in spite of their parents and the other terrible olds who totally ruined the world, have transcended The Terrible somehow, because special snowflakeness.
posted by aught at 7:13 AM on January 20, 2016

I really like the glow in the dark bikes.

An awful lot of finger-painting, cupcake baking, instagramming, weirdo musician people I know are also public school teachers/civil rights lawyers/activists/etc who spend as much, if not more, time fighting/working against our monumentally shitty state government that, among other things, actively privileges bankers over teachers.
posted by thivaia at 7:21 AM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

If you don't like the commercials turn off the TV
posted by mike_bling at 7:30 AM on January 20, 2016

But does that culture even exist or do you just believe that it does because you've bought into the advertising?

Ever been to Seattle?
posted by Fleebnork at 8:20 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

I thought it was funny except for the daft "world is going to hell you people, grow up" stupidness. The fact that it's a recut of multiple ads with derisible tropes suggests to me that what should properly be made fun of is the appropriation and distortion of subculture for purposes of invidious marketing. Thats what makes me appreciate the satire of it, but as a whole it disappointed because it doesn't seem like the creators are yelling at the fictitious mindless pretty people in the ads but instead are under the delusion that those pretty people actually exist. It seems similar to believing in reality television.
posted by Pembquist at 8:28 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just came in to say that I hated hipsters way before it was cool to hate hipsters, and also I 'm so over hating this video too.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:18 AM on January 20, 2016

I mean, the funny thing is this would've been a great video if it punched up instead of down, and was about corporate media cooping people and their hobbies and maybe even the reflective nature of culture, but then that wouldn't have gotten as many clicks as a hate piece about hipsters.... WAIT A MINUTE.
posted by mayonnaises at 1:43 PM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

What Will I Make Next? written on a table in flour and icing. We don't know what she will make next. What even did she make before? Is the writing itself what she made before?

A woman smears paint on her face while being videoed. She smiles, to make sure you know she's enjoying it. The paint is many colours, because more colours means more creativity.

A group of bicyclists are riding glowing bicycles. Is it a glowing bicycle enthusiast Meetup? It looks like they use some kind of glowing paint. There are four different colours of paint. But they all wear black clothing and helmets, so it doesn't draw attention away from their bikes.
posted by RobotHero at 8:10 PM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's mocking a specific kind of affected, twee, self-absorbed young-urbanite culture (and the dumb, formulaic ads which pander to them)—a culture which thinks that making a finger painting or a cigar-box ukulele or a Brownie-camera snapshot is just an impossibly creative and iconoclastic act, that they're a total Manic Pixie Dream Person who lives in a Wes Anderson movie.

I feel like I've run into more people complaining about this particular flavor of hipster than I have the real thing in the real world. It's lazy, boring and it reminds me of the people who like to tell the "How can you tell if someone is vegan?" joke. Except this is, oddly enough, more hipstery.
posted by brundlefly at 9:33 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

While I did like the way it nailed a certain type of annoying commercial that markets toward young bohemians (does anyone even use that word anymore?) and I hate those ads, yeah, hipster hate, more accurately-- young people hate, is embarrassing to me and a bad reflection of my generation (gen X). It's as if we're collectively bitching about bohemia's death then bitching about anyone young who wants to keep it alive, even if the aesthetics are different. It just amounts to aging badly and bitterly, and blaming the victim for things they inherited, not things they necessarily created (tech-bros aside).

I'm 50 (I don't know how age skews here; I assume lots of thirty-ish folks) and every time I see it, it makes me cringe and wish my generation had aged more gracefully.

Rock on with your kazoos and whatever old-timey stuff you do*, you beardy little bastards!

*even if I hate it- because that's just the changing of the guard.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:02 AM on January 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

....stereotype about hipsters is that they're all Occupy types who are ruining the economy by """"""opting""""" (seriously, I cannot use enough scare quotes on this piece of nonsense) out of the Traditional American Dream with its way-too-big homes and way-too-big SUVs and immaculate grass lawns in the middle of the fucking desert and whatever else.

oh hell yeah. I think it was Doug Rushkoff who said Etsy was ruining the macro-economy with its sales of crafts and vintage whatnots. (Sorry I have no citation). Like we didn't have thrift, vintage and boutique stores in our day? Fuck, that irritated the shit out of me. It was like saying the meltdown of 2008 was caused by people selling mustache-combs and upcycled art projects.

The paranoiac in me just feels like it's a divide-and-conquer strategy to displace economic blame on hipsters, like they fucking run Wall St or something.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:12 AM on January 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

So now i'm thinking. One of the stereotypes of the hipster is that they're not sincerely enjoying what they enjoy but doing it as an affectation. It's about what image they're trying to project.

But then commercials are also all about what image they're trying to project.

Because the two align, it becomes easier to mistake the affectations of the commercial for that of the people portrayed in it.
posted by RobotHero at 8:26 AM on January 21, 2016