[43 Folders' Hipster PDA]

Lately, the derisive attitude to the word hipster has reached new heights. Its brethren have become not early adopters, but archly snobbish pseudo-asthetes ready to adopt the next What’s-Cool-and-Obscure-Right-Now Thing. The Urban Dictionary, arguably a more accurate record of the contemporary lexicon than the OED (and certainly more entertaining), offers a lengthy definition of a hipster:

Probably tattooed. Maybe gay. Definitely cooler than you. Reads Black Book, Nylon, and the Styles section of the New York Times. Drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon. Often. Complains. Always denies being a hipster. Hates the word.

A couple years ago, Merlin Mann, a hipster in San Francisco, took a semi-sardonic take on a gadget a hipster would like with the Hipster PDA (Parietal Disgorgment Aid), which is a stack of index cards clamped together by a butterfly clip. No smartphones for this nostalgia-loving, analog-embracing, ReadyMade-reading crowd.

Hipsters themselves take it very seriously, with hacked version of the hipster pdas, and sites with templates proliferate. If you want to embrace your inner hipster, I won’t judge you. Here are two places to get started:

+ LifeHacker

+ 43 Folders

Disclosure: Some of my best friends are hipsters. I, occasionally, indulge my hipster-like traits. But to rebel against the trend-chasers, I’m blogging about the Hipster PDA a full five years after they came on the Scene. Which is so totally like a hipster.