This kind of reminds me of a joke I made once - now that hipsters have adopted the nerd look, how are you going to tell the actual nerds apart?

I've always been one of the latter. In middle school I had a big head, glasses, secondhand clothes, straight A's, the whole deal. Being an immigrant also meant that I was always behind socially and culturally. I discovered Nirvana in 7th grade (3 years after they had stopped existing). That was my entry point into 'rock music' and what I perceived as a way out of nerddom. I hoped that going into a new high school would give me a chance to reinvent myself, but in high school I turned out to still be a nerd, just a nerd with contact lenses and an ill-fitting Metallica t-shirt. In college it was a Thursday t-shirt and a goatee. Now it's hair that covers half my face and a Blood Brothers t-shirt over a collared button-down shirt. But a nerd nonetheless.

One may very reasonably ask the question: if you dress like a hipster, listen to hipster music, appreciate hipster irony, and watch Adult Swim, what makes you a nerd rather than a hipster? But you know the answer to that as well as I do, don't you? The 'real hipsters', they're different somehow from mere mortals like you and I, just like I thought the real metalheads were in high school and the real punk kids were in college. They all lived and breathed their subculture with such ease, such perfect fit that it was impossible to imagine them ever not having been members of it. All of their friends were other, equally cool memebers of the same subculture, they had a seemingly endless supply of subculture-appropriate girlfriends, and you would never see them at a show alone, fidgeting and trying to look busy between bands. The hipster in-crowd really seem like they came out of the womb sporting an ironic smirk and a miniature-sized Sonic Youth t-shirt.

The horrifying truth that people like us know is that being a nerd has nothing to do with how you look, dress, talk, or act, but how you think - the very core of your being that you can never change. You may very well be able to fool others with your impeccable wardrobe and tastes, but only after you have carefully calculated and agonized over every single detail of how exactly to present yourself. And what's worse is, you are completely aware of this, and hate yourself for being so 'fake', but at the same time, you have not the faintest idea of how one would go about being 'real'. And so you go on, every step you take feeling indeed like a fashion show, because you have no idea how to stop. And that, my friend, is the nerddom that you will never escape.

I would love to be Dr. Phil (or my mom) right now and comfort you with some trite crap about how everyone actually feels this way inside, and all the confident, fully adjusted hipsters you see smirking ironically at shows and at record stores are actually going through the same existential acrobatics deep down. From my experience, however, I highly doubt it, or at least that it's as acute for them. But the upshot is that hipster culture's absorption of and friendliness towards nerddom will have inspired a good number of actual nerds to at least superficially join the movement. So don't assume that you're the only impostor in the ranks. Look hard enough, and you'll find plenty of people like yourself (and like me).

My point is that, as your unhappiness after your attempt to live a hipster-free life shows, you will feel uncomfortable and self-conscious wherever you go, whatever lifestyle you try to lead. And if you're going to feel like an impostor anywhere you go, you may as well be among people who listen to better music than Coldplay :-)

Disclaimer: The link below is a perfect example of a carefully contrived attempt at hipsterdom, as is my reading of Salon and posting of this letter.

Can you please think of a more original argument than attacking left-wingers for being rich? How convenient it would be for the establishment if everyone who disagreed with them took a vow of poverty and gave up all the resources they had to get their message across.

The whole diatribe about the kind of people who listen to RATM is the same one about how punk is now mainly listened to by rich white kids who spend hundreds on accessories at Hot Topic. Perceptive, but somewhat irrelevant. Are artists responsible for how their message is misinterpreted or who happens to become a fan of theirs? I've got news for you: 90% of the population are hypocritical, mindless idiots to some extent, so attacking someone by fan association doesn't really work.

On the other hand, I never found Rage to be particularly perceptive in terms of their message. I haven't heard Nightwatchman, but I'd be surprised if they were more 'revolutionary' or intelligent than, say, Propagandhi.