The Unbearable Lightness of Hipsters

For those who need yet another reason to hate hipsters, today's NYT helpfully supplies an expose on how discrete guts -- a "Ralph Kramden," as per the preferred nomenclature -- are all the rage in Brooklyn these days.

Apparently, the Ralph Kramden is an entity carried around one's waist that is larger than a potbelly but not quite substantial enough to be called a beer belly or old enough to be a paunch.

The article seems to suggest that these potbellies are a reaction to Obama. Using an astounding grasp of logic, the editor of Details concludes that because the president goes to the gym and hipsters are contrarian by nature, all hipsters simultaneously decided to gain 10 pounds solely in their frontal abdomen.

This revelation should be enough to convince all interested parties to cancel their subscription to Details magazine.

Of all the stupid trends that the NYT Styles sections deems fit to print, this has to rank in the upper annals.

I think I have a Ralph Kramden. I also know that I'm not a hipster, and consider them to be just a notch below emos and nerds in the list of groups of people who I'd like to set on fire.

I have no clue if hipsters considers beer guts to be fashionable, and I don't really care to find out. That said, I'd be shocked if a gut was indeed a fashion statement, as the writer of the article claims.

Why? Because guts are not fashionable. As convenient as a beer gut is for resting your beer can while lying down and as musical as a paunch may be when treated as a percussive instrument, it just ain't attractive. That's why I torture myself in the gym every morning and have cut down on my hamburger intake by seventy percent. (Shut up, Time Magazine. You have betrayed me for the last time).

The result of these activities is a marked decline in my beer gut over the course of this summer. There's still some garbage there, but it's dwindling.

Of course, if the current size and shape of my stomach somehow results in my being confused for a hipster, I see no choice but to return to my prior state of buoyancy. I will gorge myself on steak and milkshakes and soylent green, which I trust is made out of hipsters.

Wouldn't that be a wonderful solution to everyone's problems?

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm off to the bakery gym.