Everything New Is Old Again

"God, I hate these damn hipster douchebags!" said the man.  He was in his late forties, his age showing in the receding hairline, the paunch around his midsection, and the creases that appeared at the corners of his eyes whenever he scowled, which was a much more frequent occurrence of late.

His father, a much older man with a downy crest of white hair, sat across from him at an outdoor table of a coffee shop.  He looked over at the three young men his son had indicated and sized them up.

“What’s wrong with those boys?”

His son sighed that patient and indulgent sigh that his father resented so much.  “They’re hipsters dad.”  Seeing no recognition of this offence in his father’s face, he elaborated.  “Hipsters say and wear things they think is cool, they just all do the same annoying things and dress alike.”

“So…they follow fashion trends and fads?  Isn’t that what everyone does?”

The sigh returned.  “No dad, these kids are different.  They don’t make up their own ideas, they just take things that already exist and then claim them as their own to be ironic.  They have no respect for the people who made that stuff cool in the first place.”

His father inspected the young men’s clothes.  “So you hate T shirts and jeans now?”

“No dad, it’s…it’s hard to explain.”

His father allowed some silence to build up as his son struggled to form a cogent argument.  “You see dad, they wear fashions from when I was their age, just pirating the looks of the eighties.  That one kid was wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt that was made to look all faded, like he’s had it since when they were cool.  This kid wasn’t even born when that cartoon came on.  And the other guy had a Super Mario Brothers wallet.  No way he played that game on the old NES.  He never had to take out the cartridge and blow on the connectors to get it to work, he never knew what is was like to have no save games.  He’s just wearing it because he thinks it’s cool.”

“So you don’t think it’s cool?”

“No, of course it’s cool, but not for a kid his age.  He didn’t…he wasn’t there!  I can’t explain it, you wouldn’t understand.”

His father took a long sip from the cup overpriced sugar water that passed for coffee here.  “Let me take a whack at it there, sport.  These things from the nineteen-eighties, these video games and cartoons and such, these are important parts of your childhood and adolescence.  At the time, you did them because they were new and exciting, and they belonged to you and your time.”

“But now these kids are seeing some idealized, perverted version of your time, and they are co-opting it, stealing the cultural touchstones from your youth instead of making their own, following in your footsteps instead of blazing any new trails.”

“And you resent that, because it feels like they are making a mockery of your past.  That they didn’t have to suffer any ridicule or take any risks by trying something new, they just waited for you to make is into something acceptable and cool, and then came along and stepped into it, wearing the trappings of your childhood whether it fit them or not.  You feel that they haven’t earned the right to walk around in the regalia of the ‘80s youth culture.”

“That sound about right?”

The younger man was silent for a moment before smiling.  “Yes!  That is exactly how I feel.  I didn’t expect you to understand, dad.”

His father reached for his wallet.  “Oh I understand just fine son.  And I’ve waited some time for this very conversation.  Take a look at this, and tell me if you recognize it.”

He had extracted an old, worn photograph showing a pair of smiling teenagers.

“Hey!” the son exclaimed, “I remember this!  This is from that Stray Cats concert from back in…must have been what, 1982?”

“1983.  And what are you wearing there son?”

He smiled.  “That was that sweet black leather jacket I bought off of Jerry Willard.  I loved that old thing.  And check out my hair, all slicked back and puffed up in a pompadour!  Man those were the days.”

“And your girlfriend, Jenny, was it?  Notice the pink skirt and satin jacket she has on?  And the pony tail up in a ribbon?”

“Yeah, so what?  That was the fashion at the time.”  He paused.  “Hey, I remember you taking this picture.  You were really pissed that night and I couldn’t figure out why, and you just told mom to take a picture of us for later.  What was the deal with that?”

His father smiled.  “How do you think you looked?”

“We looked cool!  I mean for the time.  That ‘50s look was in back then.”

And just like that, he got it.

“Right,” said his father, seeing the recognition on his face.  You went traipsing around in your leather biker jacket and your hair pomaded back, listening to those punks murder the sounds of the music I listened to when I was a teenager.  You didn’t earn the right to wear that.  You made a mockery of my youth with your own fashion choices.”

He sat back and raised his cup towards his son.  “So remember when you talk about these ‘hipster douchebags,’ that you were one too.”

They were silent for a few moments.  Finally, the man asked his father, “So you’ve been carrying around that photo of me all these years just so you could make fun of me?”

“Yup.  Your mom carries one of your sister in the nineties dressed as a hippy chick.”

“But how did you know I would just happen to complain about this exact topic?”

“Because the day I took that picture, all I could think of was the day your grandfather gave me a load of shit when I bought a 1934 Ford to make a hot rod out of.”

He took one last pull at his coffee.  “You see son, this all goes in cycles.  Wait till you see the dumb shit your kid does.”