While trying to figure out the point of this “hipsters deserve to die” ad on the G train (Is Die Hipster campaigning?), my Mom asked in a very concerned voice, “Jen are you a hipster?”

“What does that even mean?” I said.

It was like she was asking me if I murdered my father. She was scared of the truth and I didn’t know how to answer.

My Mom is the least nosiest mother in the world. When it came out that I have a (platonic) wife during a very short spell of being single and my Uncle George (the only person who reads my other blog) emailed to ask her if I am gay, my Mom replied, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if I’m gay?” I said. She would after all be the first person who I would tell.

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“It’s your life, Jen, you can do whatever you want.” She thought I was gay.

She is the Mom who never interferes and let’s me “live my own life,” while she “minds [her] own business” and now she was was straight up calling me out – not for being gay – for being a hipster.

This hipster thing is really hitting a nerve in outer borough Mom’s everywhere and I think the media has something to do with it.

When my Mom asked me that it made me realize that being a hipster is more being The Other, it is what other people think about you in relationship to how you are different from them. I don’t know what inspired the question from her, but that “otherness” isn’t always a good thing.

I like art and good food and I consume both with all of the money I make at my “creative job,” (human photocopy machine of expensive clothes made in China mostly) – but I have no style, my ass is way to huge for skinny jeans and I wish I had one of those God damn trust fund everyone talks about.

We’ve already gone down this treacherous road before. I am not trying to start a war here, but the buzz word hipster is really everywhere.

When I see it used, I wonder, don’t these companies know what a bad connotation the word has? Don’t they know the accusatory nature of it? The defensive mode it puts people in? The anger and bitterness it stirs up? The concern it raises in non-pushy Moms?

When I was waiting online at The Garden, I saw this juice in the refrigerator called “The Hipster.” I wondered, do they want hipsters to buy this? Or is it a cure for being a hipster? Or is it for people who want to become hipsters? Like people who buy Smooth Move Tea; clearly things are not moving smoothly. We can all dream.

Maybe it would help me figure out if I am a hipster or not, once and for all, or at least to give my Mom a straight answer.

“The Hipster” is a raw juice is made up of hemp seeds, date, coconut water and purified water and costs $6.49! The back asks “Allergic to nuts?” (Definitely not, Mom!) But, if you are, fear not, it is a seed milk, not a nut milk. Sigh.

The “Hipster” blend contains “all 20 amino acids including the 8 our body cannot make on its own,” which made me think of this juice as some sort of transformative super hero concoction, giving me powers (or amino acids) that I don’t normally have.

My hipster superpower would be “The Magic Trust Fund,” everything I look at would turn into money and more money and more money!

Sick as a dog, I gave it a shot. The first flavor that immediately hit my palate was corn husk. You know when you’re munching on an ear of corn and you suck at the juiciness under the corn kernels? It tasted like corn husk juice. Not bad, but a little weird.

After a minute, I tasted the hemp flavor. What I like about seed and nut milks is that they really resemble milk but aren’t nasty like cows milk, which I have a natural aversion to since childhood when my Mom would make me hold my nose and swallow it down because everyone in the mid-80s was concerned about protein.

“You’re not getting enough protein!”

After I finished it (it was tasty enough to finish) I still had a cold and I didn’t grow a beard and I still can’t fit into skinny jeans. My bank account still has just enough to cover rent and pay for some dinners out, so I have not made the full transformation into Brooklyn Hipster Superhero Magic Trust Fund Genie yet. If not now then when???

Once I do, I will formally make an announcement.

In the meantime, if you hate cow milk and are allergic to nuts, don’t get turned off by the name if the price doesn’t scare you. Rawpothecary’s “Hipster” blend will get you all the vegan, dairy and nut free protein you need.

Am I hipster? I think other people care more about the answer to that than I do.

Does the buzz word hipster work for selling stuff and getting reviews on awesome blogs? Hell yeah!

What would your hipster superpower be?

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