Scorching MetaTrend: Anything Old Timey

We here at NHT sometimes like to step back and try and spot the trends in our trends, it gets us all scotch-bonnet hot when we are able to see a major trend influencer from the 30,000 foot level because we’re so often in the trend trench, mustache wax under our finger nails, that we miss the big picture. For quite some time we’ve been talking about this serious meta-trend from many different angles. Music, Books, Food and even sun glasses that might fit over other glasses, we’ve seen how things that your grandpa and grandma did or liked are a central component in many hipster trends. Hipters want to be just like really old people, they’ll never hire them for jobs they might be well qua Is it a harkening back to simpler times or is it a total lack of original thoughts and ideas? As we all know, it’s probably both. Yes hipsters love nothing more than buttoning on the suspenders, starching the collar and heading out to folk dance in the community center, it makes them feel like they’re in the TV shows they grew up with. And that’s OK, because remember, the gods gave us television to show us how we should want to live and if hipsters want it to be the Hallmark channel, that’s just “Honkey Dorey.” Awareness of this really hit me last weekend when I was invited to become part of a weekly bridge club. Now remember, being invited to any kind of single themed “club” that meets at someone’s home or apartment is the highest honor a hipster can bestow on anyone. It started with books and knitting but now, hipsters being the eternal seekers, it’s moved into artisinal pastimes like pickling and candle making. While there are many examples of how to adopt old timey ways, we’re going to focus on the ancient realm of geriatric table games.

To be clear, this does NOT include board games, especially ones involving miniatures or small cardboard “chits.” Games like Settlers of Catan, Stratego, Power Grid or any of the Avalon Hill series of bookshelf games are so proto hip that they too far out on the hipster horizon for any but the most advanced bleeding edge hipsters, leave these to the Nerdsters for a bit longer, but keep your eyes on this soon to be emerging trend.

If you want to really ride the Oldey train, which is steam powered of course, it’s time to hit the deck, the card deck that is. Nothing has the dusty reek of times gone-by like any of the Whist based games like Wendellhead, Tarneeb and Contract Bridge. If you haven’t been so lucky, like me, to have been invited to an already existing card coven of bridge playing hipsters, you’ll have to get one going yourself. This is good, because this will give you a chance to prepare in advance and do some self promotion, you will love this. Advertise with a poster, hand screened of course, designed by your graphic designer friend. Have the little tear off parts of the poster take interested hipsters to a blog you’ve already made to post images and scores and crap. Next require that all players in your uber-exclusive bridge club, called the “Tricksters” read Hoyle’s “A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist.” It was published in 1743, if that isn’t Olde Timney-ey enough to be impressive, your friends are not hipsters, they’re D&D players. Get as far away from those loser nerds as possible. Now, you wont be playing Whist, so just claim that they have to “understand our roots.” The most important item of a good bridge game night is the table. It’s got to smell like your grandma. The next time you’re at an estate sale, which is like every Sunday morning, find the moldiest smelling folding table and chairs you can. It’s got to smell like cologne from the 50’s. Wrap it in plastic so the moment you pull it out at Bridge club night it sends a waft of stale baby powder and Milk of Magnesia at your assembled gamers. And so, your adventure into the hipster dementia domain begins. Don’t forget to make everyone drink piping hot really weak coffee. Enjoy, you’ll be here for years … and years.