![]() It’s so backwards that it could only signal some kind of cultural crossroads. On Sunday, I decamped to Manhattan, for respite from so much expensive, fashionable trying. Either it had reached some tipping point, or I had, but the deliberateness with which everyone in Brooklyn was being so, so, so all-caps THEMSELVES was making my eyelids grow heavy. ![]() Williamsburg is a place I have seen a lot of over the last few years. Williamsburg today is like when the stockbrokers invaded SoHo - except the stockbrokers dressed like stockbrokers, while the people who own $7-million penthouses in Billyburg dress like Edwardian chimney sweeps. Today, people with full beards and vintage selvage drainpipe denims and full-sleeve tattoos walk around the treeless neighbourhood’s seven-figure new-build condos munching on $10 Mast brothers chocolate bars (with hints of plum, smoke, car tire, mom’s purse …) while tourists - who have come here to see this species - snap photos. Williamsburg, of course, is one of the ground zeros for the originality-obsessed, authenticity-fixated brand of hipster that began appearing in the late 1990s basically, the Cachaca-and-cinnamon-hearts breed. Even the eternally hip can only ingest so many of Scrappy’s extra-crazy-rarefied bitters until the truism that every action breeds a reaction explodes into what feels like an instinct: Hold the Leblon Cachaca! Down with Briottet Poppy! Where’s the next exit to Costco? I feel the sudden need to buy some no-name cola and plain white tube socks!Īfter my trip to Toronto last week, I went to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where I spent the weekend. It is entirely possible that one can only take so much of this extreme expressiveness until one’s being begins screaming for a generic, $5 rum-and-coke. The only thing that could make this drink any more expert, special, artisanal, sourced, curated, researched, recherché and creative would be if the bartender did a Gandhi and donated some of his bodily fluids to the mix (because, after all, what Central Asian bazaar doesn’t smell like pee, too?). I see the Silk Road, with its ingredients list containing nothing I could even remotely identify other than lemon, and possibly cinnamon hearts (if they mean the candy), as a kind of terminus for originality. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. To me, it feels like a turned corner, however nichey the trend is now. Many moons ago, when I was in elementary school, I wore a pin on my lapel that said “Why Be Normal?” Since midcentury we’ve all striven more and more toward specialness. ![]() ![]() And like so many other columnists, I would dismiss it as fleeting fashion, or make fun of it - because normcore is in part about “being basic,” which at the moment is usually translating to mean extreme hipsters dressing up to look like middle Americans who buy all their clothes at Costco - but I actually think the trend is phenomenally interesting. That word, you will be confused to know, is normcore: not hardcore for hard, or softcore for soft, but normcore, for normal. Article contentĪbout a month ago, a meme exploded across the hipster Internet that had some hipsters so fed up, one of them created an app to hide any tweet containing the offending word. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt. ![]()
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