Hippest State in the Union?

Can this be true? Does the 612 really have that much clout? Rochester is pretty quiet and St. Cloud is, well, St Cloud. And we have Willmar, and the ball of twine and Paul Bunyan, and Funkley and Nimrod and two towns called Oslo. So I ask, is Duluth really that “hip” to make up the difference?

32 Comments

Things White People Like

about 13 years ago

White people like to be told they are hip.  There are lots of white people around here.

Claire

about 13 years ago

Minnesotans do talk about being "hipsters" more than anyone else I know.

TimK

about 13 years ago

There's a difference between hipsters and being hip. Hipsters are posers, but usually have money. Those who are "hip" generally don't realize they are hip. I think Brooklyn is full of hipsters and MN might be hip.

Hot Shot

about 13 years ago

Now that buzzfeed.com posted that MN is the most hipster state, I presume a jump in people who think they're hip.

zra

about 13 years ago

awww crap...

now we're gonna be inundated with scenesters from California a'la Seattle in the early 90's.

bflannagan

about 13 years ago

Thats what happend to the Haight-Ashbury in Frisco. It was cool for about two weeks and then it ended up on the cover of Time Magazine. Killed it like a stake in the heart. On the other hand we can lay claim to:
Judy Garland
Roger Maris
Eddie Cochran
Eric Severoid (SP?)
Bobby Zimmerman
His Royal Purpleness
Spider John , Tony Little Sun Glover, Dave Snaker Ray
and all of those other hip cats and kittens I can't think of right now.

Timk

about 13 years ago

Prince IS his royal purpleness...

Barrett Chase

about 13 years ago

What Tim said. The word "hipster" lost its connection to the word "hip" many years ago.

Believe me, we aren't going to be inundated with anyone. Except maybe kids from Wayzata who land on hipster when deciding which cliché to try on in college. But we already have that.

zra

about 13 years ago

Thanks, Barrett, I was almost going to lose some sleep over that.

Barrett Chase

about 13 years ago

Do you mean that ironically?

zra

about 13 years ago

Ironically? Sarcastically? Of course.

I can't really talk much really, being a transplant. I was stationed out in Washington in the early 90s when California started migrating north so I was kinda playing into the reference. I also met a bunch of people from Minnesota who seemed nice enough.

Swan

about 13 years ago

I have hated hipsters before it was cool to do so.
http://www.latfh.com/

Claire

about 13 years ago

Zra, I was working a book festival in the early '90s in Seattle, and people I befriended there told me not to breathe a word about really being from Cali, but to emphasize living in Minnesota, b/c everyone in Seattle hated Californians and loved Minnesotans. Funny you brought that up, people sure were up in arms about it then!

When I lived in Philadelphia in the '80s, South Street was a very cool street. Then the city strung a banner across it, reading something like "South Street, the hippest street in town" and ruined everything. The chains moved in, developers too. South St. totally lost it bohemian chic character. We've got to be vigilant that this does not happen here in Minny!

V.V.O.

about 13 years ago

I'm such a hipster, I like bands that haven't even formed yet.

V.V.O.

about 13 years ago

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: It's a really obsure number, I'm sure you haven't heard of it.

Danny G

about 13 years ago

That was genuinely funny.

B-man

about 13 years ago

Are we sure they did not mean Hippiest state in the union?

Jim

about 13 years ago

Is Duluth hip enough to make up the difference?
NO.

zra

about 13 years ago

Mother Hips.

Jethro

about 13 years ago

No, Duluth is not hip. Except in a bad way.

Or, unless you count hip replacement surgery. We do have good hospitals!

zra

about 13 years ago

sounds like an awful lot of whining going on...

Curly Endive

about 13 years ago

Good hospitals?  Like St Scaries? Golden Cross anyone? Doesn't jive with my Caligari Cabinet sized collection of horror stories spawned within their torture chambered walls (though I can't say they're any worse than any other corporatized utility muffin research facility peddling lime green get-well jello and wet canned peas).  I'd give a hallowed left nut for Hipsters to suddenly inundate the T.P and generally drive up realty so I could sell at a humble profit and move on dot org, but take it from the lifers and breath easy, it will never happen. The failure to lure Google was heartbreaking, yet predictable, and so I'm personally saving up to rent a U-Haul semi trailer, chock it full of 'Duluth is Cool' paraphernalia, and drive it to L.A. to hawk the shit on the first busy looking intersection I find, while I double my efforts with Hollywood executives to plant further random references to Duluth in media. 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFIMWRXWY90

ME

about 13 years ago

Duluth hip? Don't make me laff! There are lots of mustaches around, but they aren't ironic, they just belong to the common and garden redneck that are local to the area. There are lots of nineties fashion, but that is because they are actually from the nineties. The local newspaper did an article when skinny jeans came into fashion (2 years too late around here) and local kids were so shocked that people would ever wear them. Dude, this place is so not hip. It's embarrassing how unhip it is.

Timk

about 13 years ago

Spoken like a true hipster.

Paul Lundgren

about 13 years ago

Is l-a-f-f the hip new way to spell laugh? A mustache is the stuff of irony? Skinny jeans, or fashion in general, matter at all?

It's funny that there are basically two reactions to Minnesota/Duluth being referred to as hip:

1) To cringe at the idea that it might be true.

2) To argue that it can't possibly be true, because the people around here just aren't smart enough to follow lame trends.

It's easy to see why no one wants to be hip -- it's a term from the 1940s that, by today's standards means "someone who is trying too hard."

So thank you, magazine or website I can't remember the name of, for bestowing upon Minnesota this title no one wants.

woodtick

about 13 years ago

Buzzfeed.com be damned - the fact that this piece has lingered here for so long exemplifies the fact that Minnesota is just not hip.  Or does it?  Hip be damned too, I say.

zra

about 13 years ago

And a record turnout @ Homegrown means absolutely ... what?

I rest my case.

Barrett Chase

about 13 years ago

I love that four days is considered "so long."

zra

about 13 years ago

You can take the troll away from the Big Lake, but you can't take the Big Lake away from the troll.

ME

about 13 years ago

What's homegrown? Did I miss something interesting? Nah, didnt think so.

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