It occured to me the other day as I pulled up to a gas station and I fished one of the few dollar bills out my pitifully thin wallet, and turned off the car (effectively ending the stream of Pixies songs coming from my CD player), and glided across the pavement in my Vans, that I am a member of Generation Y.

Oh, trust me, it wasn’t an easy conclusion to come to. I used to lie to myself that I wasn’t some aggrevating douchebag. But, as I think back on it, I scream pretentious. I’ve watched weird underground arty films at friends’ houses. I’ve had discussions about indy music with some of the fellow twentysomethings in my class. And yes, it pains me to say it, I own a pair of crocs.

It goes without saying that this youth movement is one of the oddest ones to arise in recent memory. Not since the flappers who danced to jazz in the Roraing 20s have we seen such a curiously self-absorbed group of young adults who aspire to such artistic inclinations with no sense of meaning whatsoever. The parade of both men and women decked out in purple plaid, wayfarers that could take over the countenances of Mount Rushmore, and a copy of Che Guevera’s biography hanging oh-so-indiscriminately out of their bookbags is a sight to behold on college campuses nowadays.

Despite my smarky satire, I am helpless to overturn this tide, and humbly assert myself on my knees to give in o this tide. In my younger years, I had browsed through Hot Topic and proudly sported those baggy JNCO pants with a gazillion chains on them (great to annoy the ‘rents, but impractical otherwise). I was also a lot more idealistic and direct in expressing myself. Now I find myself hiding behind an ironic smirk, and catch myself listening to Poison the Well a bit more than I do Pantera.

It’s a hazy path to navigate, havng to learn of a million different non-commerical music genres: trip-hop, twee, melodic hardcore, post-rock, shoegazing, and other such silly and obscure styles that escape me at this moment. I’ve also become absorbed in Youtube and Facebook. What with its absurd non-sequitir mni-montages and the back-and-forth flow of messages exchanged, the computer has become the 2000s version of crack cocaine, addictive and hazardous for all bored teenagers who come into contact with it.

Back in the elder days there was at least some attempt at honest, sincere expression and revolt. I hate to seem like one of those arrogant baby boomers who proclaims “back in my day” (considering I was born in 1988), but it strikes me that previous subcultures had some sort of idelogy or focus in mind. The hippies were staunchly against contemporary suburban materialism and held to the values of peace and love. Punk rock saw this as false and hypocritical, and took a more active and radical stance on the government’s strangehold over our lives.

Goth came along and looked inward, while the other two slowly and quietly rode off into the sunset. The turning point seems to have been the rise of the Seattle sound. When Kurt and his flannel-wearing ilk stumbled along into the mainstream, we saw a different breed of disgruntled adolescence. They were pissed and annoyed, but also somewhat a navel-gazing bunch. Layne Staley and Chris Cornel realized how false this reality was, but almost seemed too helpless and paralyzed to really do anything about it. They seemed more concerned without getting kicked out of the house by their parents than the homeless people living in the street.

And so we come to the end of the cycle, the repulsive hipster. They sport stubble and slightly ragged clothes, but unlike the grunge rocker, they shower regularly. We have simultaneously managed to reappropriate every single style before us and rendered it null and meaningless. True expression is avoided; we instead communicate in saracstic asides and onloy hint at varying social and personal problems. Emo is the shining example of today’s attitude; there’s obvious inner turmoil brewing in there, but we cleverly dodge it by wearing tight shirts with graphic designs and smoking cigarettes against the wall at a local show (known as “the scene”).

I envy those who are cheesy and induge in it. So to those of you with a garden gnome or a singing bass tacked up on the wall….huzzah! Continue the good fight against snobby urban elitism! When I hang around my friends who unquestonably crank up Flyleaf or jam out to Theory of a Deadmna, they did it with an honest and unknowing naivete. They know nothing of “quality” or “taste”.

I recall last weekend I was at a festival with my family. My mom’s friend, a 50 year old woman who could best be described as “somewhat dorky”, was merrily swaying to a local cover band up on stage. Neer mind that she was completely uncoordinated and out of it (according to the current vernacular), she was enjoying herself and having the time of her life. Oh, the beauty in it, the sublime quality of a complete lack of coordination and coolness.

I confess all this but I’m stll fighting. Don’t worry….I haven’t headed too far into the land of obnoxiousness. I still bust out a few Linkin Park songs on my mixtapes, I have yet to acquire a true iPod, and I’ve never been spotted with my laptop in a public cafe. The days of Monster energy drinks are calling to me, but every so often I get “We’re an American Band” by Grand Funk Railroad stuck in my head.

With the 60s and 70s long gone and the 2000s almost coming to a close as well, we’ve seen the slow and gradual eulogy for the biker culture unfolding. With the psychedelic guitar riffs waning and being replaced by bass beats for rap songs, so we rarely hear the engine of a Harley Davidson reving up in the night. What’s caused this, where have these tattooed outlaws gone to, and why do guys on bikes these days insist on shaving?

When the culture first emerged, they were seen as renegades, thugs, and violent criminals. No less than the FBI came down on them. They were rumored (and noted) to have dealt in drug dealing, arms trafficking, murder, and had ties to big-time organized crime. Now you can go to a chop shop on the side of your local highway and get advice and suggestions from a friendly sales associate that resembles more of Wal-Mart than a road gang.

I feel torn about this lost way of life. On one hand, it’s easy to romanticize these rebels. They were nonconformists in a day and age when it was hard and even dangerous & life-thretaning to be a pariah, and wher eyou couldn’t just go buy leather accessories at the local Hot Topic to piss mommy and daddy. They were hard-drinking, tough charaters who didn’t take shit off of anybody and did things their own way, the laws and rules of society be damned.

At the same time, while it’s easy to think of them as modern-day pirates, it’s easy to forget they were basically heartless thieves who would just as soon slit your throat as look at you. In a sense, they seem like bullies who were overly masculine. Also, I’m not a big fan of their at-times seemingly blatant racism and their attitude towards women (they commonly viewed them as property).

The hippies, interestingly, hired them as security for many of their concerts, seeing a kindred spirit in their anti-establishment ethos and hoping this was a way to stick it to The Man. What they didn’t realize, however, was that these two groups couldn’t be more different from each other. Flower children believed in peace and love and saw the existing order as impediments to their utopia; Hell’s Angels and the like just wanted to get high and fuck and fight and hated authority because cops tend to frown upon those sorts of things.

So the question is, are they an idealistic free romaing society or a group of violent malcontents built on menace and destruction? Who knows. I’m not a member of a biker group, nor do I know anyone in such a group. I wasn’t around in the old days, so my judgemnet is perhaps a bit skewed.

What I do know is that nowadays, whatever your opinion on the past incarnations, “bikers” nowadays (to use that term loosely) tend to be the typical weekend warriors. They work some office job or at a garage shop during the day and on their off time they like to go barreling down the freeway in chaps and T-shirts that are way too tight for their beer bellies. What has happened to the freedom of the open pavement?

Like everything else in life, and as is the fate of all seemingly misanthropic movements, it has been adopted and sanitized by the mainstream. I have an unle that swears by his bikes and patronizes the Harley Davidson store but he’s one of the nicest guys I’ve met.

Most of your typical bikers now are old 40 year old men looking to the past for nostalgia, trying to reconcile their youth spent tripping massive balls on LSD with the current reality of working some shit minmum-wage job, so they turn to Budweiser and doing air guitar whenever they hear dad rock in public to try and seem cool. O’, it truly was dust in the wind, if ya catch my drift.

It would be an effortless task to generalize all of these days as harmless suburbanites who know nothing of true grit and glory like the bikers of the past. And yet, who’s to judge them? Who’s to define what makes a true biker? By its very definition, the biker culture involves a love and respect for riding choppers. That is all. Should we demonize these modern incarnations simply because they have respectable careers, father children, and pay their taxes? I think not, in a sense.

That was how my ear looked a few weeks ago. As you can imagine, it wasn’t too pleasant, nor was it a sight to behold. I had to cover it up with a band-aid while attending classes.

How does an ear get mangled like that, you ask? Well,in my quest for materialism, I got some ice. You know, those bling earrings? The one on my right ear was constantly too loose and I had to keep screwing it in to tighten it.

I guess it got lodged in my ear as I slept, my slumber-time motions causing it to inch its way into my ear. Fast forward a few days later and I realized the screw that holds it together has actually penetrated my epidermis.

Needless to say, it was a bitch to take out. It felt like I was giving birth out my ear. Right now I’d just like to apologize to my ear. The smooth skin, the almost infant-like skin it is made up of. It’s served me well throughout the years; it hones in when a particularly important piece of information is dropped. It’s helped appreciate musical moments of sublime awe and it generally aids me in figuring out my way ’round this wacky world.

And what do I do? I abuse it. I puncture it, I insert random metal objects in it. I cause it to bleed so I can adorn myself with piercings. Flesh becomes mangled in the name of glitter and beauty.

There are those modern-day moralists who decry the proliferation of tattoos and piercings, who claim it will lead to a downjfall of social mores. I beg to differ. If one goes throughout history, you will see a pattern of people altering their appearance in the name of self-expression. The body becomes a canvas, a work of art in itself.

In ancient societies, and even in some today, body modification was used to signal one’s status in society. It was usually that of a special high-end position. Now it lets us know who blows his paycheck on booze and cigarettes.

But I jest. I think tattoos and piercings are a way to express oneself. When the ink is put to flesh, symbols that we cherish and feel represent us are etched and burned into our skin forever. (Sure, not everyone follows through with this motif—I’m aware of the fair share of truck-stop tricks with roses on their ankles.) We become works of literature, to be read, studied, analyzed, ultimately figured out.

This becomes a method to reach down into our primal selves. We become one with nature, like wild predators or uninhibited animals. Countless African tribes and Samoan cultures considered it a rite of passage. When a young boy received a branding, it was a ritual in which he became a man. Now we simply carry this over to a modern-day technological society. We destroy ourselves to transcend beyond being “human”. Too bad frat boys have hijacked this and consider themselves badass rebels when they get the standard tribal tattoo after downing a bottle of malt liquor. What land are you from, anyway, the white jock counsel?

At the same time, what I gather from filling up the blank slots that are our bodies is a sense of self-hatred. Perhaps these people endure the pain as a way to express how hurt they are. Oftentime, the internal scars we keep with us are too much to bear, so we have to let it come to the surface in a tangible form. It’s a way to reconnect to childhood anguish, to revel in their own moral ugliness and unattractiveness, or perhaps even to brutalize their body and go through excruciating mental anguish just to feel something.

Earrngs become ways in which we signal to others our tolerance for suffering. Talking to gaged enthusiats, I’m often struck by how they mention how apathetic they are to their own organic torture. It shows how tough we are, and conversly how we seek to gain attention, perhaps in the quest to attract a mate. When I had my horseshoe earrings in, they became a source of pride for me: I went from a scrawny bookworm to a heavy metal rocker in the span of a few months. Now that my cartilage is damaged beyond repair and I can’t insert them back in, I feel a sense of shame and loss overcome me. I’ve tried putting them back in, having learned my lesson due to the fates showing their disapproval of me being a chav. It was if a cosmological force greater than myself revealed an omen over me caving in to hip-hop consumerism.

Yet as I make futile attempt after futile attempt, I find the hole has closed up, the surface has healed, only to offer a tiny crimson trickle each time. So, in the interest of my ear not falling off or getting infected, I’ve opted to be bare and naked.

So, I say, dot yourself with as much ink as possible. Even if I find sleeve tattoos to be a bit garrish and ugly, go for it. Make like a Swahilian shaman and go on and shove that bamboo stick through your house. It may be somewhat unacceptable in the office, but I haven’t heard anything about it.

Why, hello here, young college student! I’m sure you stumbled onto this website because you were looking for fetish porn by means of searching for advice in how to dress. Ah, yes, you, young eager learner, devotee to knowledge, aboslutely unskilled in getting a date with the opposite sex. Well, fret not, youth of America, I, angrycynic13 (or “Dr. Lovething” as I demand my friends call me), am here to assist you. Your professors may not lift a finger to help you but I will! behold, as I bestow my wisdom upon you: how to dress properly so you can one day not get a job with your meaningless degree. And I included pretty pictures and not just all those annoying, pesky word thingys. *In other words, my dumbass finally learned how to put pictures in this blog*

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First things first, let’s start with shirts. I decided to get to this first because going to class in a bare chest is considered in bad taste. You’re ging to want to wear a T-shirt that is three sizes too small with random writing on it. It doesn’t matter if the writing means anything or not. You want to look arty and like you’re in touch with underground indie culture. The T-shirt should also preferabbly be of an obscure band. It helps if not only the person you’re talking to has never heard of them, but you as well. The more “unknown”, the better.

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Get yourself a pair of these, pronto. What’s that you say? GET OUT MY HEAD, SATAN! ARRGH!

Sorry about that, forget to wear my tinfoil hat today. Damn CIA….anyway, what’s that you say? “But I’m a guy, angrycynic!” Silly male, that doesn’t matter. Guy or  girl, skinny jeans are an essential part of any twentysomething’s hipster wardrbe. Why wear pants that are comfortable when you can cut off circulation to your balls or damage your vulva? Posessing the future potential to have kids means nothing nothing in the faceof fashion.

Not a pants person? Me neither. That’s why I always wear a speedo around the house. But, as the cops have painstakingly made clear to me, underwear is not an option when attending my physics lab. So, why not don a pair of these lovely-looking shorts?

You can find these at any mall outlet that sells useless fad garba….I mean, appealing clothes. Or you can always just rob a hobo for their boxers. Your call. Nothing announces to the world you’re ready to tackle the big issues in life than looking like you just stepped off a golf field.

Headgear

Ah, now it’s time to start getting fancy. You have your bases in the shirt and legwear department covered. Personal decoration is always an important part of human nature.

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t doesn’t matter if it’s 90 degrees outside, this is perfect for looking like you live on the street even though mommy and daddy paid for your semester’s tutition. No one is sure of the exact reason people wear this, or what all the intricate designs and patterns on them actually mean. It’s ostentatious enough to get people’s attention but mysterious enough to elude actual explanations. Intriuing, indeed.

You can always try this on for size, minus the actual “size” part, as you will most likely never find a cap that truly fits your head. Retail manufacturers like to do this for shits and giggles. Make sure to tilt the hat at a ridiculous angle, as these hats/accidential works of abstract expressionist art are never meant to be worn properly. If you’re feeling particularly bold, pair this with a Fall Out Boy shirt to confuse the fuck out of EVERYBODY. Are you a scene kid or are you a wigger? We’ll leave that to the jury to figure out. Keeps ‘em guessing, if I do say so myself.

Shoes

Shoes are an integral part of dressing oneself, or so I’m told. What does the average college student wear, you ask? After capturing a few and asking them in between slipping plates of food underneath the cage door, here’s the responses I got.

I think it goes without saying that when people are forced to learn math at 8 in the morning, of course they want to see your big, ugly, hairy feet. Toenail clipping and basic foot hygiene are not necessary. Putting on socks and tennis shoes is far too much effort for you. After all, you put in a hard day’s work studying and going to work. Like when you’re walking at that restuaran, and that bitch Jeanne didn’t show up for her shift again, and so you have to work a double to cover for her. I swear, if that fucking whore is hungover again I will pop her off right then and there….

Ahem. Excuse me, I digress. Anyway, if you’re not into the whole neo-hippie thing (and really, who is these days?), you could look into these instead:

These are helpful if it’s raining or for some reason there’s thousands of tacks scattered around campus (don’t ask, I’ve seen it happen before), thus rendering sandals impossible to wear. Keep in mind Chucks come in all colors, and the more obnoxious and ludicrous the hue you sport, the better. Gay pride parades ain’t the only place to wear outrageous colors!

Miscellaneous

Here’s some odds and ends to take care of. Follow up on these or don’t, I don’t really give a shirt. Sorry, that was my lack of meds talking.

Facial hair

This is the proper way to look if you don’t want to be clean-shaven. It is important to trim this every few days and carefully go over this with a razor or pair of clippers and maintain it so you can walk in to your English lecture looking like you don’t care about how you look. Trust me, it takes a lot of work to appear as if you just rolled out of bed.

Hair

If you’re a guy go with this:

This is you, buddy. This definitive style will let everyone know you are deep and angsty and claim to play guitar in some shitty emo/metalcore/post-rock/{insert ridiculous music genre here} band. If you sport bobies and are rockin’ a vejayjay down there, I recommend this:

Look out, 1986! Elvira wold be proud! With this, you’ll be banging Motley Crue tribute bands in no time!

Hey angrycynic, what about accessories?

Well, I’m glad you decided to ask by sticking a heading in my blog. Steer yourself on over to the nearest electronic store and pick yourself up one of these bad boys:

Ever been walking down the street and been like, “Man, I really wish I could listen to prentious anti-folk drivel right now.” Problem solved. Thanks to this wonderful invention, you can now fully avoid having to talk to anyone, or god forbid, actually interact with other human beings. With this lovely little gadget, you can now store all the indie bands that you read about on Last.fm and use to try and impress crazy nutjob sluts at the local Starbucks. Or, if you’re not the sensitive artist type, be sure to crank the volume up to the full level on that Job For A Cowboy song so everyone can join you in appreciating thrash metal while they’re trying to study for their exam in the library.

Yeah, but how do I not be a douchebag and actually resemble a human being with a soul?

Whoops, friend, wrong question there. We are talking about university life, after all. can’t help ya there.

I hope this all helped you. Godspeed, you, liberal arts major, and feel free to mention me or this in your paper on the current deplorable dictatorship/situation in Lithuania or whatever third-world country the Live 8 protests are about this week, because, I know as well as you do, you have no idea what you’re talking about and you’re just pulling stuff out your ass, aren’t you? Hey, they can’t all be copypastas from Wikipedia, now can they?

And no, I don’t want to be your friend on Facebook, so don’t ask. Ciao!

I have a confession to make. I…..am a metrosexual.

Believe me, I hate it. I wasn’t comfortable admitting it at first. Okay, I’d reason with myself, I just pay attention to my looks. Later on I’d realize I’d agonize over my wardrobe. Pretty soon it became a full-blown addiction: I had to use aftershave when I finished trimming my facial hair, I had to have the coolest looking shoes, I even had to make an impression when it was something as simple as going to a friend’s house.

Being a guy and admitting you’re somewhat into your appearance isn’t easy in today’s age. Now a guy is supposed to not care about how he looks, to keep his hair short and wear nothing but sports jerseys and drink beer. He is supposed to be rough, careless, and stoic.

I will concede there are some points the critics have. Yes, fashion can get ridiculous. It can be mind-numbing, soul-crushing, and ultimately shallow and materialistic. But is a little indulgence such a bad thing? In a nation where wealth is (for the most part) prominent, why shouldn’t we be allowed to express ourselves?

Women say they want a man who is thoughtful, caring, and considerate. Wouldn’t the definition of a pretty boy fit this bill? After all, if a guy cares about his clothes, shouldn’t that say he is mindful of how he appears to the outside world? The metrosexual is the one who has the biggest balls in American society because he is willing to stand up to the old guard of male machismo and say, “Fuck you, I like apple schnaps.”

And before you dig up whatever post-industraitl-capitalist-consumerist or other terms you learned in your nightly anthrplogy courses and say this is a symptom of a world rotten at the greedy core, keep in mind this is nthing new. Guys have been feminine since the beginning of time. Recall that in the Middle Ages the kings and nobles would adorn themselves with the fanciest clothes and shiniest jewelry. Who can forget the dandy, the fop, the swinger from the 1920s? To wear wild and garish attire is to celebrate life to the fullest.

This goes all the way back to the decadent movement, championed by none other than Oscar Wilde himself. To speak of metrosexuality is to shine a light on that often-forgotten area of philosophy, aesthetics. We are talking about the beauty of things, pure, raw, sublime appearances. For me, metrosexuality isn’t just about shopping at Abecrombie & Fitch or listening to the latest pop music. Art and culture play a role in this as well. What happened to the ideal of the Renaissance man, an ubermensch who was skilled in all areas and refined in manners of learning, speaking, and grooming? Is it so wrong to be so sophisticated, to be so caught up in the zeitgeist as a means of understanding the world and trying t place a historical context on where I live right now?

Keep in mind, you can know how to wear a three-piece suit and what hairstyle goes best with your face and still pick up chicks and get shitfaced with your bros. One does not cancel out the other. Too often, people equate nancy bys with being gay. I think this is the ultimate fear latent in the homophobia surrounding metrosexuality. So many men are afraid of losing their masculinity, of this enroaching erosion of testorone sweeping the continent. I say, why not relax and give in? You can fish in the morning and read GQ in the afternoon. Simple as that. Let me clue you in on a little secret: part of looking good is being able to fuck hot chicks. Bet ya Ernest Hemmingway never let that slip, did he?

Before you think that the guy typing these words is some annoying douchebag with a fauxhawk who wears silk shirts that are just a little too tight with capri pants and sandals on, keep in mind I listen to heavy metal and I’ve been mistaken for a skatebarder before. Us vain narcissists come in all shapes and sizes. And yes, while I am anti-consumerist and feel that we as a peoples are a bit too obsessed with conpicious consumption someimes, I can’t deny the allure of caring about how I look as a matter of personal pride and hygenic upkeep. Now order a cosmpolitan, change the tube to What Not to Wear, and CHILLAX!