South Dakota: Journalists are flocking to one man in a double wide trailer in the middle of rural South Dakota. Vice magazine had published a whitepaper claiming that this man, a William Fredrickson, aged 45, was the last American who could not be described as a Hipster.

I was thrown into the press crew along with several photographers. We were sharing a tour bus with some scientists from Yale, who had come to see if this William had a cure to the Hipster Epidemic. I just needed to get out of DC for the weekend.

The hipster epidemic of the early 2010’s had taken many victims. Patient zero had been LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, who exposed himself to dangerous amounts of Pretension and Cool when recording the hit “Losing my edge” and from there the virus spread like so much word of mouth. It was relentless, turning ordinary people into nuanced, fashion conscious and musically aware individuals. Nothing could cure the world of this scrounge of young people. 

Perhaps it wasn’t the hipsters themselves, but the backlash that came with the lifestyle. Pretty soon everyone who wasn’t a hipster was complaining about hipsters, making them hipsters themselves. There was no logical escape. People tried wearing wolf shirts, drinking Michalobe light, and listening to the same White Snake tape over and over again in an attempt to be anything but hipster. This provided a temporary fix as hipsters rushed to buy 80’s hair metal tapes and post-ironic apparal with wolves and other woodland creatures. 

So, with everyone’s collective money running out, and with Washed Out releasing their third album, it was a shock to the world to find someone who could not be described as a hipster, living in the boondocks of the upper midwest. 

His trailer was on the end of a dusty road. Dozens of news vans from organizatiosn were parked outside, giving round the clock coverage of the discovery. Journalists and scientists were setting up camp, one group from CERN had brought a mobile spectrometer, and hoped to capture Williams essance of UnIrony, which, they added, could be a new element to the periodic table.

Authorities had set up a perimeter around the trailer to prevent William from getting infected. Radio signals had been jammed in the event that William would accidentally tune into the dozens of alternative stations that peppered the Dakotas. It had been discovered that he indeed had internet, but it was AOL Dialup. It too was cut off as a precaution. Here in South Dakota was one preserved specimin of Normalcy.

There was talk of placing the whole house and half acre in an underground storage facility so it could be studied in a controlled environment. 

I however, snuck past the guards by bribing them with some Yaz tapes that I keep for just such an occasion (Security guards always like mid 80’s electro new wave, thanks Deus Ex). As I crept up to the trailer the beer cans and empty packs of cigarettes got thicker and thicker. I approached the door and gave it a hesitant knock. 

“Hello?” he said, appearing at the door. He was a gruff, blue collar type of person. he had a faint double chin, a respectable beer gut, and was wearing an open, plaid shirt, exposing his unflattering figure. His pants were baggy enough to be functional, but not tight enough to cut off circulation. His boots were neither vintage nor trendy, I nearly fainted at the prospect.

“Wouldja mind telling me what the hell’s going on?!” William said in an exasperated tone. “They cut off my internet! The radio don’t work! I haven’t been able to leave the house in three weeks!”

I attempted to calm William down, who insisted on me calling him Bob, by telling him that he was a unique person who needed to be preserved for future scientific advances and that he “might have the cure to save all of us from the hipster epidemic”

“Think about it Bob, people will be able to drink PBR again and not feel guilty! Plaid shirts can be purchased without a second thought. Vice magazine will finally return to it’s former form, as a Stationary industry periodical.  You’ll be known for generations, you’ll probably get a musical festival named after you, at the very least a tribute album from Neon Indian”

“Neon who?” Bob asked

“Neon Indian, they’re a chillwave band from-“ 

“Chillwha?” Bob asked again.

“It’s a musical genre, like if New Wave bands from the 80’s were really relaxed, but lived in 2008 and composed all of their music with a laptop” I said

I procured my ipad and queued up their last album to play it for Bob. At first he greeted it with a frown, but eventually he started bobbing his head to the beat, and a satisfied look went along his face.

Suddenly, he goes for his shirt and begins to button it up. It dawns on me that I’ve made a grave mistake and I maybe have only a few seconds to reverse the transformation from Normal to Hipster. I scramble for his haggard stero and rifle through the tapes to find something…anything…to reverse the process.

Eventually I come across what I thought was a Kansas tape, and jam it into the player hoping “Carry On My Wayward son” will cause Bob to come to his senses. Instead I hear the hiss of the tape, before the opening chords to Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” begin to play. 

“Oh” Bob exclaims as he takes off his boots and puts on some Chuck Talors he happens to have in his closet “That’s Suicide, they’re like a punk-electronic group from the 70’s. You probably haven’t heard of them, real underground” he says, finishing off his PBR.

“OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?!” I yell “No, we have to change. You need to open your shirt, and take those uncomfortable but trendy shoes off!”

I think that maybe if I can keep his appearance of irony as invisible as possible, then maybe I can pass him off as his former, non hipster identity long enough to make a get away. I tell him to go and shave the beard off as I try to tear apart all of the CBGB bootleg tapes he has. He emerges wearing gold American Apparel leggings and a headband. That’s when I know that there’s no saving him.

“Oh Bob nooo!” I shout, but it’s too late. He’s gotten his turntable out, and he’s playing a re-release of some 80’s new wave band and dancing around like an idiot. He takes down his commemorative nascar poster and puts up a large painting of Robotcop on a Unicorn which he claims he got off of Etsy.

I hear footsteps approaching the door, and a knock at the back. I have to split. I dive through the bedroom window, glass cutting into me, and scamper off into the night. I can’t imagine the scientist’s anguish right now. Maybe they might try to de-convert him, or maybe they’ll resign themselves to their fate, another dead end in the fight against the hipster. I feel an immense guilt wash over me as I run through the South Dakota twilight.