If they did ruin everything, then cities around the country wouldn't be trying to figure out ways to lure them to settling there, and some half-assed scholar wouldn't have become rich off of it."

—Down by the Hipster

"Isn't hipsterdom dying on its own in New York City? Last time we went to the Lower East Side, it was overrun by smart-casual Coldplay fans wearing jeans and blazers and buying eight dollar Amstel Lights for their anchorwomen-wannabe girlfriends. Or maybe looking like a Hedge-Funder from Connecticut is what passes for hip now in New York.

You ask, 'Should hipster culture be defended?' My book The Hipster Handbook was an attempt to call bullshit on this fauxhemian movement nearly five years ago. In the satirical book I claimed that 'hipsters understand that cultural trends become fin the moment they hit the mainstream.' The hipster thing hit the mainstream years ago, so by my own definition it hasn't been cool for a while now.

And let's be honest, hipsters are getting harder to defend now that they're all sporting beards. Williamsburg is beginning to look like a tailgate party at a jam band concert."

—Robert Lanham, founder, FREEwilliamsburg author, The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right, Food Court Druids, and The Hipster Handbook

"Well I would be a liar if I said I just hate hipsters as a whole. Hipster baiting is a little hack. Hipsters are like children. Not only the obvious parallels (twee, childlike nature; constant need for adult supervision; soft skulls) but in that I do not hate hipsters so much as I cringe when I imagine what they will ruin. Comedy for example. All the 'alternative' comedians who are making waves are great (Demetri Martin, Human Giant, all the comedians covered on Apiary and Dead Frog [blogs I write for]). But I am (perhaps irrationally) frightened that comedy will eventually be taken over by whimsical hipsters that are more concerned with one day being on the line-up for Coachella than with developing an act. I also roll my eyes when I see hipster comedy sketches on YouTube that reference the same 'alternative' comedy tropes that great comedians can use but amateurs can beat to the ground. When I hear an alternative hipster comedian mention 'robots,' for instance, I wince. As far as hackneyed comedy topics go, robots are the new Viagra.

Above all comedy snobs are annoying. These hipsters that act like they're defending some grand cultural institution like Cubist painting or Noh theater. God forbid you like something remotely mainstream like Bill Burr or Katt Williams.

'What you tell jokes? It's not alternative enough! You do impressions? How mainstream! There's this brilliant comedian who performs an operetta about what would happen if the drummer to Loverboy was an Asiatic black bear. Brilliant!'

But like I said, I still like the comedy being offered at the UCB and the PIT. I'm afraid hipsters might ruin comedy.  What hipsters might have ruined already though is porn. Comedy and porn are the last places you would expect snobbery. Lo and behold, there's all these 'nude art' sites that have these girls with vacant stares. In order for porn to work, I need the model to give a 'come hither' glance to the camera. Not these vacant stares. That's not fantasy, that's reality. Girls always give me vacant stares when I seduce them. I don't need Polaroids from some delusional Larry Clark wannabe to indulge my fantasies of rejection. And that whole "art" rubric is a little irritating. Most things on the planet can be considered art (found objects, daily gestures, rabbit saliva) but the hipsters who call it 'erotic art' are dumber than a kangaroo in a boxing match. Hipster porn is not art.  The legal definition of porn is a nudie pic with no artistic merit. A Supreme Court judge will tell you that this shit isn't art. So don't look down your nose at me because I get off to Black Vagina Finder. You're not better than me."

—Mo Diggs, blogger, Mo!, the Apiary, Dead Frog

More in the Hipster Issue:

• Why the hipster must die: A modest proposal to save New York cool
• Why the hipster must die: The hipsterati talks back: We asked hipster-leaning bloggers to defend their constituency. See what they said.
• Why the hipster must die: Your responses: We've declared war on the hipster. Now it's time for you to pick a side.
• A hipstory: View a timeline on how this monster was created.
• Hipster quiz: The first sign of hipsterdom is self-denial. Take our quiz and get your hipster rating.
• Cool or played out?: We name 20 recent hipster markers; you vote on whether they have any cool value left.
• Name that hipster: The train that cuts across the greatest swath of hipsterdom is not the L—God, that's so two years ago—it's the G. See if you can match these swingin' youth to the stop where we caught them.
• Hipster detox: Quick impressions: See how three New York hipsters coped with two weeks of mainstream living.
• Hipster detox: Full assessment: After two weeks of ditching his Union Pool-and-Proust lifestyle, our resident cool guy breaks down his new life as a "reg."
• True originals: To look at them, you wouldn’t think these New Yorkers are hip. But then you find out what they did last night. We asked an octogenarian jazz maven, an avant-garde dance critic and Russell Simmons’s artist brother about NYC cool.
• Cool as shhh: The truly “hip” stuff is unpretentious and off the radar—until TONY reports it and ruins everything. So we thought we’d make amends with these blind-item tips.
• Cool as shhh: Guess the answers: Do you know what's cool in this city? Then prove it.
• Special Hipster-Issue Seek: Guest editor edition