When did Halifax become so trendy? The burger joints, the “gastropubs,” the big beards with short hair on the side and long on the top, all the hipsters waiting to be told what they like and dislike. Why now? Or are we eternally doomed to be followers? Small city complex? Do you ever look around and notice that everyone else is just like you? It must hurt—at least a little—to know that you’re not so special. -Follower
This article appears in Apr 3-9, 2014.
It’s called a trend for a reason. Remember when everyone use to plaid shirts, torn jeans, and doc martens? Or perhaps tight jeans, big hair, and shoulder pads while they played their Pacman video games at the local arcade? Substitute these with Blundstones, overpriced burgers, and big beards and you have your answer.
Meteoman,
Agreed. But is it just me or are the “followers” getting a bit too old to be caught up in trends? I was as trendy as the next guy in the 90s, but I was in my teens. I wasn’t 30.
NOT SO SPECIAL? YOU MUST BE KIDDING!
“It must hurt – at least a little – to know that you’re not so special.” Follower
Follower, you’ve got to read the papers. Start with this morning’s “The Gazette.”
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Fuck “Special”. As long as there are good restaurants, congenial pubs and a couple of good second hand bookstores who gives a toss what others think of us, or what we think of ourselves, for that matter.
Oh yes, they all pretend not to care…
But who the hell is buying that anyways? I find hipsters to be rather adorable.
Halifax is a trendy city. So be it. The real leaders find ways to stand out by their actions, and that will always be the case.
*Cries* You’re so right! The trends hurt so bad!!! Why did you have to point this out and bring the hurt of trendyness to the forefront and expose it all for what is is?!?! why!?!? If only we were a bigger city or a small town, then we could be free of the yoke of trendyness but now we’re doomed! DOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!
or you’re a fuckin idiot that cares too much about what other people are doing….. their trends no less.
I agree with both sides here. Personally I don’t care, and find it amusing…but not bitch worthy.
Everyone follows the trends of everyone else. Even straight guys have adopted the ways of us gays… we are human.
OB, if it is so important for you to live in an area where people are unique, I suggest you attempt a spiritual journey using any form of hallucinogenic drugs.
It may not change the world to the way you like it to be, but you’ll not feel so much angst as a result.
The only time I cared was when a Hipster told me I had no identity – but then I realized I was dealing with a limited mind. Just smiled and walked away.
Actions over beards people. That’s your identity. Fuck the trends.
But the beards…SO HOT!
giggity https://fbexternal-a.akamaihd.net/safe_ima…
Like this?
http://rekord.cc/files/jumping-hipster.gif
http://www.comicvine.com/api/image/scale_m…
“NOT SO SPECIAL? YOU MUST BE KIDDING!” (II)
“It must hurt – at least a little bit – that you’re not so special.” Follower
Oh yes, we are! As we say, “Quebec, c’est n’est pas comme les autres! All together now, arms linked and rocking back and forth, let’s hear it!:
“GENS DU PAYS, C’EST NOTRE TOUR!”
Bon soir.
Un plaisure comme d’habitude.
Cheerio!
Montrealman,
J’hesite de l’admettre, mais j’ai quand meme souri un peu.
Vivre le Quebec libre? lol
Yuck beards are nasty. Men with beards look like they don’t shower.
I miss the miniskirt, wish they would come back.
Bro Tim,
I hear you. I mean, the yoga pants are great and all, but they don’t leave much to the imagination, and my imagination is wonderful.
Ladies, take a wiff of those beards. You will find out how sexy they are when you find a piece of turkey in there from last thanksgiving. Men barely shampoo their heads as it is (go smell your hubby’s pillow case) – they don’t need more hair on their bodies to stink up. Gag a maggot! Meanwhile, women gotta remove EVERY single body hair and if they don’t they’re gross. Why is okay, and now “sexy” for a man to be lazy and completely neglect his appearance?
SCHADENFREUDE!
This morning, I has it.
http://canadiancouncilforreligiousfreedom.…
RSVP
:Montrealman (04/07, 7.34PM)
I wonder what your thoughts and perspectives are with the results of the Quebec election yesterday.
Oh Trends….like Miami Vice Suits and glow in the dark clothing from Randy River…
RSVPS
: Klyde (04/08, 7:47AM)
What we had with this election is a conflict which existed at two levels, the legal and the emotional or nostalgic, if you want to use that expression.
At the legal level there is the conflict of basic charter rights which are enshrined in both the federal and Quebec systems, rights which guarantee freedom of expression, belief, association, security of the person, and so on. So Quebec is no Vichy, the regime in France which collaborated with the Nazis after their defeat in 1940. The problem for the PQ was to achieve their aspirations on the one hand while safeguarding the basic charter rights of everyone on the other. This turned out to be something of a political tightrope as a consequence of the emotional power of those aspirations. What were those aspirations?
You don’t have to go far to find out. The motto of Quebec is to be found not just on the official Quebec seal but on every car license plate in the province – “Je me souviens” – “I remember.” What do they remember? They remember the time before “La Conquete,” the conquest of New France by the British in 1759. Nostalgically seen a “Golden Age,” it was a time of simplicity, harmony and kinship in which were all bonded in the cultivation the land. Today, it is embodied in “Survivance,” the goal of French cultural survival in North America, continually threatened by the sea of English which includes the US. Don’t forget that Quebec remained “loyal” to the Crown during the American Revolution not because of their love of the English but because the Quebec Act of 1774 guaranteed the preservation of their culture, a culture most pointedly embodied in their language. In any case, while there is certainly no equivalent of Survivance in English Canada, it was at this level that the election was fought in Quebec.
At a personal level I completely sympathize with the goal of Survivance – for me it is not so much our connection with the British crown that makes Canada distinct from the US – but rather the “French fact.” It should be treasured. However, there was the feeling that in their pursuit of Survivance the PQ, with its Secular Charter (“La Charte”), was edging perilously close to religious xenophobia if not to its actual racial variant although the distinction was at times difficult to make. (Was the cross over the Speaker’s chair in the National Assembly an illegitimate instance of favouring the symbol of Christianity over the other religions or was it rather simply a legitimate expression of Quebec’s “patrimonie”?) So in the last analysis the issue necessarily reverted back to the legal question of the basic and inviolable charter rights of the Canadian citizen.
But you must never suppose that this election is the end of the story. Survivance is in the Quebec soul and will never go away. Nor should it. Somewhere down the line, conditions permitting, the PQ or its latest embodiment will rise again. But then, that’s the Canadian political story, isn’t it?
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
So Yay?
Yay.
RSVP
:MontrealMan (04/08, 9.33AM)
Would the PQ’s ideals of “Survivance” be all but lost with a now new majority from another party. I always understood that the francophone community wanted a distinct society and I have never had any issue with that. One only needs to look at what happened to the Acadians in Nova Scotia to understand the reasoning why Quebec francophones want Survivance. I also believe we are a great nation that includes Quebec. United we stand, divided we fall.
The world, and Canada, is forever changing. Those that can’t adapt fall behind. Cultures are fluid, not static.
I’m french. I believe language is important. But it does not define who I am – and that’s a choice I made a long time ago.
RSVPS
: Klyde (04/08, 12:45PM)
Well, no I don’t believe that the ideals of Survivance will be all but lost with a new majority from another party. I think this would be to take the short view. While governments change from year to year, they do not dissolve the identity of the French speaking people for that is what Survivance is, their identity. There may be changes in emphasis but, in my view, their cultural identity is the substratum of their collective life. That is who they are.
: jhey (1:32PM)
You say that Canada and the world is “forever changing,” that those who can’t adapt “fall behind,” that cultures are “fluid not static.” But forever changing into what? “Falling behind” in what respect? What is the nature or the degree of that fluidity? What does that mean? Is there no continuity? Does the past mean nothing? Or rather, are your observations themselves the result of your unchanging, static and unerring insight into the course of human history? You say that your language is unimportant, that it doesn’t define who you are. The obvious question then, is, “Well, what does define who you are?”
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
If you’re challenging me on my “unerring insight into the course of human history” you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Also, I have many friends and family from Quebec, and have debated these issues ad nauseam since I was a teenager. Although continuity and historical context are relevant in shaping tomorrow’s world – tomorrow’s Canada – the danger of falling into a nostalgic downward spiral is never too far away.
OB: Just ignore all idiots. Life is simpler that way. Make your own way.
RSVP
: jhey (3:20PM)
I wasn’t “charging” you with anything, just observing what seemed to me to be a contradiction between your assertions which celebrated change, adaptation and fluidity on the one hand, with the static, unchanging and unerring certainty with which you uttered them on the other. Shouldn’t your assertions be similarly subject to those irresistible forces of change, adaptation and fluidity as well? If I’m “barking up the wrong tree” then I apologize but would it be possible to tell me what the “right tree” would look like so I can bark up that instead?
While you’re at it could you distinguish for us between continuity and historical context which you claim are “relevant in shaping tomorrow’s world” on the one hand and the danger of falling into that “downward nostalgic spiral” on the other? In other words, where does such “relevance” end and that dangerous downward spiral into nostalgia begin?
Take your time. I’ve got to run.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
ughhh….
Clueless.
After a few weeks off, I see we’re back on the never ending hipster bitches. Halifax has always had its hip quotient. And those that feel angry/threatened/or the pathological need to explain their unsolicited complex contradictory feelings towards that group. Jhey I look forward to your ego fest self published pamphlet- ‘Just be yourself: telling the world you don’t care about hipsters 50 times a day’
RSVP
THE BOARD (04/08, 4:12PM)
No, I didn’t think you would be able to answer my questions (04/08, 3:49PM). While my post (9:33AM) was in response to Klyde’s request (7:47AM) for “my thoughts and perspectives on the results of the Quebec election,” you thought it was all about you. It wasn’t. But I know that you will never understand that.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Do the bums and winos use A La Carte to transport recyclables?
RSVP
:Montrealman (04/08, 3.01PM)
I appreciate your response but am wondering that if the Francophone community wanted Survivance as a means to preserve their culture, did they feel the time wasn’t right or that they felt the out going candidate wasn’t the right person to lead them? I should have said that Survivance seems to be on the back burner instead of saying that it is all but lost.
A reflection of the election results would suggest that at this time Survivance wasn’t high on list of priorities. Any culture has a right to self preservation, imo. The Francophones can have a distinct society without divorcing themselves from Canada.
Please enlighten me on this issue.
RSVP
: Klyde (04/09, 1:04PM)
I don’t believe I said anything to the effect that Survivance “is all but lost” since it is the motivating mainspring, so to speak, of the Quebécois. Survivance is not something they stand outside of, viewing it “as a means to preserve their culture.” Rather, it embodies their culture. It is, collectively, who they are.
However, at least outside of Herouxville and its equivalents, in the last election human values as enshrined in the Quebec Charter of Rights played the dominant role. Freedom of association, particularly in the realm of religious freedom, trumped any appeal to xenophobia as was implicit in “La Charte.” There is no intrinsic contradiction between Survivance and the Quebec Charter of Human Rights or its Canadian equivalent.
Your reference to a “distinct society” evokes the failed attempt at the Meech Lake Conference to grant precisely that status within Confederation to Quebec but it required universal approval of the other nine provinces which it did not get. Clyde Wells of Newfoundland, the only hold-out, saw to that. The recent election may be seen as a result of that failure, sadly only one of a series of similar elections in the future which we will have to endure.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Why oh why can’t quebec be more like ukraine?