In an effort to be ur BFF, I like to answer questions from real HRO readers that embody what ‘we can all relate 2.’ My blog isn’t just about posting keut people and BLOGGABLE music–it’s about helping people try to find meaning.
QUESTIONS FROM READERS ANSWERED BY HRO BLOGGER “the CARLES”
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BangBusRider69 says:
Hi Carles,
On Friday I took a BoltBus from NYC to Boston, and I wound up sitting next to this girl with long brown hair and excellent bangs. Here are some things I observed about her during the 5 hours bus ride:
1. She was watching Planet Earth on her MacBook
2. At one point in the trip, she listened to an MGMT song on her iPod
3. She had a phone conversation with her friend about whether or not they should purchase Girl Talk tickets
4. She was carrying (though not reading) the new David Sedaris
I couldn’t tell if she was legitimately cool or just a poseur. What do you think? Did I throw away an opportunity for a new best friend by not talking to her? Am I going to run into her at Don Hill’s and will we have some awkward conversation about how we once sat next to each other on a bus?
You’re the best.
Carles sayz:
She sounds like a pretty intense alt. The bottomline on girls like this is whether or not they are [HIGHLY TUGGABLE]. If they are attractive, it’s good to have them as your friend. If they are ‘kind of pretty’ or ‘ugly’, they might be a decent friend for a while, but will ultimately be useless to you. (You will unfriend her one day). Any female can buy the Toolbox for becoming an ‘Interesting Alt (Girl Edition)’ or even ‘an Alt Who Attracts Moderately Alternative Boys.’ This isn’t enough to mean she is good enough to be your best friend.
An interesting thing about alt-women is how insecure they are. Even if they are a kute girl, they always assume that the other girl in kute clothes . Ultimately, women are lonely, and want to identify with one another. This means they will force a connection and have a whimsical friendship that leads to hyping up the upcoming weekend via wall-to-wall posts. This will eventually end, and they will talk about how they never liked one another, and the other one only cared about fickle stuff like clothes, and music, and everything that they used to think made their friendship meaningful. Women r tough sometimes… wish they weren’t so insecure and just wore their American Appy with pride.
n e ways…
It sux that every 1 has a Mac now, so u can’t ‘find out who authentic people are’ just based upon what laptop they are using.
Here are a few good questions to weed people out & find out if they are authentic:
- Do u like Girl Talk?
- Do u read blogs?
- Do u watch the show THE HILLS?
- Who is ur favourite female singer of the past 10 months?
- Do u read HRO?
- What’s better: music, film, or the internet?
- What is a meme?
- Do u use gChat or AIM or MSN messenger or ICQ or FBchat or Skype or stickAM?
- Is ur Macbook WHITE, BLACK, or AIR or SILVER or WATER or FIRE?
- What is ur favourite Wes Anderson short film?
- What’s the difference between ‘alt’, ‘hipster’, and ’scenester’ and ‘gothster’?
- Do you take black people who are involved in ‘the entertainment arts’ seriously?
- How has racism changed in the past 5 years?
- George Bush? (phrased as a question in the middle of a normal conversation)
- The Global Economy: Bad for the world?
- Do u eat breakfast?
- What extracurricular activities were u involved with during High School?
- Where do u see urself in 100 years?
If they answer all of these questions correctly, they are probably good enough to be ur friend for about a year.
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GoingAway2College69 says:
carles, im about to get vulneable. fair warning.
I want to know what happens to hipster tweens when they grow up. Don’t you dare say that they just become alt moms and alt dads because that’s a bit shallow to say don’t you think? Seriously, what happens when im 30? I don’t think I can wear my CYOA shirt when i turn 30, I don’t want to be “that guy that never grew out of his hipster phase.” would you still be my friend if i became a frat boy? Don’t get me wrong, I love this hipster shit, but I don’t see myself going anywhere with it. If I’m a fratboy at least I can follow a tried-and-true paradigm. If i continue to be a hipster, I’ll be burned out by the age of 30 without any true sense of identity. After all, hipsterdom is all about being young and hip right? If i become a fratboy I can be rich and have a hot wife and spoiled children. You see what I’m saying? Short term sacrifice, long term gain? I can go to dance parties every weekend, but where is that going to take me? If i
go to frat parties at least I can network and become connected.
A frat boy made fun of me last night
Carles, save me, please.
Carles says:
Ur at a real (rlly) important moment in ur life. There comes a time when there is a fork in the road, and u must decide whether u r going to be a mainstreamer or an alt. The poet Robert Frost wrote a poem about this tough decision. In the poem, he references coming to a fork in the road, but taken the road less travelled(the alt choice). This makes a difference, and he believes that his life is more authentic. Basically, u should usually choose the alt-road if u want life to be somewhat meaningful, but it’s not for every1.
Alt is deep inside of you.
The truth is, most people don’t want to be alt forever. It should be phased out between the ages of 25-30. While you can still follow the ’stuff kids are reading’ and listen to ‘what the kids r listening 2′, you are hopefully thinking about your 401K, and have already contributed a significant amount of money to your Roth IRA. In addition, you don’t want to be the parent who looks to turn his kid into ‘the alt that he can’t be.’ This will be the modern version the ‘mom who didn’t fit in during high school and did whatever it took to make sure her daughter was the head cheer leader skank who gave tugjobs to the entire football team.’
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Anonymous sayz:
I can’t believe the amount of racism in this blog!
and all the idiots who leave racist comments!
crls, your a fucking idiot.
you forgot to mention that native americans were
enslaved at one point, and we have christopher columbus to thank for the genocide of the native american people.
do you know how many native americans were killed by white people in such a short span of time? you took their land, enslaved them, gave them diseases, tried to wipe them out, lied to them, and then put them on reservation camps and tried to destroy their culture!
i can’t believe how casually racist people are in this blog!
crls, just cos your blog is going to mainstream hell doesn’t mean you can try to get your hipster cred back by being racist to attract more closeminded white alts.
as a minority, your blog is fucking insulting to us non white alts.
so FUCK YOU AND YOUR NARROW MINDED READERS!
Carles says:
What r u tlkng abt? My webstats say that most of my readers are ‘oreos’ and ‘halfies’ and ‘brownish-es.’ Also, most of the people who read this blog make less than $10 per year, so I assume that means ‘coloured people’ are reading it, since America has a history that has made sure that these demographics don’t have consumer freedom.
“VOTE OR DIE” -Puff Diddsy to young people & minorities
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MomandDaughterSharedScreenName22 sayz:
HEY Carles. I just thought I’d tell I’m deeply in love with your blog. Thank you for giving me hours on end to laugh at American Appy humor.
My mom also thinks that the name ‘nappy dynamite’ is hysterical. Yeah, I’m 15. THANKS 4 BEIN’ FUNNIE.
<3
Carles says:
Even though u have 1 leg, u can still dance! Can’t believe Heather Mills broke up the Beatles. Was she the k00ky AZN one?
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AltMarineNavyArmy69 says:
i wear american appy and i’ve served 3 tours of the elektr0 wars. does that mean i go to alt heaven?
Carles says:
Serving 2 tours in the electro war guarantees a spot in alt heaven. There are other ways that u can get into alt-heaven…such as getting handies from alt tweens, getting tuggles from entry-level alts in headbands, and starting a local t-shirt business that charges less than $70 per shirt. However, not every1 has the creative tools or the inherent alt-iness to get into alt-heaven. Most people should NOT expect to get into alt-heaven. You will burn in mainstream hell, alt hell, or general purgatory.
Pray to the alt-Gods. Don’t be an ‘atheist’ or a ‘conversational agnostic.’ Pray every night that God shows u a sign that life is meaningful. If u pray hard enough, God will put a music festival within 200 miles of u where Girl Talk plays. G0d worx in Mysterious ways, yall.
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ImportantPerson69 says:
dude please make ur posts smaller, i’ve only been looking at the pictures for the past week
Carles says:
Sorry! Never really blogged before until recently…still trying to find my ‘voice’ if u know what I mean… Does n e 1 know the difference between ‘blogging’, ‘online magazines’, ‘journalism’, ‘design’, ‘cool hunting’, ‘microblogging’ and ‘reporting’? Would appreciate n e help yall can offer… didn’t major in COMMUNICATIONS in college (parents made me go PRE-MED).
u know the old saying ‘a picture is worth a thousand words–but a n00d is worth 10,000 semen thingies dead in ur hand.’
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ConflictedSoldier69 says:
carles, when u were fighting n the electro wars, did you evr h8 the other side?
or did u just “morally disagree” with them but did yr duty 2 your country n the wars nEways?
Carles says:
It’s important to understand that we don’t all want the same thing. Much like the war on terror, there are two opposing ideologies in direct conflict with one another. Whether it takes a nuclear bomb or a roundtable conference at Chili’s, something is going to have to give. U know how French people can be. U know how Australian people can be. It’s important to reflect upon how much u h8 other countries while you are watching the Olympics. There is a reason that our world is full of boundary lines–to keep people away from the way we do things. It sux when some1 tells u what 2 do, or when they think they can do it better. There is nothing wrong with hating a group of people for the way that they live their lives’. Don’t be afraid to embrace this hate and write songs about how much u h8 the world. Plenty of popular global bands have embraced this and are now the top sellers in the world. (Linkin Park, Rammstein, Lenny Kravitz, 30 Seconds to Mars, James Blunt, Bette Middler, Barb Streisy, The Justices, Toni Braxton, K0rn, Creed, Guster, the Jonas Brothers, Miley Montana, and Kid Sister are a few of these artists).
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MainstreamerOnMyMind69 says:
Sup c4rles/???
Sunday night I went to the bar and met the kutest mainstream alt I have ever set eyes on, her favorite band is Ratatatattatatatatat and she thought wearing american apparel made her authentic to the alt community. We went back to her place and made passionate alt/mainstreamer luv and then parted ways. She has been stuck in my mind since that day and I dont think I will ever see her again, I think the only thing getting me through this si tugging one out to pixz of shannon sossamonn.
Help me crls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cant get this mainstreamer out of my alt mind grapes.
Carles says:
Never forget this natural fact: Every1 wants to conquer a mainstreamer.
We all want to capture the heart of a mainstreamer, and help him/her find themselves by ’showing them what it’s like to have alternative freedoms, and to look at the world through your alt-tinted glasses.’ We want to know that we fit in and we can bag a mainstreamer, however, we want to feel justified for choosing our alt-lifestyle. It’s a real ‘Catch 22.’
You had a special night with a mainstreamer, and that’s probably all u needed. Before u know it, u would have to hang out with her boring friends and go out for margaritas. While her friends would love you for ‘listening’ to them and ‘asking questions that made it sound like you were interested in their lives’, you would eventually get tired of this routine. Your mainstream girlfriend would wear less AA, and you would hate her for her mainstream commitments. Even though you would dress mainstream-ish around her parents, they would pick up on your alt-ines
s, and you would realize that the only way that they could completely love you would be if you were a Streamer.
You had the streamer for one night, and you probably could have been in a 1.5-2.5 year relationship with her. That’s like 10% of ur alternative life, and that’s WAY too long to give up ur freedom. It’s gonna be okay. “There’s plent of alts in the sea, and there’s way too many streamers in the ocean.”
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1 last question that no1 has the answer 2…
Please submit ur LETS GET VULNERABLE questions to carleser [at] gmail.com .
Let’s get vulns again soon, yall. Sometimes we need it to remind ourselves how much we mean 2 one another, and how we truly understand 1 another.
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