1. 2/26/2016 LOGAN T. HANSEN: In search of proper labeling - Manistee News
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Home / Columns / LOGAN T. HANSEN: In search of proper labeling
LOGAN T. HANSEN: In search of proper labeling
Posted by Logan T. Hansen on August 3rd, 2015
Sometimes I feel like a contradiction.
Whether or not the terms “hipster” and “nonconformist” are necessarily
positive or negative, they’re labels I like to think I adhere to — probably the
latter more so.
And then my name is called out by the barista at Starbucks: my tall Java
Chip Frappuccino is ready.
For me, nonconformism isn’t political or rebellious or anything like that. An
extreme statement in my book is refusing to purchase an iPhone.
Why? Because everybody has one of those and I’ve stood by my belief that I
don’t want a glorified iPod for a cellular device for years.
But then again, my laptop is a Macbook Pro, and my philosophy there: once
you go Mac, you don’t go back.
And so in some ways, I’m just making life more difficult, because Apple
products are seamlessly compatible with one another.
But let’s not get tangential. I am not (solely) on a tirade against iPhones; it’s
bigger than that.
Also absolutely abhorrent is most of the music that makes its way onto
radio stations that play “today’s hits.”
My semi-sincerest apologies to those fans of Iggy Azalea, Nicki Minaj and
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2. 2/26/2016 LOGAN T. HANSEN: In search of proper labeling - Manistee News
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Justin Bieber, but in a lyrical, content-based sense, those artists do not
deserve the airtime they receive.
Musicians and bands I’d like to hear on the radio — and this is the hipster-
ish part of me coming out — include English-born, Beatles-inspired
singer/songwriter Jake Bugg; Swedish indie folk singer/songwriter José
González and American singer/songwriter Rachel Taylor, formerly part of
the Tacoma-based indie duo “He Is We.”
But — and notice all of these “but”s, it’s a word I can’t seem to escape from
— then I switch the radio on in my car and Pitbull spits out his usual
formula — some mumbling, a Spanish word here or there and a shout out
to four cities, according to one internet meme — and somehow I’m feeling
the rhythm and jamming along.
Then later on I hang my head in shame, either externally or internally. And
alright, honestly, those pop songs are good for club mixes and dancing and
what not. But still, they are less preferred to songs that come with
meaningful lyrics.
This is how I drive myself mad, though. Six or seven times out of 10, I will
choose to swim against the current. The other three or four times, I might
be caught redhanded with a caffeinated beverage from Starbucks in one
hand and the cracked-up iPhone 4s that I use as an iPod in the other hand,
listening to Pitbull’s “Timber” (featuring Ke$ha, nonetheless).
What am I to do with myself?
There is a set of rules I have, ones that I have literally written down, that I
try to follow in my everyday life.
But instead of listing those, I’ve made up my mind — imagine that — to
share a lesson from one of my favorite authors.
Published in his 1920 short story collection entitled “Flappers and
Philosophers”, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a ditty called “The Four Fists”, in
which a young man learns life’s lessons the hard way, by taking four knuckle
sandwiches to the jaw.
The second of the four fists comes when the main character, Samuel, is in
his college years and becomes known by most on campus as a snob.
“Samuel despised all those who were merely sportsmen without being
gentlemen, or merely gentlemen without being sportsmen,” Fitzgerald
wrote.
And so one night he happens upon a man of the working class who refuses
to give up his seat on the horsecar, or horse-drawn tram, for a young girl,
which is common courtesy, and Samuel becomes furious.
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3. 2/26/2016 LOGAN T. HANSEN: In search of proper labeling - Manistee News
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After spouting “a full-featured, dime-novel sneer” at the laborer, Samuel
receives a crack in the jaw and promptly falls to the ground. Instead of
allowing his friends to go after the working man, however, he calls them off.
He realizes that the man needed the seat after a long working day much
more than the young girl, and he was foolish to have “made a loud remark
about the right of the lower animals to ride with human beings.”
Fitzgerald closed the second act of his short story with the following:
“Snobbishness is, after all, merely good breeding grown dictatorial; so
Samuel’s code remained, but the necessity of imposing it upon others had
faded out in a certain gutter.”
I mention this 95-year-old tale because the fact is, whether I’m a hipster or a
nonconformist, an iPhone opponent or Starbucks coffee drinker, a once-in-
a-while Pitbull enthusiast or a Bieber despiser, none of this means I should
expect anyone else to be the same.
So while I try to figure myself out, I’d encourage you to do likewise, and
maybe someday we’ll sit down and have a convivial conversation about it.
Just don’t forget the Starbucks.
Posted by Logan T. Hansen
Logan Hansen is a summer intern at the News Advocate; he
will be covering a variety of topics and events. He can be
reached at (231) 398-3113 or mnaintern@pioneergroup.com
View all posts by Logan T. Hansen →