Hippest State in the Union?

Can this be true? Does the 612 really have that much clout? Rochester is pretty quiet and St. Cloud is, well, St Cloud. And we have Willmar, and the ball of twine and Paul Bunyan, and Funkley and Nimrod and two towns called Oslo. So I ask, is Duluth really that “hip” to make up the difference?

32 thoughts on “Hippest State in the Union?”

  1. Things White People Like

    White people like to be told they are hip. There are lots of white people around here.

  2. There’s a difference between hipsters and being hip. Hipsters are posers, but usually have money. Those who are “hip” generally don’t realize they are hip. I think Brooklyn is full of hipsters and MN might be hip.

  3. awww crap…

    now we’re gonna be inundated with scenesters from California a’la Seattle in the early 90’s.

  4. Thats what happend to the Haight-Ashbury in Frisco. It was cool for about two weeks and then it ended up on the cover of Time Magazine. Killed it like a stake in the heart. On the other hand we can lay claim to:
    Judy Garland
    Roger Maris
    Eddie Cochran
    Eric Severoid (SP?)
    Bobby Zimmerman
    His Royal Purpleness
    Spider John , Tony Little Sun Glover, Dave Snaker Ray
    and all of those other hip cats and kittens I can’t think of right now.

  5. What Tim said. The word “hipster” lost its connection to the word “hip” many years ago.

    Believe me, we aren’t going to be inundated with anyone. Except maybe kids from Wayzata who land on hipster when deciding which cliché to try on in college. But we already have that.

  6. Ironically? Sarcastically? Of course.

    I can’t really talk much really, being a transplant. I was stationed out in Washington in the early 90s when California started migrating north so I was kinda playing into the reference. I also met a bunch of people from Minnesota who seemed nice enough.

  7. Zra, I was working a book festival in the early ’90s in Seattle, and people I befriended there told me not to breathe a word about really being from Cali, but to emphasize living in Minnesota, b/c everyone in Seattle hated Californians and loved Minnesotans. Funny you brought that up, people sure were up in arms about it then!

    When I lived in Philadelphia in the ’80s, South Street was a very cool street. Then the city strung a banner across it, reading something like “South Street, the hippest street in town” and ruined everything. The chains moved in, developers too. South St. totally lost it bohemian chic character. We’ve got to be vigilant that this does not happen here in Minny!

  8. Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

    A: It’s a really obsure number, I’m sure you haven’t heard of it.

  9. No, Duluth is not hip. Except in a bad way.

    Or, unless you count hip replacement surgery. We do have good hospitals!

  10. Good hospitals? Like St Scaries? Golden Cross anyone? Doesn’t jive with my Caligari Cabinet sized collection of horror stories spawned within their torture chambered walls (though I can’t say they’re any worse than any other corporatized utility muffin research facility peddling lime green get-well jello and wet canned peas). I’d give a hallowed left nut for Hipsters to suddenly inundate the T.P and generally drive up realty so I could sell at a humble profit and move on dot org, but take it from the lifers and breath easy, it will never happen. The failure to lure Google was heartbreaking, yet predictable, and so I’m personally saving up to rent a U-Haul semi trailer, chock it full of ‘Duluth is Cool’ paraphernalia, and drive it to L.A. to hawk the shit on the first busy looking intersection I find, while I double my efforts with Hollywood executives to plant further random references to Duluth in media.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFIMWRXWY90

  11. Duluth hip? Don’t make me laff! There are lots of mustaches around, but they aren’t ironic, they just belong to the common and garden redneck that are local to the area. There are lots of nineties fashion, but that is because they are actually from the nineties. The local newspaper did an article when skinny jeans came into fashion (2 years too late around here) and local kids were so shocked that people would ever wear them. Dude, this place is so not hip. It’s embarrassing how unhip it is.

  12. Is l-a-f-f the hip new way to spell laugh? A mustache is the stuff of irony? Skinny jeans, or fashion in general, matter at all?

    It’s funny that there are basically two reactions to Minnesota/Duluth being referred to as hip:

    1) To cringe at the idea that it might be true.

    2) To argue that it can’t possibly be true, because the people around here just aren’t smart enough to follow lame trends.

    It’s easy to see why no one wants to be hip — it’s a term from the 1940s that, by today’s standards means “someone who is trying too hard.”

    So thank you, magazine or website I can’t remember the name of, for bestowing upon Minnesota this title no one wants.

  13. Buzzfeed.com be damned – the fact that this piece has lingered here for so long exemplifies the fact that Minnesota is just not hip. Or does it? Hip be damned too, I say.

  14. You can take the troll away from the Big Lake, but you can’t take the Big Lake away from the troll.

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