The Indie Cred Test

I’ve never been clear on who or what makes someone a “hipster” or an “indie kid.” I think it has something to do with wearing certain kinds of hats and having strong, complicated opinions on debates that the average person isn’t even aware of: like the quality of remastering on the reissue of an album made 20 years ago by a band unpopular in their own time. The staff at the ‘zine-like, abrasive, hilarious Chunklet magazine, on the other hand, know all about them, having dedicated several miles of prose over the years to eviscerating them in print, online, and now in a new book, The Indie Cred Test.

The book is what it sounds like – page after page after page of test questions to determine one’s indie cred level. Stuff like, “Did you actually listen to all of Robert Pollard’s post-GBV output before decrying it, or was that not even necessary?” and “Do you wear checkered slip-on Vans?” There are short essays concerning “The Brief History of Cool,” some funny flowcharts, and ads for “The Bank of Indie Cred” that feature fake testimonials from people like Ben Gibbard and Jeff Mangum. It’s almost 200 pages of jokes about drinking, bands, shows, literature, clothes, and everything else that flashes into your mind when you think of indie kids. The book is super packed with yuks: they even bothered to make some jokes in the tiny print of the “Warranty and Disclaimer” bit at the back. Jokes no one will ever notice, let alone read. It’s great because if you don’t like or understand one section of the quiz, you can flip to another random page and see if you like it better. Flipping casually through is probably the preferred way to read, actually, as it can be fucking exhausting to read hundreds of jokey fake questions in one sitting.

The Indie Cred Test was edited by Henry H. Owings, who is also the guy who runs Chunklet. In a recent interview he responded to a question about being an “ageing hipster,” saying, “I take umbrage with anyone who calls me a hipster, not that I hear it much. I've never really aspired to be on a VICE magazine level.” He went on to shit on Pitchfork and mention that he went to dB’s shows back when they still had the original lineup, just the sort of accolade a hipster – or “musical connoisseur,” whatever – would mention.

The line about Bob Pollard’s post-GBV output quoted above, for instance, is funny – because of course no one has ever listened to all of Pollard’s post-GBV stuff, not even Bob Pollard. But the 90% of people everywhere who have neither heard of nor give a shit about Guided by Voices can’t begin to understand why anyone would find that joke amusing. They'll just shrug at it and go back to munching pork rinds or whatever it is 90% of people do. People not immersed in the frighteningly deep indie culture can’t mock hipsters because they don’t have the reference points to pull it off. If Jay Leno has to make a hipster joke he’ll probably just stutter out something about skinny jeans and the Arcade Fire and chuckle to himself in the silence that follows. Everyone knows that hippies liked long hair, acid, free love, and drippy music, but to make fun of hipsters – whose most mockable feature is their belief that obsessing over obscure ephemera yields status – you have to know what that ephemera is.

So The Indie Cred Test is one long deadpan joke about hipsters, but it’s also a love letter to hipsters. Most of the book is spent pointing out that it’s fucking stupid to care about bands and music culture very much, but it’s written by people who clearly care about that shit a ton, which is confusing, or ironic, or “meta” or something, and those are exactly the kind of adjectives hipsters eat up like overpriced falafel kebab wraps. The book even owns up to that central contradiction in its only slightly sincere bit, a “Message to the Hipsters in America” at the front:

“We here at Chunklet Industries like hipsters. You are our source material, but you’re also the only ones who will put up with us.”

That’s kinda sweet, actually. More importantly, the book is mostly very funny and worth buying. Even if you don’t ever read it, you can put it in your bathroom for people to flip through while they take a shit or wait for their turn to use the drugs. They’ll be impressed by both your level of hipness and your derision towards people who care about that “level of hipness” garbage. And isn’t impressing people the only reason you buy books anyway, you fucking hipster?

HARRY CHEADLE