Over Mother’s Day weekend, I got the opportunity to hang out with my 17-year-old sister who, under my guidance, has blossomed into a hipster, complete with ironic T-shirt and ukulele. As we talked about some of the shows we had been to, the fake bands that we’ve formed and “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist,” I realized something about hipster evolution. Now, I haven’t submitted this theory for peer review or anything, but I have come to the conclusion that the only time it’s fun to be a hipster is when you are in high school. Maybe I’m just bitter about it, but this truth made itself known to me as I listened to Hello Seahorse!’s new album “Hoy a las Ocho.” For the first time in a really long time, I really wanted to get a ukulele and sing about baking cupcakes for friends around a campfire.
These Mexico City natives encapsulate what being a hipster in high school is all about: being cute, nervous and playful. To put it simply, this band is hella twee and should probably replace your overplayed Kimya Dawson album as your soundtrack to the summer. It’s poppy, fun and has a really cute girl in glasses on vocals.
The album seems to be inspired solely by snacks, camping and crushes. “OK! … Lobster” is a soft pop jam composed of hi-taps, tambourines, keyboards and hand claps to cutie magootie Lo Blondo singing about bugs and ocean breezes and how “Simple things make me feel so good!” Even if you are as dead inside as I am, you can’t help but be nostalgic for the time you and your friends donned your floral summer dresses and tweed jackets stolen from the women’s section of thrift stores for a trampoline party. Or when “Won’t Say Anything” comes on with the same formula plus Oro de Neta doing his best not to make out with Lo Blondo. You can’t help but make the biggest and stupidest grin when he manages a quick peck on the lips in the music video as she sings “Don’t you make a fuss about.” I swear, that song makes me wish it wouldn’t be completely absurd to ask a girl on a date to the park for some fruit punch and hummus sandwiches. But alas, I am grown up now. I’ve almost completed puberty, I’ve quit vegetarianism and when I go out, it’s to walk the rails alone.
My little sister told me that this is not what life is about. It’s about having fun with friends, hopping fences and sneaking out at night to have a picnic on the beach. My mom asks me what she is up to and worries that going to her prom in Converse sneakers, oversized neon glasses and friendship bracelets instead of corsages isn’t wholesome. I assured my mom that it was a phase and if I remain her teacher she will soon see through hipster bullshit, get into free jazz and start becoming disenchanted with the world. But that only made her more nervous, saying that “she’s the only one in the family that doesn’t think the world’s a joke, shouldn’t we nurture that?”
“Well, I guess if you want her to be happy,” I said.