Hipster Runoff

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About

Hipster Runoff (site domain: hipsterrunoff.com), sometimes referred to as "HRO", is a satirical blog that focuses mostly on alternative music, fashion and culture. According to the HRO^[1] about page:

HIPSTER RUNOFF is a blog worth blogging abt, created by Carles that is trying 2 stay relevant. It blogs abt buzzbands, alt_stuff, and memes.

History

The domain hipsterrunoff.com was registered on October 2nd, 2007.^[2] According to a 2009 interview with Carles in the now defunct Missbehave^[3] magazine, HRO wasn't always a satirical site:

"I started out as "just another MP3 blog" who eventually got on Hype Machine, but then realized that people can only value a free MP3 so much. When I write about music, I try to write from an identifiable consumer perspective."

Carles has maintained an anonymous public image being protective of his online pseudonym. On August 28th, 2010, Carles published a post to the Hipster Runoff Tumblr^[15] that claimed he might be shutting down the blog.

Might not be worth it any more.
This might be it.
Learned a lot from every one, but maybe this project has run its course.
I’m sorry if I let you down.
goodnight moon
bye

On March 25th, 2011, a blog post was published to HRO titled "The End / Goodnight, bb"^[13] that claimed he would be shutting down the site.

I think I've accomplished everything I wanted to with this project. I can't imagine myself blogging about anything else ever again because I feel like I have already blogged about everything and I am just a slave to boring alt memes.

Two days later, the blog returned with a post titled "Carles is Back. Hipster Runoff has reunited / unretired."^[14]

Features

The site features two main blog sections: the "Alt Report" that focuses on alternative related music and pop culture, and the "Mainstreamer" that covers more conventional music and celebrities. There is a database of musicians and celebrities called "Topix", a collection of web comics called "The Museum of Modern Alt", and a "Podcasts" section that consists of recorded webcasts.

Style

The articles are written in a unique voice that parodies teen IM/text message speak using words like “bb” (baby) and scare quotes around cliche labels and phrases. He often uses the cathphrases "perfect alternative breasts", "personal brand", "entry level", "relevant" and references the clothing seller American Apparel as "Am Appy." Several variartions of the word "bro" are commonly used, and an article in the Daily Pedestrian described Hipster Runoff as being "singlehandedly responsible for the proliferation of the word bro." The style has been described by Gawker^[16] as "Pitchfork mixed with whippets mixed with chat room slang and maybe a certain faux-Rain Man quality."

Highlights

Unchill AZN Bro

Unchill AZN Bro is character that is frequently featured in articles that include images of a young asian man at various parties in California. He has a topic page^[11] that describes as an "alternative celebrity."

"Unchill AZN Bro is known in LA as "BJ Panda Bear." He is a relevant nightlife celeb."

Shannon Gaga

Shannon Annette Cantu is an Internet celebrity and performer from Corpus Christi, Texas, that goes by the stage name Shannon Gaga. She is often featured in Hipster Runoff posts when she stars in music videos, or is photographed at events in flamboyant attire.

Bebe Zeva

According to an article in The New York Times, Bebe Zeva is a teenage fashion blogger who got her start as a T-shirt model for the I Am Carles brand on Hipster Runoff.

Ms. Zeva’s first taste of Internet fame came as a T-shirt model for Hipster Runoff. “I owe him my career,” she said without irony of Carles, with whom she began a correspondence over MySpace, after her mother gave her blessing. The blog would go on to dub Ms. Zeva an “alternative it-girl.”

Chillwave

According to the Wall Street Journal blog^[4], the genre label "chillwave" was coined by Hipster Runoff in 2009:

Last July, a blogger named Carles, writing for the site Hipster Runoff, clustered together a handful of up-and-coming bands with a similar sound and recording approach and, by most accounts, birthed a new genre: “chillwave.”

Traffic

Hipsterunoff.com has a Quantcast^[6] US rank of 13,254, an Alexa^[7] US rank of 7,731 and a Compete^[8] rank of 57,944 as of September 29th, 2011. As of October 3rd, 2011, the @hipsterrunoff^[5] Twitter account has 64,851 followers, and the official Facebook^[9] page has 9,100 likes.