A Revenge Honey Rant by Linnie

The nation-wide release of It Follows has lead to one of the only things about the horror community that really annoys me: horror hipster taste shaming. Before we go any further, however, let's get a few minor details out of the way. Just what is a hipster? The greatest philosophers of the world have debated this for decades, but according to Google, a hipster is, "a person who follows the latest trends and fashions, especially those regarded as being outside the cultural mainstream.   "

So a hipster... is someone who follows the latest trends... that are only trends... for people who don't follow trends.

Okay, that didn't clear anything up. But whatever. The hipsters have brought us some amazing things: artisanal cheeses, Joanna Newsom, theremins, the resurgence of craft beer (in contingency with the cheap coolness of PBR)... hipsters aren't ALL bad. But when hipsters begin shaming people who don't share their "oh-so-elite" tastes, that's where I draw the line. However, worse than the regular old fixie-riding hipster, is the "horror hipster," and that is where we begin this piece.

Horror hipsters love to take to Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr and whatever other social media platform is so uncool, it's now cool (Myspace?) and make people feel awful about themselves if they don't share a love for their favorite films. David Robert Mitchell's It Follows has become the latest film horror hipsters use to shame others. And I'm tired of putting up with it.

The problem with taste shaming is that unlike the friendly discourse that occurs when two people have differing opinions and can discuss them like adults, horror hipster taste shaming involves one person making another feel and seem stupid for not liking (or in some cases, liking) a film. The movie that used to draw that line was Cabin in the Woods, but now, it is officially It Follows. I have seen more people than I could possibly fit in this space attack people who don't like Mitchell's film with the following insults:

"Fuck you! You just didn't understand it! If you understood it, you'd like it."

"This is the best movie I've seen in decades. Obviously you just don't appreciate SUBTLE horror."

"Comparing this movie to Carpenter is lazy! It's so NEW and ORIGINAL! You just didn't get it."

The fact that it seems horror hipsters are incapable of accepting that it is possible to both fully understand a film and STILL not like it is what makes them such a frustrating group. What's worse, they often go on to claim YOU are the difficult one, by refusing to share their taste in film just to fit in. There is no winning with the horror hipster, and that is why it is better to simply not engage them at all. Just like staring down a lion, no matter what follows, it won't end well.

So I say, don't give in to the horror hipsters. If you love a movie that everyone else hated, embrace it and be honest. Don't let anyone make you feel "less than" about it. If you hate a movie that everyone else loved, let your hate flag fly. Time may end up seeing that YOU were the one in the right. Just remember... Crash won an OSCAR. And now everyone acknowledges that movie was the worst, but you didn't see one bad review about it when it came out. Maybe everyone was afraid to be the voice of dissent, the cheese standing alone, as it were? I say...

Be the motherfucking cheese! BE THE CHEESE!

For me, It Follows was like the time I had sex with a porn star: pretty to look at, but after 20 minutes, I didn't want to hear it talk anymore, and I never ever want to see it again.

But while we're at it, let's just get this taste shaming bullshit out of the way.

Non-hipster things I love: The original Dumb & Dumber, the music of Maroon 5, celebrity autobiographies, Patrick Swayze movies, my Android-OS based phone, Nicolas Cage...

Hipster things I hate: Bon Iver, fixed-speed bicycles, mustaches/beards, It Follows, page-boy hats, PBR, most hipsters...

Be the cheese, people. This is your Revenge Honey PSA!