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Waiting an hour to sit down and pay $14.50 for a plate full of eggs, avocado, and toast is downright preposterous. But it’s a necessary evil because skipping out on brunch is second on the “I don’t want to be friends with you” scale only next to removing yourself from the group text. Is spending three days worth of lunches on a plate of ingredients that total less than $3.00 justified? No, but when you’re yuppie scum, that’s just. what. you. do. Crushing brunch is the new going out; everyone knows that.
But even if you’re aware of the absurdity that is the brunch phenomenon, that’s not going to stop the older generation telling us how dumb we are for indulging in pre-noon drinking while eating overpriced peasant food. Bernard Salt – yes, this man’s name is Bernard Salt – is an Australian journalist who wrote, “Moralisers, we need you!”, an ambiguously titled rant on the hipster cafe culture that brunch fuels. I recommend that you read it in full, but because us brunchers only have a 140-character attention span, here are the best parts in a tl;dr version that’s as easy to digest as smoked salmon benedict.
This week we’re discussing the evils of hipster cafes. Do you know why hipster cafes have milk crates for seating? To keep baby boomers at bay. They know they can’t officially ban us, so what do they do? They rig the seating so that tight baby-boomer hamstrings recoil at the prospect of positioning the buttocks below the latitude of the knees. Sitting is fine. Getting up is problematic. And doesn’t the sub-40 set know it. They don’t want we over-50s despoiling the authentic grooviness of their cafes. (Is groovy still a word?)
No, Bernard Salt, ‘groovy’ is not still a word. It died along with people hosting cocktail parties in the comfort of their own homes. And while I agree that most restaurant seating is uncomfortable as hell (hipster cafe or not), the notion that any restaurant would be dumb enough to use milk crates as seating is preposterous. Partially because that’s just overboard, and partially because milk crates aren’t a thing anymore.
Do you know what else hipster cafes do? With malicious aforethought, hipster proprietors deliberately design their menus with the tiniest of writing and print these same menus using a light-coloured ink on light-coloured paper. That is pure evil writ large. And then these same hipster proprietors play thumping, pumping music that reverberates off polished concrete floors so as to eliminate all hope of audible conversation.
Well, yeah, Bernard. Of course we’re trying to eliminate audible conversation. If you can’t hear one another talking, you have a legitimate excuse to be on your phone the entire time rather than looking like the asshole who’s removing themselves from the conversation intentionally. I’ve got Snapchats to fire off and Instagram stories to post. I didn’t come to brunch to talk to my friends, I came to show people who aren’t my friends that I’m at brunch with my friends.
I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more. I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle-aged and have raised my family. But how can young people afford to eat like this? Shouldn’t they be economising by eating at home? How often are they eating out? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house.
Salt’s argument here is inherently flawed. Is he correct that people spend $22 on avo toast? Yes. Is he correct that it’s absurd to spend $22 on avo toast? Well, yes. But are people actually going to put that $22 towards buying a house? No, because no one buys houses anymore, Bernard. Like, sure, I could save and buy a home. But I’m a litttttle busy spending my hard-earned money on $45 t-shirts and $80 sweatpants that I never actually work out in. Do you even *get* fashion, Bernard, or are you too busy with your home maintenance projects that I can simply complain to my landlord about? Yeah, exactly.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sit at my desk and text with my friends about where we’re grabbing mimos and crepes this weekend. I’m a dangerous man with some money in my pocket. .
[via The Australian]
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Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
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It looks like art imitates life in TGDAG. Will, you’re more Girl than Todd.
I learned an important lesson about income when I quit smoking. I thought I was going to save so much money once I wasn’t ripping 20-30 heaters a day. I don’t know where all that money went, because I never bought a house or a car with my savings. I guess I probably spend it on booze and brunch
I somehow manage to spend the same amount of money when I stay in over the weekend instead of go out – you replace a few drinks at the bar with a nice steak you grill at home, replace Uber costs with a little nicer bottle of wine. Self-sabotage at its finest.
Treat yo self
Since quitting, do you find yourself disgusted by cigs in your daily life but the second you catch a buzz get an uncontrollable urge to light up?
Quit four years ago and it never goes away. Can go months without a craving and then it just hits at the bar, I buy a pack, chain smoke 12 cigs like a fiend, throw rest of pack away to keep myself from starting up again.
I have the same problem with ladies of the night. Still trying to find a convenient way to throw the ones I don’t use away, though.
Definitely not disgusted. I would love to go back to smoking. I occasionally smoke cigars when I drink if the cravings are really bad
I just did an approximate calculation of the money I have saved from quitting smoking, $13,000 saved. I should have been putting $$ in a jar each day I didn’t buy a new pack.
You’ve probably saved even more since that one asshole friend stopped stealing your Bic
I feel like Bic stealing evens out in the long run.
How can we afford to eat like this? We can’t. But we do it anyway. PGP
Spot near me offers $25 all you can drink beermosas and food. Haven’t missed a brunch since.
Where is this magical place?
Prices that low lead me to believe it’s either Destin, Huntsville, or Reno.
Seriously, we need an answer.
Mattitos in Dallas
World of Beer (WOB). It’s a chain. Look them up http://www.worldofbeer.com
Sounds like Bernard is jealous he hasn’t been getting brunch invites.
Dude clearly has never enjoyed a Lobster Benedict while drinking a perfect mimo (9 parts sparkling wine, 1 part OJ, drop an orange peel or berry in if you’re feeling fancy)