It occurred to me that much gnashing of teeth and rending of shirts could have been spared had the barista said "you aren't going to like anything here."

I've eaten at some pretty interesting places before and 9 times out of 10 the waitress can tell I'm out of my element and rolls with it. If the barista were any good at her job, not only would she recognize that you're not her typical customer, but she'd inquire about your coffee preferences and experiences. After two or three quick questions, she'd discover that this is a new experience for you, explain that what they do is a bit different and might not be your thing. Then she could go on and explain what makes their coffee different and why, what they look for in making their coffee and why, so you can try something new and come to a guided, yet natural appreciation for their product. If that's too time consuming, that's what pamphlets are for.

I personally do this all the time when talking to people about things that I love and I often tailor my recommendations to what I know about them as a person. Take comics for example. Recently rinx asked me about getting into comics herself. Knowing that she is well read and completely new to comics, I recommended to her titles and authors that are both in my opinion, high in quality while being accessible. Absent from that list though, with one exception, are super hero comics. I really doubt they'd be her thing, or at the very least, her views of the stereotypes of super hero comics might be part of the reason she hasn't explored the medium yet. Conversely, if my friend PlaceboEffect came to me and said he was tired of what he's been reading and is ready for something new, I'd throw different titles his way, but would avoid super experimental titles or slice of life graphic novels, knowing they wouldn't be his thing.

When you own or work in a business that revolves around customer service, and especially customer service that involves a product such as food or music, every single time a person comes into your place of business, they are coming to you for suggestions. It is literally your job to assess their tastes and desires and make recommendations based upon their feedback. Making snap judgments about a person and then dismissing them based upon those judgments means you're failing to do your job.

I begin to wonder how similar it is to the punk ethos. The music is shit because music is bourgeois but fuck you it's our music.

This reminds me so much of the mid '00s and nerd culture. I'm sure there were a lot of elements involved, the biggest one being the internet, but all of the sudden elements of nerd culture was becoming mainstream very quickly, like some kind of pop cultural appropriation. All of the sudden there were cute girls buying Invader Zim clothing and accessories, frat boys started showing up to Halo and Magic the Gathering Tournaments, my friends had parents who didn't grow up watching Star Trek or Star Wars falling in love with the TV series Firefly. It's like someone opened the flood gates and all of the sudden nerd culture spilled out and normal people spilled into our realm in the blink of an eye.

I remember it made a lot of people very upset. I remember debates where people would slander and accuse pretty girls at comic conventions as posers, doing it for the attention. I remember people saying shitty things about the frat boys at Halo tournaments, saying that they're playing the game for the fun and not because they enjoyed the story or would want to check out any of the supplemental universe material such as the novels (plus, they were probably salty as fuck because a lot of those frat boys were just plain better). While I didn't feel this way myself personally, I understood where this was coming from. We were the ugly, the awkward, the social recluses. Comics, video games, movies, were our escape. They were our emotional shelter. Suddenly, the very people who we felt marginalized us were invading our world. I can see how that would be scary. The thing is, nerds everywhere kind of owe all of those people an apology. Do you think the Avengers would have ever been a possibility if things had stayed as they were in the '90s? Fuck no.

Like I said before, Hipsters arguably have good taste. I think that if they opened up a bit more, I think they'd discover that more regular people can appreciate what they appreciate to nearly the same degree. I also think that by opening up and sharing what they have to offer, they'd make a positive contribution to American culture.