I'm trying desperately to keep a few of my coworkers from hipstering up our restaurant. They're trying to convince the manager to let them try interior design inspired by Pinterest-- corrugated steel and reclaimed wood, vaguely industrial lighting. They'll probably win. I mean, shit, I'm leaving in a week.
Here's Central Perk from Friends: http://cdn.scahw.com.au/cdn-1d0ec3d5a48e030/ImageVaultFiles/id_366642/cf_7/628-centralperk.JPG something something HIPSTERS I could gut the shit out of this essay but I've been gutting the shit out of things too much lately so I'm just going to leave the author's wise words about totes: Somehow, a square of cloth sewn shut into a pouch and given arm-straps and maybe a logo has inspired a deep current of anxiety in the male population. The tote has “feminine connotations”, according to Reddit. “Is it gay for a guy to carry a tote at school?” wonders a user at Yahoo Answers. Even Styleforum, that den of menswear fashion, has gotten in on the embarrassment. “I am afraid to just carry the [leather tote bag] in my hands as I am worried it would look like a handbag,” writes Baby Pink, a username that seems like it would carry even more, uh, baggage about effete anxiety. Yet tote bags were originally as manly as could be. LL Bean designed the modern tote’s first ancestor in 1944 with the Bean’s Ice Carrier, a hefty bag made of reinforced cotton for carrying giant blocks of ice from “car to ice chest”. How much more rugged can you get?With apologies to Freud, my tote obsession has nothing to do with purse envy. Don’t call it a “murse” or a “man-bag”, two derogatory terms for what is clearly its own practical, potent genre. It is time for gentlemen everywhere to embrace this necessary vessel and overcome their shame, to shout from the rooftops: I’m a tote bagger, and I am proud.
If you're interested, you can tell them that an acoustician friend of yours was routinely called into restaurants 10 years ago that were full of corrugated steel and reclaimed wood because no one could talk over the din. If you could hear those pictures...