Dignity Never Been Photographed 007
Palm Springs, 2011
Welcome back to Dignity Never Been Photographed, a series in which I discuss a meaningful photograph I’ve taken
Technically speaking this is a picture of me, not by me. It was taken by my ex-girlfriend at Elvis Presley’s “Honeymoon Hideaway” in Palm Springs during the 2011 edition of Jeremy Scott’s Adidas Coachella party. This raises questions of authorship and ownership of a given piece of art (not that this photo is necessarily “art”). I’m not particularly interested in engaging with those questions at the moment, and I won’t, but I am aware of them.
The person in this photo with me is Bruce Ly, better known as BJ Panda Bear. I had never met Mr. Ly before this evening; fourteen years on, our paths have yet to cross again. Our interaction was brief and not particularly stimulating; I remember us talking past one another, as if we were mismatched NPCs in an open-world RPG. I’m sure this as much my fault as it was his, if not more. After all, I was the one who asked him for the picture.
Like many other twentysomething “alts” around this time, I was aware of Mr. Ly via Hipster Runoff, where he was frequently written about under the sobriquet “Unchill AZN Bro.” Authored by the elusive Carles, Hipster Runoff cataloged the concerns of a particular group of terminally online, media-literate, downwardly-mobile urbanites during the early days of the Obama administration. In the days before social media ate the internet, it was one the few places this subset of individuals—let’s call them a “class”—could reliably gather online to discuss their interests: American Apparel, chillwave, “perfect alternative breasts,” and so on.
Hipster Runoff both reflected the times in which it existed and anticipated those to come. The site traded in trash, trivialities, and disposable (sub)subcultural flotsam. As hot as the comments of any post ever got, there was always the implicit understanding that none of this shit really “meant” anything. It was the internet, after all—just a place to waste time. None of this was really “real.”
At the same time, Carles’ work was considerably more incisive than the milquetoast posts of the corporate(ish) outlets that covered the same stuff: The AV Club, Jezebel, Imperial Era Pitchfork, etc. There was an “authenticity” to Carles’ voice, from the abbreviated IM proto-meme speak prose to the doubt, distrust, and self-loathing he often expressed in his posts. Fifteen years ago, this esoteric, idiot-savant approach to cultural inanities marked him as a true innovator. Today it is the house style of the influencer, the front-facing video maven, and the podcaster (🙋♂️).
In more wistful moments, I find myself wishing Hipster Runoff was still around, but I know it’s for the best that it isn’t. It was one guy’s fun little project that came along at the right time and went as far as it could (or should). Not every website is destined to be acquired, razed, and remade into a digital tulpa by legacy media.
Rather than “sell out,” Carles blew the whole thing up. According to Wikipedia, he sold the address and social handles for about twenty grand in 2015. The site gradually fell apart thereafter. Today, www.hipsterrunoff.com simply displays an “Under Construction” message in ASCII art, along with an email address for some dude named “Trevor.” Whoever he is, I hope he’s a “chill bro.”
I appreciate Mr. Ly’s willingness to be photographed with me.