The Charmless Man

Blur once sang about the Charmless man. He was a being of no substance and no value “Educated the expensive way, He knows his claret from a Beaujolais” these being the trademarks of a social tosser. “He moves in circles of friends who just pretend that they like him, He does the same to them and when you put it all together there’s the model of a charmless man”.

The new wave of charmless man has all the hall marks of the old option but now presents himself a slight differently. Educated the expensive way is not so important as long as one gives the demeanor of education. The “geeks” have now become the class act, importing themselves into the arts with subtlety and now teaming up to empower the younger nerd. The problem arising is that with popularity comes hipsters (the new wave Charmless man), a person who latches lovingly on to the idea being a cool guy outcast, because a few years ago he was such.

He was not a nerd nor a geek, he was a run of the mill young man. Not popular but not as unpopular as said Geeks, but when the cool clock shifted towards geek chic o’clock the masses of basic teens jumped up a few pegs in hip.

What we have now is an explosion of average minded people trying to pull off intelligent dialectic processes. Groups of twenty somethings on their fixed gear bikes talking loosely about Wes Anderson being a demigod to existentialistic thought in cinema. Open bongo open mic nights. Chest cut T-shirts and big glasses. I enjoy talking, debating, shooting the shit on any level with any body about anything. Just don’t let me over hear two people talking about epistemology with no understanding of the word.

Scenario: The basic street passing of two rival charmless gangs.

When approached by another group of familiar similar types, the first alpha hipster steps forward like a lion in the wild. He presents his mane of designer labels and with a flick of his fringe continues to blankly stare at his opponent. The second Alpha has no choice but to respond with a drastically unenthusiastic “sup” or variation of a slack greeting. If vocalised well enough and with enough Charmlessness the first Alpha can either walk away defeated or try one more move. The hardest move to play. Alpha one slips him the wet fish handshake and moves on without a hint of eye contact, victorious in being the biggest wang hole to grace Lewisham.

Why can’t people just be nice.