Hipsters may be the District of Columbia’s greatest public threat and it is time for solutions. With their self-consciously ironic approach to fashion and culture, hipsters inflict a toll on themselves and society. The task of discouraging this toxic trend will not be easy, but with the students of AU already strongly in favor of the necessary measures, there is hope.
A tax on skinny jeans seems an excellent starting point. Bystanders are not the only ones made uncomfortable by these ill-fitting pants, for the severe tightness of the fabric constricts the wearer’s blood flow, which dramatically elevates the risk of a deep vein thrombosis in the leg (a potentially deadly affliction). In order to protect the hipsters from their own dangerously poor fashion sense (and to save those around them from an eyesore), almost everyone will agree that there must be a large tax (say $5) on the narrow-legged apparel to discourage its purchase.
After all, the students of AU and public-minded people everywhere applauded a similar effort to reduce the use of shopping bags in D.C., despite the usual ignorant critics. There is no meaningful difference between taxing bags and pants either. As the bags damaged the environment, the skinny jeans harm the community and more importantly, the individual wearer. A tax on one but not the other can only be opposed on shallow aesthetic grounds.
Do not forget the retailers and enablers of hipsterdom. Urban Outfitters has been mass-producing non-conformity for far too long without consequences. Like tobacco companies, they sell a dangerous and potentially deadly lifestyle to their tragically cool customers, so it is only fair for Urban Outfitters and similar stores to be taxed like the tobacco giants. If those costs are passed on to determinedly trendy consumers, all the better.
Of course, this approach to public health and happiness has its nay-sayers. Some critics point out that there is a conflict of interest when the government aims to lower the consumption of a good but raises more revenue if consumption is higher. When the government tries to reduce the number of plastic bags or tacky neon scarves, these rabble-rousers wonder how effectively the state can accomplish its goal when success means thinning its own wallet.
Most vocal are those troublemakers who reject the entire notion that the government should use taxation as a means of controlling the behavior of its people. Unwilling to submit to political authority over their own personal choices, this breed of nogoodniks refuses to acknowledge the government’s role in determining lifestyle choices. Cigarette taxes, bag taxes, soda taxes and hipster taxes are all off limits to these agitators, and the only justification they offer is freedom. Fortunately, there are very few of these hooligans at AU.
The popular attitude at AU and elsewhere will ultimately win the battle against hipsters (and all other public nuisances). Here, there is no objection to the government making value judgments about lifestyles and behavior. The absence of any principled opposition to the use of taxes to influence individual decisions has been well-documented by this publication. Hipsters, like cigarettes and plastic bags, are a public concern requiring government intervention. Smokers, shoppers and hipsters should only be free to make their own decisions when the publicly condemned “bad” choices are made more costly. And those people who disagree? Tax them too.
Ian Hosking is a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs and a proudly ignorant columnist for The Eagle. You can reach him at edpage@theeagleonline.com.
