Welcome to the Hipocalypse

by Erica Sackin

What, you thought we’d been canning our own goods for fun? That we set up farms on the roofs of buildings because we had nothing better to do? Carved “artists’ lofts” out of crumbling factories because they’re so much more aesthetically pleasing? Let me let you in on a little secret here: for any disaster that’s coming, the young Brooklynites? We’re ready to survive it.

We’ve already been experimenting with setting up our own sustainable communities. In fact, you may have read about them in the New York Times, in articles such as “A Commune Grows in Brooklyn” or pretty much any other Styles-section article with “Brooklyn” in the title.

While these articles touch on our preparations (communal living, making swimsuits out of Ikea bags), they luckily didn’t expose the truth — that this has all just been an elaborate practice round.

Think about it. Why else would we eschew “real” jobs for things like baking, bartending or making coffee, all of which are, I might add, entirely end-times-proof professions? (You think people won’t need coffee after the world ends? Or a drink? Trust me, when those four horsemen ride in you’ll be begging for some of our small-batch-hand-distilled whiskey. Begging.)

Living without health insurance? That’s stupid! Unless… you need practice for when things like hospitals and co-payments disappear in a rain of hellfire from the gods. Afterwards you’ll be kicking yourself for not stockpiling your friends’ expired medications, like we’ve been doing since 2005. Or living off your credit cards, once the financial system collapses and all our debt disappears. Or posting those nude photos, once the internet collapses and they all get erased.

The most hilarious thing about all of this is that we’ve somehow convinced you all that the crazy shit we’ve been pulling is actually just because it’s trendy. Mast Brothers embracing pre-industrial techniques to produce a chocolate bar? Come on, who would really go through all that trouble for something so trivial as candy? Unless they knew the end was coming and all industry would be ruined.

Remember when you were all laughing at us for wearing skinny jeans, only to be reading about them in the pages of Vogue the following year? Remember when the same thing happened with leggings, bangs and listening to Arcade Fire? Well this is like that, only with more fire and damnation. After all, we’re the ones who brought America the bedbug plague. When those critters go all mainstream after the fall of man, just remember who had them first.

So go ahead, freak out about the banks crashing and buildings collapsing, and whatever else is supposed to happen in the end of days. I’ll just be here, chillin’ with my fellow hipsters, eating some homemade sprouted grain bread with fresh ricotta from the organic farm farm we set up where the Edge condos used to be.

Erica Sackin is so ready, bitches.