Yelp: helping you find cheap happy hours, hangover brunch spots, ’80s dance nights with no cover, and now … hipsters. Those maniacal geniuses have created heat maps for 14 cities, highlighting which areas have the most reviews mentioning words like “hipster,” “biscuits,” “cocktails,” and “PBR.” If hipster-bashing isn’t your sport, you can also filter for “yuppie,” “frat,” and “tourist” (and also stuff like “romantic” and “noodles”; we’re not sure what subcultures those represent). Available cities include Austin, Boston, Chicago, London, L.A., NYC, Paris, Philadelphia, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and D.C.
Seattle’s “hipster” word map unsurprisingly shows a bright red concentration on Capitol Hill, with a respectable blob downtown and on 15th Ave. The Ave in the U District has a small splotch, and Fremont has the faintest shadow of a dot near 36th:
But is this really showing where the hipsters live (or drink), or just where people THINK the hipsters live (or drink)? Maybe it would be more accurate to look at the heat map for “PBR,” still a fairly accurate predictor of hipsters (much as a high concentration of standing water is a good predictor of mosquitos).
Consider yourself warned. Unless you enjoy hitting on hipsters — what’s the pithy name for someone who dates hipsters, a “dipster”? — in which case, happy hunting.
