1. People who have really heterosexual conversations about whether or not it’s ‘okay’ to still have a beard, 10 years on from the gays making facial furniture fashionable again.
2. People who work in PR or advertising and decide they are going to start a House music club night. (But are only familiar with feeble chart House from the 90s).
3. People who fret unduly about what time is the best time to arrive at Berghain, when next visiting Germany. The legendary Berlin club recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, which, er, seems to confirm that any time would be a good time?
4. People relocating to Berlin because they are ‘over’ London. They always end up coming back. (Usually with severe haemorrhoids and an amphetamine habit).
5. People relocating to Australia because they are ‘over’ London. They always end up coming back. (Usually with a new-found hatred of barbequed food).
6. People relocating to L.A. because they are ‘over’ London. They quite often don’t bother coming back.
7. People who you bump into saying they have ‘just been’ to Bikram Yoga, or are ‘on the way’ to Bikram Yoga. Difficult to decipher why this information always feels smug.
8. People who bemoan all-things gentrified and corporate in their formerly rough neighbourhood, yet regularly shop, scoff and slurp at small, independent, characterful, family-run outlets such as Tesco, Pizza Express and Starbucks.
9. People with high-octane careers in the fashion industry terminally-confirming how tired they are, how stressed they are and how busy they are. A trilogy of tedium.
10. People using those selfie sticks and actually taking it all quite seriously. Eh?
11. People chucking a few snaps on Instagram, then reinventing themselves as, ‘a really, like, image-driven person…’. Lol?
12. People claiming they have always ‘been into’ Techno. Ditto – Reebok Classics. Really?
13. People who wear black and white clothing with a logo on the arm. Fashion shorthand for: ‘I don’t know who I am anymore…’
14. People knee-jerkingly slating Russell Brand. Better to slag off the same rancid stuff that he slags off – the government, tax avoiders, impossibly expensive housing, and so on. At least one famous person can be arsed to give a shit.
15. People in East London who keep thinking aloud about upping sticks to Tottenham or Walthamstow because, ‘Dalston has become too commercialised’ (since they moved there approximately one year ago). Bye!
16. People who still harp on about how ‘classic’ and ‘timeless’ brogues are and own at least one coffee table book about modern dandies.
17. People who think they are being controversial on Facebook by insisting Katie Hopkins is ‘fierce!’
18. People who obsess over mid-20th Century furniture from Denmark. But it’s all a bit, sort of, asexual and – not being funny – those sofas are not even that comfy.
19. People from local councils who think it’s a good idea to close down thriving and giddy nightclubs and pubs, so they can be reconfigured into ‘luxury’ flats. Why is it so important that everyone goes to bed early?
20. People opening yet another coffee shop with exposed brick walls and non-matching tables and chairs, flogging bizarrely expensive ‘artisanal’ coffee and ‘curated’ sarnies. Can’t someone redefine the genre by opening a cafe constructed from, say, bubblegum, tin foil, the tears of a clown and holograms, only serving Nescafe and hooting with derision at customers’ requests for wi-fi?
Credits
Text James Anderson
Photography R4vi