A few days ago, I met a former colleague for drinks at El Vez, one of about a thousand (okay, that might be a slight exaggeration) Stephen Starr restaurants in Philly.  We sat at the bar – topped with a tricked out gold bike that screams “I’m trying so desperately to be cool” – drinking sangria and snacking on chips, quacamole and free quesadillas, a happy hour bonus.

As the minutes passed, the restaurant became more and more crowded, filling with 1.) young businessmen and women living beyond their means and 2.) yipsters.  If you’re not familiar with yipsters, they are a breed of urbanite that are a hybrid of yuppies and hipsters and, to put it simply, are the kind of people who will spend $45 on a brand new t-shirt that looks like it was bought at a thrift shop for under a dollar.

The evolution of yipsters is quite simple.  In most cases, they are former emo kids who joined the working world.  Their newfound salaries have increased their materialism and desire to impress others with “things,” yet they still cling to their days of scowling, pondering and refusing to dance at basement shows in college.  They believe that their thoughts and opinions are original and creative, yet they are, for the most part, shared across the species, as a sort of inherent groupthink.  They are generally non-threatening, but their presence can signify a change in the climate of the city (often neighborhood gentrification).  Yipsters are the societal equivalent of finding a cockroach in your apartment; by the time you see one, you have a full-fledged infestation on your hands.

So, as you make the rounds from bar to bar and eatery to eatery, stay alert – you don’t want to get caught in a dark alley with a yipster, because you might not make it out with your taste in good music and individual opinions intact.