Fountain Pens Useful Or Hipster Affectation - Article Found Online

[aderoy]

Ran across this today (some poor language):

 

<https://litreactor.com/columns/fountain-pens-useful-tools-or-hipster-affectation>

 

I am strongly in the useful tool.

[Honeybadgers]

I like the very straightforward writing style but also very obviously went in with a preconceived idea and went a little excessively out of his way to validate that idea. Not googling anything when nobody taught you how to do it and you threw the instructions away before reading them kind of disqualifies you from whining when it doesn't work. That's like saying Legos are too complicated because you threw away the instructions and figured you could just build that 800 piece castle from the picture on the box.

 

Just kind of makes him look like, to paraphrase his own language, the typical anti-hipster idiot, thinking that everything on earth should be easy and work magically with no prior training and just be intuitive like his unironic iphone. There's a reason you still have to go to school, we don't just put books on our head and learn through osmosis. There's also a reason you don't just automatically get to drive when you turn 16 without first having to take a test.

 

He also didn't take much time to explore any other possible avenues why someone might enjoy it. That's kind of the entire point of a well written essay, acknowledging outside concerns, ideas, or opinions and addressing them as they arise or at the end of your essay. He ALMOST hits it when he brings up the idea that a plastic cartridge is going to kill a turtle, but then realizes that a bic is basically two dead turtles. But that's kind of the extent of his expanded mind. He looked at it entirely through the lens of "is this hipster (bleep)"

 

Which in all fairness, it really isn't. I live in the (bleep) hipster MECCA of Seattle and Portland. Hipsters don't use fountain pens. At all. The hallmark of a hipster is to be as conspicuous as possible. Fountain pens are just too subtle.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Honeybadgers

[ISW_Kaputnik]

The casual and unnecessary vulgarity strikes me as a bit of hipster BS in itself. There's a kind of writer who seems to think this is a sign of authenticity, though.

 

In any case, as an evaluation of fountain pens, it's predictably superficial, and the comments about specific pens can be ignored. But beyond that, it's a bit silly, when exploring something that might be worthwhile in itself, to worry about what kind of people are most likely to share your new interest. To use another of his examples, I've spent some time looking for better ways to make coffee at home. I generally use a French press or a pour over maker these days, after hand grinding the beans. I couldn't care less what kind of person is most likely to do that.

[inkstainedruth]

Well, Hemingway he's not.... Of course, since I've only ground through 11 chapters so far of Death in the Afternoon in 3 weeks, maybe not being Hemingway is not such a bad thing....

Yeah, throwing out the directions is pretty stupid. Because it probably told you how to flush the pen out before using (did I save my plastic coffin from my Metropolitan? Don't remember -- but of course I was used to reading FPN before I got mine.

I do like how he started with pens that people around here generally suggest as started pens (Metropolitans and Safaris), rather than a MB 149 (because then if he couldn't get it to write he'd REALLY look stupid for spending that much money just to be a "hipster". Me? I'm way too old to be a hipster because I grew up listening to the British Invasion bands and the Summer of Love. So I started using fountain pens because *I* thought they were "cool". Not because anyone else I knew did.... And that's the real problem with the article. He's too busy trying to figure out how to "follow the herd"....

I didn't notice. Was there a way to post comments? Maybe someone should suggest he sign up for FPN and spend some time reading reviews and comments and generally trying to play with the grownups....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: Well, I had to go onto FB to the Litreactor FB page and post there. Yinz can all thank me later for falling on my sword to actually GO onto FB....

Edited July 19, 2019 by inkstainedruth

[Namo]

Once again a false opposition. It can be useful and a hipster thing.Or unuseful and not hipster at all. Anyway, what is the « useful » criteria? Thanks for sharing, but no thanks.

[Mech-for-i]

Not an informed and not really that well written either , it could be titled something otherwise and it might be sound & OK ; but when its published as sort of an editorial and without much in depth content and with vaguely stated points that's more like personal opinion ... that to me is bad reportage by any means ; the article really gives nothing regarding what the title said .. if the author would instead title it " my failed attempt to be hipster with the fountain pen " then it might be all around better presented ; as it is it just leave the knowing laughing about another ignorant and ill informed writer writing something he really do not have a clue about and care not to properly do the research before committing to a conclusion

[Enkida]

Clicked the link, glanced at the clickbait title, one glance at the article and the first sentence that pops out to me is

 

 

Non-writers will think you’re a pompous (bleep). If they notice your pen at all.

 

 

Every non-writer who has ever seen me writing with a fountain pen has been curious about it and pleased to see it, whether American or German. No one has ever called me a pompus a-hole just for using a pen, although several people have questioned how I learned to "write so well" (in cursive, also, I don't consider myself to have particularly beautiful cursive handwriting, but I guess if they don't teach bog standard cursive in schools anymore, whatever).

 

Took a closer look at the article, and the first two lines read:

 

 

I’m a curious person, which leads to trouble when it comes to the simple parts of life, like picking out a pen.

You really can’t get into trouble with a simple Bic.

 

 

1. If you're a curious person, you would have researched and known how to handle the basics of a fountain pen, rather than be baffled by their function to the point of posting screenies from "Ernest Goes to Jail" and describing a Pilot Metro as something out of Star Trek.

 

2. Yes. Yes you can get into trouble with a simple Bic. Please ref Montblanc Ladies' Edition Pearl thread in the ink forum.

 

 

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh.... I'ma pass on a hipster article written by a hipster choking on the throes of their extremely edgy hipsterness. Don't let the door hit your manbun on the way out, Peter.

[aderoy]

When I first seen the 'article' had hopes that were crushed before the first quarter was done. He barely touched the surface, yet was published so I guess it was a hipster writer wannabe that was 'published'.

 

Now where is my Starbucks Americano?

[inkstainedruth]

Don't let the door hit your manbun on the way out, Peter.

 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[OMASsimo]

Hmmm, seems that some people call "hipster (bleep)" what others call culture. How much would I trust an author who's too stupid to fill and write properly with a fountain pen and then publishes an article about it? Last time I had to sign a sales slip, I had to use my 1930s fountain pen because the damn ballpoint the sales person handed me didn't write at all. Could it be that the physics is different in the old world?

[inkstainedruth]

I eschew the proffered ballpoints on a regular basis, because I always have at LEAST one fountain pen in my purse when I go out. I'd rather run the risk of the ink drying slowly and smudging than to sign the machine with my fingertip and have my signature be *completely* illegible.

Makes me think of the scene in the beginning of The Return of Martin Guerre when the notary has drawn up the marriage contract between Martin and Bertrande, and one of the witnesses draws a duck as his "signature" instead of an X. Or later in the movie when the guy is dragged out of bed being arrested and one of the people shows him one of the many Xs on the warrant and says "Bertrande signed this too!"

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[sidthecat]

Call ME a hipster, will you? Take it back before I fling my avocado toast at you!

[OMASsimo]

Go ahead! What a great use for an avocado toast.

[pajaro]

Ran across this today (some poor language):

 

<https://litreactor.com/columns/fountain-pens-useful-tools-or-hipster-affectation>

 

I am strongly in the useful tool.

 

This might have been put a tad better.

[Bo Bo Olson]

How was I to know writing with a fountain pen can be fun, with the right nibs. Back in the Day of B&W TV...they were not the fun they now are. They were just something to write with....and it was a big deal to do so with a fountain pen in 4th grade......the ball points were around, but it was a big thing to write with a fountain pen in class.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Bo Bo Olson

[Freddy]

I don't give a { } what some { two words } has written....After all..hasn't passed the smell test.......Or

Begin the Beguine........................................The Very Thought Of You..Nat King Cole...........................

Fred..

an acquittal doesn't mean you're innocent.....it means you beat the rap..

clients lose even when they win...................................................................

[silverlifter]

Idiot has uninformed take on something that he knows nothing about.

 

That says "hipster" to me more than a person's choice of writing instrument (one that has worked exceptionally well for *checks calendar* ...

[Honeybadgers]

It's generally considered to be doing something "hipster" as doing something inherently more complicated and/or expensive but without any net benefits, specifically for the purpose of being more conspicuous for being "different"

 

He's not an idiot. Y'all are being way too harsh. His essay isn't fantastic, but calling him stupid is a bit harsh.

[SpecTP]

the writer is trying to be 'snarky' and 'conversational' style. but the allusions seems prosaic. in any case, the article doesn't even lend credence to the initial statement of being curious. rather, the curiosity is more akin to superficial interest at best.

[Parker51]

What's inherently wrong with hipster?

I am not one, but I certainly wouldn't be offended by someone for choosing that lifestyle.

Not everyone can find meaning in life by writing badly and getting someone to put it out in the public arena.

Many people chose to live their lives in many different ways which may not strike one as the most efficient, but based on what standard? And what is wrong with not being the most efficient? Where is beauty? Where is meaning? Where is love and spirituality?

Sometimes it strikes me that some people (authoritarian) want everyone else in the world to minimize their impact of existing by being the most efficient, least impactful persons, almost worker bee like, except when it comes to whatever they (authoritarian) are passionate about, and that aspect of life is where they (authoritarian) want everyone's resources to go. All they really demonstrate is their own (authoritarian) selfishness, especially when they start spouting the need to embrace what many others consider silly and superfluous activities, or worse, pointless, dangerous and harmful activities.