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I'm An Indie Bro. Is That a Bad Thing?

Breaking down the stereotype to see if I should be offended.

By Duncan HolzhallPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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Indie-Bro-in-Residence, high school era

I wear corduroy shirts and grey plaid pants, I listen to Khruangbin and Avantdale Bowling Club, I go to house shows to see unsigned artists perform, I drink bubbly rosé out of a can and I think I’m better than everybody else for doing the above. By this definition, I am an indie bro.

I’m unquestionably a product of my environment. Before the peer pressure of high school kicked into gear, I wore T-Shirts and cargo shorts and listened to Queen’s Greatest Hits. As time wore on, I began to acclimate to my peer group, listening to jazz and hip-hop while cuffing my jeans. This existence was happy and relatively sustainable as well. Until, as is the American way, college f**ked everything up. In a space as gargantuan as a state college, every aspect of your personality has to stand out in order to find your village. Not too dissimilar from the Vogelkop superb bird of paradise attracting a mate, finding who you’ll get along with in a massive setting requires differentiation. Within the vast ecosystem of Drake fans, basketball-jersey-over-hoodie dudes, and VSCO girls, every choice you make helps you stand out. And from the ashes of these Herculean labors rises the indie bro.

Vogelkop superb-bird-of-paradise, nature's indie bro

As a self-proclaimed music nerd, I needed to make sure that I found friends with great tastes in music. I’m a music student, certainly I’ll find some people there with good taste! There were two roadblocks here: everyone listened to a whole lot more classical music than I was used to, and beyond that, there was still the lowest common denominator issue of the school at large. But one afternoon, walking down the hallway of my dorm, I heard the quiet jazz-rap of Chicago treasure Noname. Poking my head into the room from where this sound was emanating, I found a percussion student, and I was put at ease. Maybe it wasn’t this hard. Leaning into my hip-hop and jazz knowledge, I found friends who appreciated what I brought to the turntables and turned me on in turn to psychedelia, alternative R&B, singer-songwriter, dream pop, and dozens of other genres. Now I find myself prowling the depths of Bandcamp to find the coolest, grooviest, most underground music I can, embracing the crate-digging aesthetics of indie-bro-hood online

Some of the coolest clothes come from Goodwill, Crossroads, and countless other thrift outlets. I got a $5 two piece navy pinstripe suit that needed the legs hemmed and the sleeves taken up a little bit. That exact same suit with identical alterations would have run $140 at the low end at Macy’s. Additionally, it’s more environmentally conscious to buy clothes second-hand; donating clothes keeps them out of landfills and buying secondhand reduces the amount of manufacturing, keeping carbon emissions lower and all that jazz. Thrifted clothing makes up a majority of my wardrobe, and everything you see below was purchased at a thrift store (except for the underwear and socks, because I’m not a freak).

Indie-bro-in-residence, present day

But being an indie bro isn’t just about the clothes you wear or the music you listen to, it’s a lifestyle. After a week of music theory, choir, and high-falootin’-music-making, the gang goes out to any number of house shows in the neighborhood. One of the bands is fronted by the cute barista at the coffeehouse, another is a romping brass band full of music students, and I don’t know a single person in many of the others. But all of these bands make fun music to dance to, jump around to, socialize to, and listen to. Knocking back jungle juice in a solo cup, canned wine, or a poor man’s Four Loko, these venues were the ne plus ultra of the indie phylum, a religious service for the congregation of indie bros.

I am unquestionably an indie bro. But is that a bad thing? I commit no crimes, save for the occasionally questionable fashion statement. I admit that my kind has a tendency to be judgmental of others, but most often it comes from a place of wanting to show people how much more there can be to life than an ad nauseam pursuit of popular hedonistic urges; through this lens, I find myself in the company of John Lennon on Revolver, Aldous Huxley in The Doors of Perception, and Steve Jobs’ revolutionary product, the Apple LISA. Finally, I have come to accept the label of “indie bro” because I don’t really mind what other people think of me. I know that I am happy with who I am, while constantly striving to improve. A label like “indie bro” isn’t going to upset me because I am being myself, and you should too.

Indie bros unite!

indie
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