John, while I agree with Ms. Miller that a good deal of “American intellectual men under the age of twenty-five have lost track of acting like Men,” I’d counter that hipsterism is not sui generis, but a kind of synthesis of Bohemianism and Dandyism, both of which date back to the 19th-century.
And actually, quite a bit farther back than that. It is sometimes said that Alcibiades, the great Athenian Spartan Athenian strategos, was the first Dandy — a lute-playing pretty-boy with a lisp and and an expensive little dog.
Which brings me to my next point. “Girls hate” hipsterism and androgyny? Alas, Manhattan below 14th Street and Brooklyn below the Newton Creek stand as living, breathing, American-Apparel-wearing refutations. And as I recall, Robert Plant and David Bowie — and Alcibiades — did all right with the ladies.
I expect Cornerites will know that 95 percent of world-historic events are directly attributable to the attempts of men to impress women, and so it must be that if there is an increase in the supply of unmanliness in 21st-century America, it is because women are increasingly demanding it.
So I say to Ms. Miller — preach on, sister. But preach to XXs, not the XYs. Women get precisely the Men they deserve.