Original Hipster – William Lloyd Garrison

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Glenn Beck tries to teach history. He claims Woodrow Wilson was a socialist president, that FDR didn’t help keep this country from going to shit, and that socialists have been controlling the government since before your granddaddy was born.

But Beck has never taken a real history class outside of Beck University. Like all good scams universities, there are classes titled Faith 101, Hope 101, Charity 101 (If Beck knew people with college degrees he’d know this archaic number system is no longer used), and “Presidents You Should Hate”, which sullies the entire institution of the Presidency and one’s love for America. Guess which George Bushes AREN’T mentioned in that class?

Because I am in college, and therefore an elitist prick, I know a thing or two about history. For example, you need a couple fricken degrees to teach history. Which requires an undergraduate degree in history, and a PHD in research/teaching. Since Beck the ignoramus didn’t even go to college, I think I can interpret history just as well as him, if not slightly better.

This is why today I’m saluting Northern Abolitionists of the 1830s and 40s, particularly William Lloyd Garrison. Unlike Southerners, who thought black people were property, Northerners didn’t buy that racist bullshit. And for good reason. These abolitionists, like modern Hipsters, had similar belief systems. They had a strong sense of individuality, cared about moral issues (like our crusade for gay marriage), were confidence in themselves, and believed greatly in their own superiority.

On top of that, William Lloyd Garrison was in every way a hip mofo. He hung around women and blacks (like his bfffl Frederick Douglass), in a time when white men didn’t do such things. He utilized the printing press, and wrote controversial articles. He was such a poor, dirty Hipster, who loved his worthless writing career, that he spent many many nights sleeping on the floor of his printing shop, unable to afford a house or bed. And his work pissed off so many people with his unique and forward-thinking graphic design and typeface, that his rivals tried to throw his printing press in the river.

Best of all, with a big middle finger of Irony, in 1844 he burned a copy of the Constitution. But don’t worry, he loved America and only burned it to be controversial and different.

While Garrison’s relationship with his ‘token’ black friend Douglas eventually ended (due to conflict about whether Modest Mouse’s Lonesome Crowded West was better than David Bowie’s Suffragette City), he will forever be remembered for making America less of a dickheaded and racist country.

And for that, we thank you, Mr. William Lloyd Garrison.