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In a search for the ultimate ironic statement with which to casually impress his friends, Jonah Epstein '11, hipster, decided to take his ill-advised pretentiousness to "a level above the highest level most people are capable of even comprehending" and sign up for the Brown Football team.
Having finally exhausted the last shred of 80's irony by growing out a mullet and listening to only Morrisey B-sides for a month, Epstein wondered how he could take his hipness in another direction.
The answer came when Epstein and his friends hosted an ironic Super Bowl party. Commenting about his idea, Epstein said, "I was kind of sick of just pretending to 'bro it around,' as me and my [hipster] friends call it. I realized I might as well try a more authentic form of irony." Added Epstein, "It was almost like Bukowski's own ghost came down and stuck the idea in my mind."
But coolheaded enthusiasm quickly yielded to panic when Epstein took the field for practice. "The first couple minutes or so of our scrimmage-thing were awesome - we got to wear tacky spandex and mouth guards - but then, out of nowhere, when we were standing around and looking at the other guys, some dude yelled 'Hike!' and all hell broke loose. It was like Dante's Inferno or something," Epstein recounted from his bed at the Rhode Island Hospital. "Everyone was running around, and these huge dudes came and smashed straight into me. I'm like 'what the fuck, man?' Seriously - you know?" Epstein was of course referring to the team's offensive tackles, who, at around 250 pounds each, weighed nearly double Epstein's 130. Epstein slowly picked himself up from the ground, spitting blood from his mouth and re-adjusting his skinny jeans, which had acquired a few more tears and fallen slightly askew about the hips.
Scratches marring every inch of his skin, Epstein figured that he would have to stay in for at least another play to be able to credibly tell the story to friends later. What followed, however, can only be described as grisly.
Caught in the middle of an offensive rush, Epstein achieved truly authentic irony as he found himself on the bottom of a dog-pile, in between the grass and 1500 pounds of hulking flesh. "It was gruesome," commented a spectator, "I think I heard a bone snap. though it might have been his Ray-Bans." When the dust finally settled, Epstein lay on the ground looking unkempt, annoyed, and dirty, but more so than usual.
Nate Jones '10, Brown linebacker and bro, expressed some sympathy for the broken-boned hipster. "I felt kind of bad for him honestly, but what was I supposed to do, not play the game?" Questioned about Epstein's experience, a few of his hipster friends expressed a degree of admiration and disappointment for not having come up with the idea themselves. Zach Smith '11, however, nonchalantly commented, "Yeah, whatever, it's kind of last year."
But even through adversity Epstein remains optimistic, "I'm not letting it get me down too much; my friends are planning a Republican roller-disco party at my flat in Brooklyn this weekend, and I'm scheduled to bring my Lionel Richie records. So-"
