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Here at Stay Cold we get off on telling you what to do, so it’s only natural that we should offer the opportunity for the personal tailoring of our opinions to your private life in the form of an advice column.

Our columnist began her career at the Sixth Grade Gazette with the column “Dear Quackly” (at the time, ducks were funny…oh wait, they still are) where she advised on lunch-sharing etiquette, irritating siblings and the craziness of boys. She now spends the better part of her work days g-chatting friends through quarter life crises, irritating roommates, and the craziness of boys. While compassionate and objective, she is also not afraid to utter those dreaded words, “Sounds like he’s not really into you” and other harsh truths that somebody has to say. Eventually we’ll make it possible for you to submit questions and let her take you down easy — don’t worry, it’s a pleasant kind of pain.

In the meantime, for our first installment she’ll address a question asked recently of another alcoholic advice columnist. This poor lost nerd soul wishes she was hipper, lamenting her life in accounting and her lame shoes. While Salon’s Cary Tennis waxes surreal-poetic, drops names from before we were born, and advises a career shift to bartending, the (Adv)Ice Queen offers up some practical, hardboiled advice straight from the gangrene-growing trenches of Williamsburg — and advises a career shift to bartending.

(Read the letter!)
Don’t sell yourself short, Tragic! I’m going to let you in on secret. Hipsters are just nerds who THINK they’re cool. The only difference between them and regular nerds like you is that they glorify their own nerdiness, whereas you see yours as an obstacle to overcome. Learn to embrace it, and your grill will be splashed all over the Cobrasnake in no time. It’s like zen! Now, like any kind of radical shift in thinking this might be a little easier said than done. So, here are some do’s and don’ts to get you started…

DON’T:

• Wash your hair. Nothing’s less hip than shampoo. If you can’t quite bring yourself to embrace the grease within your scalp, I suggest investing some of that accounting paycheck in some expensive hair product that’ll give you your shiny bed head right back after the blowdryer strips it away.
• Give up on work entirely. While the hipster ideal is to doodle and sculpt away a trust fund, not all hipsters are naturally rich. The other one percent work hard to keep their closets stocked with leggings, hair products and stimulants. Lose the accounting and get into bartending, table waiting, or some kind of mild sex work. Don’t forget to act surly and superior to best highlight the irony of someone so hip working a job so demeaning.
• Get any older. These days, the real hipsters aren’t even old enough to vote. Puberty will be back in style before you know it.

DO:

• Embrace ugly. This should go without saying, but you need to trade your Nikes and Nine Wests in for some ill-fitting cowboy boots or kindergarten-colored pointy-toed flats with ample toe cleavage. And don’t even think about it – Uggs may have invented ugly but they are OVER.
• Start spending more time on snarky blogs and exclusive message boards, so you always know everything about everything, especially stuff that no one else knows about. Since you’re already a nerd, this should come naturally.
• Stop exalting hipsters and start making fun of them! The first rule of hip is to smack-talk hipsters. Never admit you aspire to be one. If you become one, you must never acknowledge that, even especially in your head. Hipsters hate hipsters.