In the war between Bon Iver and Hipster Runoff, everyone loses
Discovering that the Internet can be a big, scary, and unkind place is an important lesson for a blossoming artist. Beyond the fawning Facebook followers and carefully controlled fan pages lies a yawning chasm of anonymous haters, semiprofessional snarkers, and other party poopers who have nothing but time and bile on their hands. And though hardly the “New Artist” the Grammys believe him to be, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon proved himself a bit green in all things haterade yesterday, taking on the indiesphere-lampooning Hipster Runoff in a not-so-epic Twitter battle. And the hunter becomes the hunted.
Yesterday afternoon, Vernon took the sometimes amusing, mostly unreadable site to task for a typically convoluted and over-the-top post entitled “Bon Iver sounds like dying indie rock on SNL, has mysterious HUGE black teenager in backing band.” Apparently not familiar with the site’s M.O. (and not amused by its reference to bandmate Reggie Pace), Vernon fired off a pissed-off/slightly-confused tweet:
@hipsterrunoff who are you? You fucking totally suck. I really dont enjoy your situation. As people/person. #gonnawatchgettysburgnow
Seeing a chance to strike back while Vernon was busy watching Gettysburg, Hipster Runoff quickly ran another post. This one, “Dirty Projectors support Bon Iver, says HIPSTER RUNOFF is the scum of the indiesphere,” poked fun at a tweet from Dirty Projectors singer Amber Coffman, in which she sided with Team Bon Iver in the ongoing drama. Clearly distraught, Vernon sought to ease his pain by retweeting an inspirational, haters-gonna-hate message from Lance Armstrong, of all people:
The battle continued long into the night, with Vernon taking the ill-advised tactic of retweeting his suddenly emboldened detractors. Like @kindjacket:
@blobtower BON IVER #WASPY. Oh and hipster runoff are much better than your effing back infomercial
Following even more “you suck, bro” tweets, Vernon threw up the white flag, announcing:
My cats just pissed in my closet. I lost at a game I didn’t know I was playing. Watched Gettysburg. Scored 11 points at Noonball.
Hipster Runoff has yet to respond, though the image of a cat pissing in a closet is an appropriately melancholy note to end on. Happily, the little-loved CW reality-show H8R is no longer on the air, sparing us the otherwise inevitable sight of a distraught Vernon being consoled by Mario Lopez.
Oh, and that “effing back infomercial”—a.k.a. the Bon Iver workout DVD—is available today.
On the Road with Jeff Rogers trailer from Rogcity Fitness on Vimeo.
