The Uninspired Idiot's Guide to Misanthropy

Misanthropy isn't very hard. Anyone can be a misanthrope. Even you. Let me show how easy it can be. Step one: open your eyes to the world around you. That's it. Just one sweeping gaze across the endless horizon of humanity should suffice in your efforts towards becoming a misanthrope. If the vast sea of humanity is too much for you to hate as a whole, here are a few subsets you can narrow your focus upon.

1. The Abusers: the kind of people who drive a lifted truck to Walmart, park in a handicap spot, pop a blue placard onto the rearview mirror, hop out, and speedwalk into the store.
2. The Better-Thans: these people drive luxury automobiles, merge into any lane regardless of current occupancy, drive on closed shoulders on the highway (obviously their own personal luxury lanes), and take up two parking spots just for the hell of it. I mean after all, they payed WAY more for their rolling heap of steel than you did, so fuck you.
3. The Chest-Beaters: always making it a point to show that they are in charge, no matter how small the chunk of Earth they are in charge of. 
4. The Fabricators: they always feel the need to look you dead in the eyes and fabricate the wildest stories. Always. 
5. The Loiterers: the seat fillers of Earth. Forever just there, never doing anything. Just standing, gawking at nothing, leaning on poles, holding down the concrete.
6. The Try-Too-Hardsters: always looking for the next hip thing to wear out ad nauseum. They always have to be part of the latest scene, buying their way to cool, and generally leeching off of anything that could be considered a subculture. They are ruining the world one bad sweater and copypasta lifestyle at a time.
7. The Scoot-Abouts: riding scooters everywhere, oblivious to everything. Clogging up traffic on a motorized vehicle that can't even exceed 30mph. No insurance. No licence. No registration. No problem.

You see? Now that's just a start. The tip of the iceberg. You can get as fancy as you want with your misanthropy. Give it a whirl. See what kind of things take the wind out the the sails of S.S. Faith in Humanity. 

The Scrap Metal Subculture

If you ever have an afternoon to see the sights, meet new people, and learn new things about the city in which you live, just breeze on down to the local scrapyard. Yes, kiddos, the scrapyard. Oh, this bustling hub of meltable money is the perfect place to people watch. Just sit back and watch as the shadiest of characters pack in with pick-ups piled sky-high with carefully laced towers of dubiously acquired metal. It seems to take a certain breed of people to take on this career path. Something about the ubiquitous nature of being a scrap metal collector means that to ply this particular trade, you must dedicate every waking hour to finding metal. It is nothing for a man in a tattered pair of coveralls, hands covered in filth, cigarette precariously balanced in the corner of his mouth to swoop down like a vulture upon a ferrous treasure no sooner than it can be rolled out to the curb. They are the ninjas of metal collection, they can smell the rusty iron permeate the air, they always know where to pounce. Now, I can say that I have never personally seen any attempt at an organized, professional, polished curbside scrap metal collection company, and I can't even imagine that they exist. You are not going to see men in matching uniforms in vinyl wrapped vans touting the name, address, and licence number of the collection agency roaming the streets, no sir. It is always pairs of scrappers, riding slowly down the streets in patched jalopies, dented and scarred, head on a swivel, peering out of truck cabs with yellow jaundiced eyes, aware of every opportunity for collecting a few more pounds of instant cash. But the scrap yard is where these men of metallurgical science congregate. Like ants carrying loads that seem way to big for one small insect to ever handle, the trucks roll in heaving with seemingly impossible stacks to dump their payload into giant mounds of metal, hives of iron waiting to be shredded, crushed, banded, crated, and sent forth on the slow boat to China. They wait outside in meandering lines, speculating on today's prices, trading stories, and speaking in the coded language of scrap. However, the best people to watch at the scrap yard are the wide-eyed and frightened yuppies who were talked into trying to squeeze a buck out of their own discarded water heaters rather than sacrificing it to the gods of metal. Mixed into these lines, shoulders hunched in as if they could possibly draw themselves inward far enough to hide from the professional scrappers, they stare longingly at their $50,000 leather upholstered chariots of safety and separation. Haha. Suckers. Was it worth the $8 to stand shoulder to shoulder with the common man? But seriously, go to the scrapyard, check out the situation as a whole. If the people don't strike your fancy, you can always watch the magnetic claw crane thing do work.

A Formal Apology to the Hipsters

Hey guys, sorry about all that disliking you nonsense. I kinda fucked that one up, my bad. You see, what had happened was, I had you guys confused with another subculture that I wasn't really even aware existed. I mistook them for you, mild annoyance grew to dislike, dislike almost grew to hate, all of this cast upon the entirely wrong group. All of that gobbledeegook was meant for the "Try-too-hardsters". Venerable foes they are. Often masking themselves like wolves in sheep's clothing as members of other subcultures. Alas, I have seen the seams in their Hipster costumes. Got those sneaky bastages pegged. Buying fixies at Walmart and wearing handlebar moustaches for the sake of fashion instead of irony. The shame, the shame of it all. Oh what's that? You rocked the Velcros before that Macklemore fellow? Sure, I'll buy that, you dirty Try-too-hardster. You bandwagon overachiever. Hipsters, you keep doing what you do. Do it for the irony, do it for the lulz. Step out of the dark shadows PBR in hand, Civil War brogans on foot, and ride that fixed gear into the infinite sunset knowing that you have one less enemy in this world. But beware the ones who hide among your fold trying desparately to fit in, buying their way into your lifestyle. Question the motives of anyone who buys ugly sweaters from Amazon instead of the thrift store and anyone who has reciepts for pashmina scarves from Eckerd drugstores dated anytime in 2012. But lastly, if they can't tell you exactly when something went mainstream, how can they say for sure that they were into it before it went mainstream? That's the silver bullet for Try-too-hardsters. Oh, and Try-too-hardsters, stop with the Imax 3D glasses with the lenses punched out. That's trying way too hard, even for you assholes.
Yours Both Respectfully Apologetic and Simultaneously Annoyed,
John Q. Pseudonym