A Reluctant Hipster?

I took another of those cutesy quizzes on Facebook a couple of days ago.  My FB friend had gotten a result that called her, loosely, a 'wanna-be' hipster.  I thought it was cute, so I took the quiz and got 'so hipster it hurts', and, you know, I've been thinking about that result ever since.  The quiz claimed I was intensely counter-culture and all, but rejected 'owning' that, flatteringly saying that only a true hipster does that.  The last line of their analogy said that the only thing I hate more than Wal-Mart is another hipster, which is the topic of this entry.

What brought this up for me were strong feelings of embarrassment today at my church.  We attend a Unitarian Universalist church, as it's the only church whose creed I can comfortably accept.  However, our church has a predominance of eccentric people.  I'm kind of okay with the eccentricity, but it's the DESIRE for eccentricity that repels me. 

We were asked to repeat an affirmation today, including the statement that we were a liberal religious community.  I was really upset about that, and I'm wondering about why.  When pressed, I guess I have to admit that we are 'liberal' in our religious views.  I guess I just don't like 'owning' it.  And the obvious pleasure that the speaker had in saying this, in his wish to present us as 'dissenters' and all, just rubbed me the absolute wrong way.  I was embarrassed, frankly. 

Which brings in the Walmart/hipster statement of the analysis.  Yes, I'd rather shop at Wal-Mart for a month than be seen as some eccentric liberal religious person who DESIRES to be seen as a dissenter and wants to confront a backlash.  I don't--and, frankly, I'm quite embarrassed when my visiting friends see that side of my church presented as a source of pride in and of itself.   

P.S.  Oh, the Wal-Mart bit may not have been addressed in my blog previously, but I do try to avoid shopping there somewhat  (I think I've gone years without shopping there).  I've actually eased up on that quite a bit lately--for the sake of convenience, and because they've had a little better PR lately.  Of course, you probably know that large numbers of their employees receive welfare checks to make ends meet, and every new Wal-Mart generally puts many, many small businesses out of business.  Just felt that was pertinent to the discussion.