EVANSTON—A new fraternity has recently joined the 17 nationally-recognized fraternities at Northwestern. Informally dubbed the “Hipster Frat,” the organization is currently unnamed. According to president Hudson Tyler, undecided Weinberg junior, frat names are too “mainstream” for the group.

The fraternity claims that with its laid-back atmosphere it will offer an
“alternative” experience at a college where everyone on North Campus except the Slivka kids are involved in Greek life.

With a toss of his unwashed bangs, member Charles Kingston assured that the frat won’t haze pledges. New members will, however, be expected to get ironic tattoos. Kingston then pointed to a tattoo of a connect-the-dots puzzle in the shape of a flying giraffe emblazoned on his protruding hip.

Last week, a Flipside writer was invited into the frat house, ostensibly because of her small frame and ambiguous ethnicity. The presence of a reporter was apparently a point of contention within the group; as Jude Winthrop, a Jazz Studies and Gender Studies double major, explained, “We want to be underground; we don’t want this piece to make us well known, but we also don’t want to be like one of pretentious secret societies at Harvard. It’s tough.”

Tyler told a Flipside writer that the house is off campus, in a part of Evanston that hasn’t yet been “gentrified.” Upon entering the frat house, our writer documented scattered Threadless t-shirts, worn-out Chuck Taylors and posters of bands no one has ever heard of. When our writer noticed a stack of Urban Outfitters catalogs, one brother nervously pushed them aside, claiming the guys who live in the building fill their wardrobes strictly with vintage clothing. The house, which runs on solar energy, also has an organic garden complete with compost, where brothers can feel environmentally elite for picking their own fruits and vegetables.

To the question of his conformity to the subculture, Tyler vehemently denied the accusation, saying “What? No, man, I’m not one of those fucking hipsters.”

Offended, he then placed neon DJ headphones over his ears and returned to reading Pitchfork.com on his iPad.