Remember emo kids? Only a few short years ago, the nation's venues of the nation were filled with kids in all black, wearing ultra-skinny jeans, eyeliner, white belts, and identical chopped-meat haircuts. Then, all at once, an entire generation realized, "Hey, we look kind of silly," and the style virtually disappeared overnight.

Sure, there are a few holdouts, in the same way people still cling to grunge, butt-rock, stoner rock, and other genres even when they're years past their prime. But for the most part, the emo kid has been replaced by the "hipster."

It's a nebulous, ill-defined word, is hipster. Some people think it means any person who seems vaguely hip or cool; others think it applies exclusively to the intentionally cartoonish overcompensators you'll see at LookAtThisFuckingHipster.com.

We tend to go with the latter definition, although it's undeniable that a significant movement has been and is still being made towards a certain aesthetic, from things as simple as fashion to complex, meaningful stuff like music and art. If we must refer to the new wave of indie/DIY/fashionable/often a little bit smug kids as "hipsters" for brevity's sake, then so be it.

One thing hipsters love to do is find something generally seen as lame and then start adoring it ironically. That's why hipsters are so into low-budget Turkish cinema and brightly colored T-shirts festooned with '80s nostalgia like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Noid, and of course Phil Donahue.

We have to wonder: how will many elder rocksmen, traditionally seen as lame by previous generations, appeal to today's modern hipster?

MICHAEL BOLTON

Michael Bolton might be best known today as the reason David Herman's character in Office Space seems to hate everything in the world around him, but in the late '80s and early '90s he was best known for his faux-soulful, sub-Cocker voice which he used to soften and whiten several old R&B and soul classics.

That softening and whitening process led us to refer to him as "Snuggles" for many years, after that talking teddy bear who helps you launder your sheets.

Hipster Cred: 2 out of 10. Bolton is as lame now as he ever was, and will most likely continue to be. Obviously he has a powerful voice, but he wastes it on wimpy lite-rock production and derivative songwriting. His score, however, could climb as high as 7 or maybe even 8 if he reunited his old power-pop band Blackjack.

They once opened for Ozzy Osbourne, you know. Yeah. Think about that, metalheads.