There is nothing quite like being on the road.

Self-promotion is a quintessential aspect to being a popular blogger. There is no way around it. Most of us do not like promoting ourselves out of fear of looking like a giant narcissistic boob. However, the truth is, if you want anyone other than your parents to read your blog, you’re going to have to do it. Just because your blog is out on the Internet, doesn’t mean that people read it. It takes a lot of work to make others aware of your writing (…if you care about these sort of things….and don’t lie!….you know you do!)

Yesterday, CNN featured an article written by the creators of Stuff Hipsters Hate about online self-promotion etiquette. Though an interesting article, it was short as sh*t and only listed three ways to be humble Internet braggarts. I thought I would elaborate a little more, based off of my own personal experiences as a reluctant egomaniac.

1.) No-no on Tweeting Song Lyrics– Don’t drink tequila and then tweet every single line to your favorite (more…)

Many of my posts start with, “The other day I read on Huffingtonpost Post…”
It is one of my steadfast blogs, the second site I check in my morning routine. Though they spent a little too much of 2010 obsessing over The Gosselins, HuffPo continues to bring interesting and thought-provoking material to the masses. One of my favorite recent additions to the website is their Impact tab- news and stories about people making a difference.

Recently featured on HuffPost Impact was an article about the non-profit organization We Are Visible– a website that not only encourages, but also offers resources for the homeless to get connected online. According to the HuffPo article, creator Mark Horvath, who at one point was homeless himself, came up with the idea for We Are Visible after asking his Twitter friends to help a homeless friend in need. A follower donated $100 to the homeless man and it was then Horvath realized the importance of online social networking and the homeless (side note- Horvath (more…)

Every once in awhile I get a bug to change my blog.

Nobody ever wrote anything for Stella Lang.

Expecting a desperate blog post plea to an ex-boyfriend?
Yeah, I did too.

Nah…I’m referring to the Queen song, “Love of My Life” and how the meaning behind put into perspective a statement that I admitted to myself for the first time recently.

“Love of My Life” was written by Freddie Mercury for Mary Austin.

Who is Mary Austin you ask?

Only the love of Freddie Mercury’s life, duh.

Freddie and Mary were lovers for six years- before and during Queen’s early rise to fame- until Freddie realized that he was as gay as the day is long. However, that didn’t stop Freddie from loving Mary. He bought her a house next door to him and kept her on Queen payroll. Mary went everywhere with Freddie. He became godfather to her children and as he was dying from a grueling battle with AIDs, she was right by his side. When Freddie died, he bequeathed most of his fortune and gargantuan rock star house to Mary (leaving only $500,000 to his long-term boyfriend).

“Our love affair ended in (more…)

My blog used to be really boring.
Hell, it could still be boring, who knows?
Y’all just might be nice folk who don’t have the heart to tell me how much my blog bores the living shit out you.
Just like how I’m convinced that I’m mildly retarded and everyone is just too damn nice to say anything.
It’s ok, you can tell me.

Hipstercrite originally started as PlasticLA back in April of 2006.
It was a place for me to go on and on and blah blah blah about my love for Los Angeles…before the Kool-Aid wore off.

90’s music was a black void for me.
When I should have been reveling in the grittiness of Nirvana, the angstiness of Alanis Morissette, the demureness of Beck, and the whateverness of Bjork, I was too busy going through my awkward Elton John phase where I’d only wear sequin vests and pant suits. I’ve been told that I’m an old soul, and considering that I always wanted to be a drunk flapper from the ’20’s, listening to current music was not a priority of mine.

However, as I got older, my normally nonstop-talky self noticed gaps appearing in the conversations with my peers about the music of our childhood. When the subject of 90’s music came up, I had nothing to add, no little anecdotes about the first Gavin Rossdale t-shirt I bought or the countless hours I listened to Live Through This on the basement floor.

Still to this day, I don’t feel like I missed out on 90’s music (and let the violence commence), and there have only been a few artists that I’ve been interested in discovering after the (more…)

This is not my big coming out story.

I wish it was.

That probably won’t happen until about four divorces down the road- and even then I’m not sure.

I like boys too much.

And when I say boys, I mean boys.

I used to not even be a champion of my own gender.
Can you believe that!?
I was one of those assholes.

I would distance myself as much as possible, referring to other women as “chicks”, and thinking that I fell into some other category- the “Lauren” species.

I was my own gender.

Like Prince.

But with zero sex appeal.

And less pubic hair.

I had difficulty relating to “women”. I wasn’t into crying about boys and manicures and tanning salons and rag magazines and any other thing I, or the media, could generalize about the females. Because of that, I distanced myself from the ladies and made only friends with dudes.

Then one day, I realized that I did cry about boys.
And at Pixar movies.
Oh, and anything that Nicholas Sparks touched.
And especially those commercials featuring animals and Sarah McLachlan.
And (more…)