An ironclad rule of hipness is that if you're looking for hipness, the best place to start your search is within the paragraphs of a newspaper article with the word "Hip" featured prominently in the headline. Mainstream newspaper stories explaining phenomena deemed "Hip" by mainstream newspaper editors: where hipness lives.

We know that hipness absolutely lives in Washington, DC, thanks to the tireless work of the investigative reporters on the Washington Post's hipness desk. Does hipness exist in other cities as well? A review of newspaper stories indicates that, yes, thankfully, it does. So what else is "Hip" these days?

  • "An impressive photo set for guests, where they were shot while wearing raccoon hats and holding fake rifles, kissing or posing in Polaroids." That's according to this WSJ story, "Media Firm Hosts Hip Soiree." Again: "Media Firm Hosts Hip Soiree."
  • Dalton, Georgia. That's because of Dalton's "authentic local places to have dinner, meet for coffee, hear live music, visit galleries, attend theater or just hang out." Their attempts to one day get those things, we mean.
  • Square dancing. In Central Maine.
  • The stylish new Dream Downtown boutique hotel in glamorous New York City, USA. "Inside, the open-plan ground floor houses a moodily lit reception, a funky lobby lounge decorated with potted trees and futuristic semi-circular couches." Oh, your trees aren't potted? Hmph.
  • Jews. Young ones, at least.
  • Fort Wayne's Tease Hair Salon, which "is not your mother's beauty parlor and it has about as much in common with your father's barbershop as Taylor Swift does with Minnie Pearl." And? "Tease Hair Salon is not the only fresh venture that promises to return the Landing to its heyday of hipness. A chicken wing restaurant that transforms on the weekends into a video bar has been in the works for quite a while."

[Photo: Steve/ Flickr]