The world is funny. Seemingly unrelated things can take on common characteristics. I have recently noticed this among two groups of people who, on the surface, are nothing alike — but, in fact, share a few characteristics. I’m describing Marines and Hipsters.

• Glasses: Marines have long distributed hipster-like glasses. To those unfortunate souls, “BCGs” were a curse. You looked like … a Hipster, a devastating indictment in the nail-eating Marine Corps. Is it just a coincidence that BCGs look like some pairs of Warby Parker? I think not.
• Haircuts: Marines have a tragic rule: their hair must start at “zero” (no hair) on the sides and cannot be longer than three inches on top. Ironically, the regulations state that Marines cannot have “faddish” hair styles. Little do they know. But many Marines have the same haircut as my Hipster neighbors. It looks something like this, with the short sides and delicious part.
• Big Watches: Marines tend to wear overly large watches. They wear large watches so that they can see the time — and for the fancier ones, elevation, direction, etc. — at night. Their watches largeness is especially pronounced because they do not wear other jewelry. Hipsters wear equally large watches, but I assume for different reasons. I hope they’re not doing land navigation in Brooklyn.
• Leather Boots: Marines wear leather boots all the time. It’s their official work shoe. Those boots take them to all places, many far from home, and back. They churn through them, always getting yelled at for having worn out boots. Hipsters, on the other hand, live and die by their boots wear-and-tear. It’s like a symbol of their legitimacy. I’m sure there’s an e-commerce start-up for boot swapping just waiting to launch.
• Mustaches: It goes without saying that Hipsters love facial hair. In particular, Hipsters love three types of facial hair: the mountain man beard, the scruffy but well maintained shadow, and the mustache. Unfortunately, Marines are (generally) disqualified from having the mountain man beard and the well maintained shadow. But because they are bad asses, or just really bored, Marines, especially on deployment, go all in on the caterpillar mustache.
• Tattoos: The amount of ink in my neighborhood is mind-numbing. Everyone — man, woman, everything in between — has ink. Some of it is sweet; some of it is unfortunate. I saw a guy the other week with a big New York Yankee logo. He must be from the old neighborhood. Marines have a lot of ink, too. It’s ritualized — I’d say roughly 70% of my infantry class got a tattoo before they were out of training. The more elaborate, the better. The quotes were the best: “Fear is weakness leaving the body”. Although Marines’ tats tend to be more hardcore than Hipsters’ — think “INFIDEL” versus some saying from a Lululemon bag — ink is ink.

The ultimate test would be if we were to put a Hipster in a Marine uniform, or a Marine in skinny jeans and a wood-chopping flannel, but kept the above constant, would anyone be able to tell the difference? I don’t think so.

Originally published at brendanhartdotcom.wordpress.com on January 19, 2015.