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Tepees: Finally, A Trend We Can Embrace
By
Lauren Evans
Published May 19, 2013
Modified May 19, 2013
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By
Lauren Evans
Published May 19, 2013
Modified May 19, 2013
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The Daily News is trying to get aboard the Exaggerated Trend Piece train (owned and operated by the New York Times) with a scoffing story on tepees, apparently the latest eye-rolling fixture in "hipster" households.
Sorry you prefer to lounge exclusively on backless metal prison stools, Daily News, but for those of us whose inner child isn't dead, having a tepee (see also: tipi, teepee, teeeeepeeee, fort) inside one's home is an excellent idea. Look outside—it's shitty and raining. GoogaMooga has failed us. What better place to pass your gloomy Sunday than inside a tepee, covered in soft colorful pillows?
Furthermore, creating a makeshift structure inside one's home enables interactions that would, frankly, be out of place elsewhere. I'm thinking specifically of The Royal Tenenbaums, in which a post-suicidal Richie tells his adopted sister Margot that he's in love with her. Then Ruby Tuesday plays. This conversation is absurd, of course, but would only be more absurd taking place on a living room sofa or kitchen table over a nice, sensible cup of Earl Gray. One could argue that it would have been impossible for it to have taken place at all.
Since locating a couple Brooklynites (and by necessity, they must be Brooklynites) who don't Hate Fun does not a story make, the reporter added the following sentence:
"Of course, Brooklyn hipsters didn’t invent tepees, and their significance in Native American culture can’t be ignored."
Apparently not, since the Daily News proceeded to track down Ines Hernandez-Avila, a part-time Native American Studies expert and full-time Fun Enforcement Officer to wax pedantic on Tepee Etiquette, which is apparently very strict.
“Tepees are not meant to be inside another edifice," she told the tabloid, presumably while lashing a weeping child for playing "Uno" too loudly. "They’re meant to be outdoors, secured to the ground, with a hole opening up to the sky.”
The real absurdity here is not that people put tepees in their homes, it's that this company thinks it's OK to charge $350 for a piece of cloth stapled to some wood. If you can't build your own tepee/fort, then you don't deserve to have one.
Tagged
brooklyn
fun
tepee
tipi
Lauren Evans
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