Dear Urban Diplomat: How do I get rid of hipsters who just take up space on the Trinity Bellwoods tennis courts?
Dear Urban Diplomat,
I play tennis at Trinity Bellwoods Park, near my house, and I’m sick of hipsters ironically doinking the ball around with no regard for serious players waiting hours for a court. Shouldn’t there be a rule about that? What’s your best suggestion for getting them off the courts without dragging them by their vintage headbands?
—Not feeling the love,
BEACONSFIELD
Along with cultivating their facial hair and claiming they aren’t hipsters, hipsters love anything steeped in nostalgia, especially when it provides an opportunity to wield rustic wooden racquets and don retro sports apparel (I’m guessing they’re dead ringers for John McEnroe circa 1978). Whereas you, the furrowed-brow ace, enjoy perfecting your Federer-style backhand and exhaling audibly with every forehand, they, the alleged doinkers, enjoy zany athletic irony. Either way, it’s supposed to be about fun, and you’re both entitled to 30 minutes of it on public courts, according to parks and rec rules. Once they exceed the time limit, you’ve got a legit reason to kick them off the court (instead of ousting them because their twee existence is infuriating). By reminding them of the limit, however, you may come off as uptight and country clubbish, thereby piquing their anti-establishment reflexes and further exacerbating the court hogging. If that’s the case, appeal to their inflated sense of badassedness: shake your racquet at them menacingly, rattle the chain-link fence and heckle them with a play-by-play: “Short Shorts hits a high lob. Aviator Glasses backpedals for it. Oh, but wait, the ball sails over the fence. The score remains love-love here at Trinity Bellwoods Park.” If none of that works, you have two remaining options: acquire a sense of humour and some patience, or sign up for one of the city’s private clubs, with dress codes and schedules. Like it or not, public courts are for the public.
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Ha ha..Oh, I don’t think hipsters are the problem in this question. Perhaps feeling more entitled to use a public community tennis court just because you can afford to live nearby and take the game oh so seriously…
I remember enjoying a doubles volley with a friend and our two kids one day…sans net, and before the courts were resurfaced. A very serious player proceeded to install his net on our court and tell us that we weren’t really playing tennis so we needed to leave!
Granted, it’s annoying to come up to a full set of courts, not knowing how long people have been playing, and have to wait a half hour to ask someone politely to leave. He obviously thought we were an easy target, or less deserving.
Attention “Mr. Serious Tennis Player Guy”: Do you realize that this is a public tennis court? Are you an elitist? I am being very serious in stating that my perspective is that there are too many hard-asses out there who show up in their oh-so-serious Wimbleton whites and tap their feet while they bitch and moan to every passer-by that the people on the courts and Trinity Bells are “not playing seriously” and “are laughing too much and smiling and, therefore, must not be playing an actual game”.
Get real, dude. Do you realize that Trinity Bellwoods is the WORST place to go, if you are the type of person who has such a shit attitude towards other taxpayers? It is theeeee most laid back, peaceful, and kind park in the city.
Perhaps trudge your negative attitude having ass to the Boulevard Club, so you can have your valet parking and will never have to complain ever again about those “trendsters”
Geeesh… some people are such assholes!!!
Funny/interesting Toronto based hipster blog:
http://www.citizenhipster.com/
Oh come on… even if this guy comes off as a little anal-retentive… doesn’t mean he’s not SO RIGHT! I just walked by the park yesterday and had exactly the same reaction… there were two super-irritating hipster losers playing what looked like whack-a-mole on the Trinity courts. I’m from out of town and I’ve definitely noticed that Toronto’s so-called hipsters seem to try oh-so-much harder than anyone elses’s… though maybe that just goes for Toronto people in general…
For the record- yes they were both dressed up as 70s era players, complete with headbands- and they both had shades on even though the sun had set and they couldn’t see the ball anymore. Pretty cool…
Grow up everyone – Trinity Park is FOR the hipsters. They populate the apartments, bars, restaurants, businesses, and every other place in the surrounding area – you and your self-important attitude are the outsiders here, not them.
The West Queen West demographic is no secret, so if you’re against drinks in the park and 2000 pairs of raybans glaring at you while you have a hissyfit over a lack of ‘real tennis’ players then go get a membership to the Mayfair. Stop being so concerned with other people having a good time at a PUBLIC park and start looking for real estate at Yonge and Eg.
Hipsters are the most elitist, entitled and useless people on the planet. I’m with this guy, even though he probably didn’t explain his case well enough.
Courts are for tennis, and if you’re going to use the time to talk about how great the Death Cab for Cutie show was, or to play dress-up and not even PLAY, you can f*ck off back to Ossington, sulk and stew over a PBR.
Parks are public and courts are for tennis. I don’t care what people do with them when summer’s done, but my god. They talk, barely hit the ball and just stand there and socialize.
Being a “serious player” has nothing to do with ability. It’s simply a desire to PLAY TENNIS and not smoke, text and stand around.