Column:

Crunch in the heartland of America

By John Hendel

Published Feb. 1, 2008

Imagine with me, if you will: you’re walking down Ninth Street on a day like any other day. You’re strolling, you’re feeling good, you’re ready to grab, say, a bottomless cup of coffee at Lakota or maybe take in a film at the Ragtag.

Then you see a group of folks walking your way. You think they might have just left Main Squeeze. They look a little socially awkward, perhaps, but friendly. Peaceful. The sight of them might evoke the thought of granola. Dreads fall from the shoulders of the group’s white women. They’re wearing hipster-style clothes, but really, they represent so much more. You can envision them going on a nature walk or smoking pot in equal measure. As you get closer, you notice an odd smell. Is it just the residue of incense or a lack of showering? Or maybe, just maybe, patchouli?

These people, my friends, represent what is now called “crunchy.”

Do you cringe at the word? I did when I first heard it applied to people. Crunchy sounds like a bag of chips, not a mismatched gang of environmentalists adorned with peace signs and carrying vegan food. Yet this word has emerged to describe a new breed of people roaming our streets. I know this because I’ve increasingly become enmeshed and on the periphery of this scene over the last six months.

The element of crunch, in essence, refers to “neo-hippy.” The word entered my lexicon back this past summer. Urbandictionary.com has listings for it as far as back 2003, shockingly, referring to their lack of shoes, their pot and their affinity for nature. An element of mysticism also tends to go along with it. I first realized the word went mainstream when I picked up a copy of GQ and saw in it a profile of Donald Rumsfeld, of all people. The writer referred to Rumsfeld’s island refuge of Taos as an extremely “liberal-hippie-crunchy hangout.” Crunch had arrived.

This fascinating new social archetype suits an age when politicians throw out phrases such as “green-collar jobs” and espouse increasingly progressive policies (for once). Columbia is a perfect environment for the culture. Just look to places like Uprise Bakery, Café Berlin, The Root Cellar, Clovers and Main Squeeze.

I certainly wouldn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, fit into most definitions of crunchy myself. Sure, I’m liberal and dig the environment, but I also eat meat and like wearing shoes. I’m merely a visitor in this twisted crunchy world.

I like to think it’s on the verge of bursting into a full-fledged new archetype. We’ve got some classics already out there: the Hipster, the Athlete, the Greek, the Prep and so on. These archetypes can, of course, be abused and turned into stereotypes, and we all know them. We also know all athletes aren’t dumb, all Greeks aren’t necessarily loose and wasted and only, like, three-fourths of hipsters are neurotic faux-intellectuals. This same awareness should extend to the crunch.

People might look to this onset of crunch with fear. Hippies have notoriously suffered slanders for being dirty tree-huggers, and the culture of crunch fulfills a lot of hippy cliches. Yet this truly is something new and more progressive. The movement arises from increasing environmental awareness and from paying attention to kinder virtues of humankind. There’s nothing scary about it; that gang of crunches on Ninth Street isn’t going to lob vegan food at your head.

Just keep your eyes open. Crunchiness is everywhere.