It’s not easy being a hipster. You need the right clothes, shoes, haircut, CDs, books, slang and, of course, the right attitude. Something that is ‘deck’ now could be ‘fin’ in less than a month. Indie rockers, once the most distinct hipster group out there, must now share the spotlight with ten different hipster types, each with subcategories, individual features and accessories.

With all this confusion, hipsters needed a place to turn to sort the deck from the fin (or the hip from the un-hip). Not being able to distinguish a Bipster (Blue-Collar hipster think Ashton Kutcher’s look) from a redneck could get you killed by that redneck, or worse, exiled from hipster groups for life.

Hipsters all over the world can now be saved by Robert Lanham’s new guide, The Hipster Handbook ($9.95, Anchor Books). Although the book is essential reading for hipsters or aspiring hipsters, right up there with Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, it would be fin to be seen in public with it. Hipsters are too cool to actually admit that they are hipsters.

But a legitimate hipster needs a guide and has more important things to do and better books to read or pretend to read to polish (read: impress) the tassels (girls) and/ or wallys (guys). So, to rescue you, the Muse offers The Hipster Handbook: The ‘Cliffs Notes’ version.

Despite their differences, hipster groups have many similarities. They wear clothes, shoes and accessories that set them apart from the mainstream, while still allowing them to conform to their respective hipster group. Thus, mesh hats, messenger bags and athletic headbands can all be deck, as long as they are not worn together.

All hipsters have an obsessive love of music, specifically their own music collections. Every hipster’s music stash must include: The Beatles’ Revolver, Beck’s Odelay, and anything by The Velvet Underground. Other important artists include, Kool Keith, Tom Waits, Blondie and The Byrds. A hipster could own all or any combination of the above-mentioned CDs.

See how this starts to get complicated?

Hipsters universally believe that ‘irony has more resonance than reason.’ Some hipster groups are politically motivated, while others are almost exclusively focused on their hipster culture. Nonetheless, any hipster that has political leanings swings towards the left. Hipsters value their education but rarely enjoy traditional learning.

They are also culturally aware. They eat at Thai restaurants, watch French films, listen to German music and wear American or British flags on their dirty T-shirts. Hipsters are not above relaying their worldly experiences to non-hipsters, but they will do so with an extreme sense of superiority.

In fact, there are few times that today’s hipsters do not feel superior. They have, as a group of millions, a taste and thirst for the unusual, unlike the millions more mainstream folks who live in the suburbs.

The Hipster Handbook is a ridiculously funny look at a fairly ridiculous cultural mode. The humor, though, lies in the truth behind the hipster mentality especially for those that happen to think that they are a little bit hip or a little bit different than the mainstream.