A storm gathers, dear readers.

The air may be still and clammy, but the pressure is dropping fast. The animals know – they’ve always known. You can read it in their eyes as the fear presses in on them. You may even feel it yourself, if you can but for a moment, rise above life’s distractions.

Pay heed to the signs dear readers, for the horizon is blackening, and only the strong will survive.

I am of course referring to the Zombie Apolcalypse.

Now, I know what you’re thinking – Zombie Apocalypse? Sir Author, art though losing your mind – foretelling doom and destruction? Alas no, my warning is not the deranged rambling of some syphilitic, brain-damaged preacher waving signs in Rundle mall. I mean, I do have a rash and bit of a drippy dong, but I’m pretty sure it’s not syphilis.

Right now, in the clandestine laboratories of evil geniei, scientists are hard at work. But unlike in the clandestine labs of Adelaide’s slums, it is not drain cleaner laced meth they are producing, although the effects are not too dissimilar. Instead they are creating a new type of biological weapon, one that is juiced from both the essence of cool, and the very core of lame. The virus targets those in their late teenage years who are impressively average in every way, from their disappointingly healthy upbringing to their good standard of education.

The virus has been named Hipstermania, otherwise known by its Latin name, Mortifius Ironicus. It presents mildly at first with sufferers often playing what is known as ‘the lame game’ – innocently dressing up in retro outfits as a laugh. With the viruses help, the laughter reinforces the behaviour of the sufferer and ‘the lame game’ becomes a way of life. Objectivity goes out the window and pretty soon the sufferer is in the full grip of hipstermania. The lame becomes cool to the point that practicality is unimportant with sufferers wearing thick-framed glasses with clear lenses and even going to the extent of riding fixie bikes regardless of their hilly environs.

From here the virus preys on the vulnerable creative areas of the infectee’s brain, generating a very powerful delusion of artistic mastery. This delusion has a two-fold effect: firstly, the infectee feels a strong compulsion to take up photography, namely lomo-photography. Secondly, and most baffling of all, the sufferer suddenly develops a great affinity for synth music. Medical experts theorise that this simplified style of music is much easier for their greatly degenerated hipster brain to process.

At this stage the virus is terminal with the virus now gaining complete control of the host’s brain. Having achieved control, the virus’s focus shifts to one task: Eating the flesh of non-infected humans and subsequently infecting them.

Fortunately there is still time to halt the apocalypse before it reaches critical mass, even though I hear you ask, ‘who wouldn’t want to live in a world where you spend your days hunting and killing boat shoe clad cardigan wearers?’

But please listen to me my friends, as I too have revelled in daydreams of that future, and no matter how enjoyable it seems, the day will eventually come when one of your dearly beloved hipster-killing friends becomes infected. There will be very little warning, maybe a few self-important comments – the sort that proclaim apparent superiority delivered with a certain measure of disinterest. The next thing you know they will front for a Hipster hunt with hair swept to the side, wearing skin tight red jeans, a grey duffel coat, a scarf, and Cuban heels with a Holga camera in their manicured hand. For here it won’t be long until that once useful human is stumbling along moaning “LAAAMME. LAAAMMME”. To see a good friend reduced to that would be too brutal a reality and a lousy bargain for a life of hipster eradication.

Luckily there is a solution, and like most cures it’s a two step process. Firstly, we must destroy Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr – the virus’s support networks. These communal forums allow infected individuals to output their poorly composed, blurry, vignetted photos and also their atrocious homemade synth music, which is fed back upon via other hipsters. It is normal to read claims such as: ‘OMG the way you’ve captured the retro-post-modernist feel is just exactly how I live my life’ and ‘Your music is just so much more real than label music could ever be’. This feedback loop is known as Mass Delusional Enforcement, a common mechanism used amongst road cyclists to propagate the internal belief of awesomeness within their community.

Secondly, the only cure for Hipstermania is to separate sufferers from their group. Although Hipsters proclaim to be individuals, they are actually not unlike sheep and tend to flock with other hipsters. This is because the virus requires its host to feel comfortable and at ease, else wise the host might start to question the odd changes occurring. The act of ‘thinking’ has an incredibly damaging effect on the virus as it creates an inhospitable environment for dressing stupidly and speaking vapidly. So if you notice any people starting to display symptoms of Hipstermania, either invite them into your hipster-free social group (one at a time – remember, Isolate not populate!) or just brain them with their Macbook in a humane manner.

It is as simple as that my good people. Destroy their social media networks, and separate them from their herds. Because god knows we don’t want the archaeologists of the future uncovering caches of synth recordings and lomo photography. Otherwise just a taste may cause their civilization to fall in a rotting pool of irony too.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I best get this rash seen to.

Special Thanks to Tommy Tait for sketching the title picture.

Tommy is a preternaturally talented artist who specializes in tattoos – and he does them so well that even if you don’t like tattoos his work might just change your mind.