A Lorem Ipsum generator stylized to sound like hipster slang (hipsum or hipster ipsum) has been passed my way a few times in the recent years. Last month for whatever reason, I was looking for a concise dictionary list of all the unique phrases used to randomly generate these strings of pure comedy. I did not find one, but thought it would be fun to try and "reverse-randomize" myself that concise list by analyzing 318 KB of generative gobbledegook. The following paragraph shows an alphabetized list of unique phrases found.
+1 3 wolf moon 8-bit 90's actually aesthetic american apparel art party artisan asymmetrical austin authentic banh mi banjo banksy beard before they sold out bespoke bicycle rights biodiesel bitters blog blue bottle brooklyn brunch bushwick butcher cardigan carles chambray chia chillwave church-key cliche cold-pressed cornhole craft beer cray cred cronut crucifix deep v direct trade disrupt distillery diy dreamcatcher drinking vinegar echo park ennui ethical etsy fanny pack fap farm-to-table fashion axe fingerstache fixie flannel flexitarian food truck forage four dollar toast four loko freegan gastropub gentrify gluten-free godard hashtag health goth heirloom hella helvetica high life hoodie intelligentsia iphone irony jean shorts kale chips keffiyeh keytar kickstarter kitsch kogi leggings letterpress listicle literally lo-fi locavore lomo lumbersexual marfa master cleanse mcsweeney's meditation meggings meh messenger bag migas mixtape mlkshk mumblecore mustache narwhal neutra next level normcore occupy odd future organic paleo pbr&b photo booth pickled pinterest pitchfork plaid polaroid pop-up pork belly portland post-ironic pour-over pug put a bird on it quinoa raw denim readymade retro roof party salvia sartorial scenester schlitz seitan selfies selvage semiotics shabby chic shoreditch single-origin coffee skateboard slow-carb small batch squid sriracha street art stumptown sustainable swag synth tattooed taxidermy thundercats tilde tofu tote bag tousled truffaut trust fund try-hard tumblr twee typewriter ugh umami vegan vhs vice vinyl viral wayfarers wes anderson whatever williamsburg xoxo yolo you probably haven't heard of them yr
The process turned out to be trickier than I expected since some of the terms have spaces in them. So, rather than it just being a matter of punctuation cleansing, I had to take statistics on occurrence of word sequences, and decide manually where to draw the line between coincidence and an actual phrase containing spaces.
The above graph rendered in octave shows the number of never before seen words occurring as the scan happens. You can see that by the middle of the graph, we have seen it all. Fixies, beards, and VHS ten times over. Confident that I had enough data, I then spent 90% of the python script finding that 10% of the phrases that contained spaces. I did this by tallying the occurrence of pairs, triplets, etc. and sorting them so I could established a user-managed threshold. Any phrase under that number was found not be a meme (or in this case, "a thing") by googling around, but they were nonetheless entertaining.
8 occurrences each of pork belly four and belly four . 7 occurrences each of anderson kogi, hella freegan, hashtag ennui, chambray four, wes anderson kogi, and finally, narwhal irony.
Once the spaced phrases were salvaged, I tried sorting the list by frequency of occurrence to see if there was any ironic ranking. The following paragraph is that order, this time using commas to make it easier to see the spaced phrases.
drinking vinegar, deep v, art party, street art, messenger bag, tote bag, flannel, mcsweeney's, gastropub, roof party, banh mi, kickstarter, cliche, mustache, fingerstache, letterpress, tattooed, 90's, normcore, stumptown, beard, blue bottle, artisan, viral, brunch, pour-over, pinterest, fashion axe, asymmetrical, bespoke, lumbersexual, scenester, echo park, yr, banjo, cornhole, hoodie, plaid, craft beer, hella, diy, single-origin coffee, portland, kogi, salvia, actually, shabby chic, wayfarers, crucifix, whatever, aesthetic, before they sold out, semiotics, cray, pickled, jean shorts, master cleanse, occupy, sriracha, butcher, tousled, post-ironic, blog, selvage, taxidermy, pop-up, pbr&b, fanny pack, vice, flexitarian, listicle, bicycle rights, mixtape, next level, brooklyn, +1, biodiesel, photo booth, leggings, farm-to-table, pug, hashtag, pitchfork, truffaut, sustainable, health goth, literally, neutra, four loko, banksy, four dollar toast, carles, twee, intelligentsia, vegan, cronut, mumblecore, vinyl, fap, lomo, irony, high life, vhs, pork belly, selfies, meggings, put a bird on it, direct trade, bushwick, cred, etsy, keffiyeh, you probably haven't heard of them, iphone, typewriter, narwhal, chillwave, meditation, fixie, odd future, trust fund, marfa, chia, dreamcatcher, quinoa, raw denim, tilde, try-hard, chambray, organic, skateboard, food truck, tumblr, retro, gentrify, yolo, kitsch, disrupt, 8-bit, squid, kale chips, gluten-free, paleo, thundercats, small batch, lo-fi, schlitz, keytar, wes anderson, authentic, slow-carb, cold-pressed, ethical, godard, locavore, ennui, shoreditch, tofu, 3 wolf moon, williamsburg, forage, bitters, austin, freegan, polaroid, sartorial, american apparel, migas, cardigan, readymade, seitan, heirloom, swag, meh, helvetica, ugh, umami, xoxo, mlkshk, synth, church-key, distillery
The above image shows the distribution of occurrences, juxtaposed against the random() function. It looks to me like there weren't any artistic biases added to amplify or suppress certain terms. Here is the script I used. It is by no means re-usable.
