We’ve been declared the gayest city, the most hipster city and the best biking city, all in one year! Here are fifteen things about Minneapolis that got us those titles, IMHO.

Hipsterest

1. We love chic, disdainful service so much that we have a restaurant called “The Bad Waitress.”

2. Our city is so small that we actually prize and cherish each and every abandoned warehouse.

3. You will almost certainly meet most of your Twitter followers provided that you’re regularly “drunk at places.”

4. We have citizens who write “social media celebrity” on their Facebook info. And it’s true.

5. R.T. Rybak. He looks like a comic book movie super-villain (in a good way) and he got real sassy when we won best biking city (in a good way).

Gayest

1. Tangential/ Philolzophy writer Sarah Heuer once saw 3 boys she’d slept with (in 2011 alone) at the same gay bar. Gay and straight – we all grope, drink and gyrate together.

2. The Chelsea Boys, even though they’re not gay, I think. Straight boys here just try to look gay to get hot chicks and free drugs.

3.  My old fellow intern from South Dakota, a straight bro named Fletcher Farley, looked around Lyndale Ave. and said, “This seems like a good city for perfecting your gaydar.” I had to explain to him later why Menergy at The Kitty Cat Klub is not a gay night at a gay bar. This is a city that destroys gaydars.

4. Our most famous sculpture is a flirtatious cherry on a spoon.

5. I found things to say other than Sven Sundgaard! Um, one more. Abuse of poppers is cooler than ever,  huh?

Bikingest

1. We have a miraculous watchdog system for getting stolen bikes back. My friend Tom got his bike stolen and posted about it on social media. Later, his friend saw it being used on the Greenway and told the thief elaborate lies about the cops coming to get it back. Also, after my brother-in-law got his bike stolen, he tackled the thief himself and got it back. We’re not afraid to tackle.

2. Actually, our enthusiasm for bikes is probably most apparent in how eager people are to steal them. At times, Dinkytown’s bike racks are nothing but lone U-Locks and bent tires.

3. Try not to hear about Art Crank and 30 Days of Biking. I dare you.

4. People in the publishing industry downtown frequently eat lunch at a bike shop-cafe hybrid. They never did that on Sex and the City.

5. We re-organized our entire downtown driving setup to make it easier for bikers to get to the hipster club/gay bar.

–Becky Lang