White House Announces Hipster Folk-Band Mapping Project

Above: President Obama was joined at the press conference by leading hipster-folkologist Dr. Benjamin Dulcimer.

THE WHITE HOUSE — President Obama announced at a press conference last week that he plans to enlist the help of the nation’s top auditory scientists as part of a $100M initiative to map out the differences between all the bands within the contemporary hipster folk-music genre.

The purpose of the coordinated research effort – which experts compare to the “Hip-hop Genre Project” of the 1990s – is to sift through and differentiate the bands, from the literally billions of cello players to the seemingly countless number of vest-with-t-shirt combinations so that, with any luck, humans may one day be able to accurately identify the artists associated with some of their favorite radio songs.

An excited, albeit out-of-his-element Obama explained the importance of the mapping project, saying “We know a great deal about the human listening experience, from classic rock to hip hop, but we know so very little about that, uhh, ‘matter’ in the folk-music cd aisle at Best Buy. We really need to get out ahead of this research because let’s be honest, hipster folk-music is one of the last remaining areas in which the U.S. still leads the world.”

Added Obama, “And both Ireland and Iceland are getting closer and closer every day to taking that away from us, too. Seriously – Iceland. Come on people.”

Obama concluded, saying “It’s truly shameful that in this age with all of our modern technology, we still have virtually no information with which to distinguish Mumford and Foxes from Bon Lumineers, or Ivan’s Decembrists from Of Noah and Whales. It’s an utter mystery, but I’m proud to report that we now have our best and brightest minds working to sort this all out.”

President Obama then declined to answer any questions from the press because, as he put it, “That’s literally everything I know on the subject.”