Yes, I’m aware there are “no stupid questions…” but… A quick search didn’t bring much clarity.
For context: my wife and I are in our 30s, and as weather got colder in October, we started attending a “coffee and chat” meeting for people learning sign language. My wife is slowly going deaf, and we both would like to communicate normally when she loses hearing completely.
The asl chats were started by some people in an LGBT Pride group, and as such most of the people there are LGBT, and between 18-24. Since the weather is getting warmer, we have been inviting them to go places with us, mostly like IHOP or a local cafe. It is a little tricky to coordinate, since several lack vehicles and transit is basically nonexistent here, and some have mobility issues, but we make sure everyone who wants to come has a way to get here even if it requires several trips in our car.
Last week since it was especially nice out, we decided to have a cookout. We brought vegetarian options since a couple are vegetarian (while I’m sure I am quite competent at making vegetarian meals, I always get super dumb when trying to think of vegetarian dishes I know) and all in all it was pretty chill, with about 8 of them showing up. some had to leave soon after eating, but most stayed to hang out in the park and hammock with our extra ones we have collected over the years.
As we are making sure everyone is situated, has drinks and snacks, and making conversation with different people, a few are having their own conversation and then one looks in our direction, and goes “you two are giving off big crunchy aunt and uncle vibes, very granola” and I just looked a little confused and said “thanks? I think?”
Their tone was friendly, I’d say. Two people said things in agreement, one laughed, nobody seemed upset about anything.
We started setting up around noon, people showed up around 1, and we ended up staying until sunset after 8. Everyone said they had fun and it was super relaxing.
So to the question: in this context, I feel it’s meant positively but I am not sure what “crunchy aunt and uncle vibes, very granola” means…
Apologies if this is considered something I should just look up since it really is a “simple question” but it feels like one of those things that has different meanings in different contexts.
In that context, it comes from “crunchy granola”, aka the sort of hippie/hipster that tends to embrace that kind of trendy natural diet. Granola entered the hippie sorts back in the sixties and the terminology came around somewhere in the mid seventies to early eighties.
By the time I was in my teens, it was in use for those retro-hippie sorts that also tended to the more idealized parts of hippiedom. Those kids are now the uncles and aunts (and sometimes even grandparents or great aunts/uncles) referred to.
In that specific context, adding in the aunt/uncle part, it is a positive. However, it’s also a tad condescending, if unintentionally so. That those aunts and uncles are something that needs an extra label to lump them into an outside group is often done because the person doing the lumping thinks they’re better.
Truth? Some of the crunchy granola sorts are dipshits. They’ll eat “natural” even if it isn’t actually healthy. They’ll rattle on about stuff that nobody else present cares about not because that’s who they are, but because they’re evangelizing. So some of the reputation for being hippie-dippie if you’re also crunchy granola is deserved. Same with being a skeevy stoner hippy being often linked to the other labels.