1. Retrieve an organic espresso drink from your local independently-owned coffee house and settle in to the best seat in the shop.
2. Look around the coffee shop and quickly estimate how many people around you have poor taste in music. DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT.
3. Pop in your Bose noise canceling earbuds (because you don’t want to be seen with the “common man” white earbuds) and fire up iTunes on your Intel Mac laptop.
4. Surf Twitter for the latest Muxtape links from your friends and followers. Browse them, while quietly snarking at their lack of musical taste or inclusion of some absurdly mainstream song (uh, yeah, Spoon is mainstream now, thankyouvermuch).
5. While flipping through your iTunes collection, focus on the following types of music: foreign, shit no one would ever listen to (read: cool) and Appalachian country bluegrass. ALISON KRAUSS DOES NOT COUNT.
6. While slowly stroking your chin patchy hipster beard, find the best arrangement of songs that will get across your message to the listeners. Deep + uplifting? Fun and quirky + twisted love songs?
7. Include at least one jazz song because it proves you know your music and have good taste. DAVE BRUBECK’S TAKE FIVE DOES NOT COUNT.
8. After three hours and four double Americanos, finish up your Muxtape and post the link to Twitter and disclaim that you “just threw this together for fun.”