Um, I wasn't speaking to the hip factor - just to the concept that I could get a snapshot view of a page in the SERPs before clicking through - that feature is attractive enough to me to have been an effective advertising hook.
So, indeed, I checked out Ask and it returned my sites even better than Google (where I have no complaints). So while I have nothing to say about its appeal to counter culture, it is clearly an even more relevant SE!
J/K, MJ