You see, a lot of hipsters enjoy poking fun at themselves. Just note the success of blog/book Stuff White People Like, in which Macbook-using, The Wire-watching, farmers’ market-shopping folk laugh at people who own Macbooks, watch The Wire and frequent farmers’ markets.

Portlandia, the first season of which premieres on ABC2 next week, is enough to send the hipster comedy radar into overdrive. The six-episode series (a second is currently screening in the US) is the brainchild of Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, a musician best known for her decade with adored rock trio Sleater-Kinney.

It is set and filmed entirely in left-leaning Portland (‘‘where young people come to retire’’), and the duo play all of the characters, from over-the-top bicycle vigilantes to hippy-dippy feminist bookstore owners, radical vegans and animal rights campaigners so passionate they ‘‘free’’ a dog tied to a pole while its owner turns his back to buy an ice-cream.

In one of the first episode’s funniest sketches, an oh-so PC couple dining in a restaurant grill their waitress about the origins of the chicken on the menu. What was its diet? (sheep’s milk, soy and hazelnuts.) Is it USDA organic, Oregon organic or Portland organic? (Across the board, all organic.) What sort of space did the chicken have to roam free? (Four acres.)

Not content with the file the waitress then provides on the chicken, the couple head to the organic farm – two hours away – to investigate the birds’ living conditions. There, they meet cultish farmer Aliki (Horrible Bosses’ Jason Sukeikis) and things get even weirder.

There’s great chemistry between Armisen and Brownstein; you can tell they’re having a hoot making the show. Some of the characters they play are so believable – especially to those who hang out in Fitzroy and Brunswick – they almost transcend comedy and enter reality.

Admittedly, it’s all very in-jokey; the show is clearly designed to appeal to a small demographic, and the constant digs at Portland’s neighbour Seattle may wash over the heads of those not in America’s northwest. But there’s at least a couple of laugh-out-loud moments in each episode, ensuring that as far as hipster comedy goes, Portlandia is no slacker.

ABC2, Thursday, 9pm.