hipsters

I have very strong feelings when it comes to hipsters, but not in the way that is usual. Okay the wikipedia link won't tell you much about them, and I don't know if this link will work because it says the site is currently down for maintenance, so I'll try to explain what a "hipster" is for the curious.

A hipster (in my view), is a person who refutes the mainstream. Everything about it. If something is mainstream, it sucks. Hipsters are very much into aesthetics. According to the might-not-be-working article, that's about all they're into. Also there's a streak of "irony" that permeates the culture. They view wearing vintage clothing and drinking cheap beer *cough PBR cough* as "ironic" and so very much desirable. Past this point hipsters are harder to describe. They usually listen to faddy indie music (MGMT, Justice, Animal Collective, etc), and very few will actually admit to being a hipster, due to the strong negative conotation.

Once you've been around college campuses long enough, you can easily pick out the hipsters. They often dress pretty ...hip, for lack of better descriptor. If someone has his/her right pant leg rolled up, you can almost be sure he/she is a hipster. People with fixed gear roadbikes? Very much likely. Tight pants, scarves, alternative lifestyle, the list goes on and on. They're also pretty rabid about music. They take pleasure in finding "new" bands and think people who listen to "mainstream" music to be beneath them. Of course these are probably the extreme cases, but you do see quite a few of them around campus, so not that extreme.


Okay, so a lot of those descriptions match me. Am I a hipster? Yeah, from those descriptions I guess I am sorta hipster-ish, but I feel there are major distinctions. Hipsterism seems to be a double headed culture. In one part there are those who try to be as different as possible. Just because they think different means good or whatever. But on the other side there are those who think being a hipster is the "cool" thing to do. So they try to emulate it and fail badly. That's probably where a good deal of the stereotypical hipster behavior comes from. These people think they are better than others because they are "hip". They mutate what might have been a relatively benign and enclosed subculture into the semi-mainstream mess we see all over the place. They become the sneering contemptuous mob that shows up at shows and annoys the fuck out of everyone.

And because the subculture has gone semi-mainstream, it sort of perpetuates itself and turns against itself. Obviously a subculture can't be a subculture if it goes mainstream, especially if the subculture emphasizes being non-mainstream. Everyone hates the label of "hipster", even though some of the original aspects are perpetuated and weren't really that bad. So while people may be hipsters, they sure as hell do not want to be called hipsters.

Okay so that's my analysis. Nothing too groundbreaking, but here's where I get really angry. The "hip" thing to do currently seems to be hating on hipsters. Like the second article I linked, a lot of people really think hipsters are completely without saving qualities. They adamantly reject anything that is hipster, and even make groups showing how much they hate hipsters.

So what is wrong with this? I dislike hipsters, or at least the current definition of hipsters, but I am not virulently against all of the principles of hipsterism, nor am I going to hate someone just because they fit some artificial mold, some created definition. By doing that you completely block out the possibility that there might be an individual underneath the veneer. You loathe a group of people not because of who they actually are, but by how they are seen.

This is really almost the same thing as hipsterism, except the new generation is consumed completely by their antagonism towards hipsters. You can never base a subculture exclusively on negativity, and in this case there aren't really any other qualities, such as music or aesthetics, to provide a positive influence. Hating on hipsters is gaining ground because hipsters have gone mainstream, and so they must be rejected. Does this possibly sound exactly like hipsterism? And now the tail end of hipsterism, the "popularity" aspect, is catching on as well. It is faddy to show your contempt for hipsters. So you make groups, you blog, you talk about how much you hate hipsters. Because you don't fucking know any better.

I don't really see hipsterism dying out, or this new fad supplanting it anytime soon, but the whole mess just seems like a vicious cycle of one group running and another group following, all the while contempt is spread throughout the culture.

I guess I'm trying to say dislike a person because of how he is, not because of how he is perceived. If a person is obnoxious, then by all means hate away, but maybe not everyone who owns a road bike or wears a keffiyeh is a total douche.

And above all else listen to music because it is good music. Don't listen to it because all the cool kids are doing it, or because you are trying to be unique. Base what you listen to on your taste, and take into account what others think. Don't just be completely devoid of taste. That makes you uninteresting.

Oh yeah and don't listen to all that mainstream music you hear on the radios. The hipsters were right about that shit, man.