I've had a theory for a while, and it's generally unpopular; I'm almost the only one who holds it. So far, I've generally kept it under wraps, for fear that its unpopularity indicated a genuine lack of validity. Of course, popularity is not correlated with validity at all (sometimes quite the opposite), but still, if you advance an unpopular theory, you should be sure you have something compelling to offer. After all, chances are you're going to get torn apart by representatives of the consensus.
This theory has to do with the general angst and disapproval of "hipsters" in popular culture. It's inescapable, everywhere you look, among people aged 25 and lower. "Fuckin' hipsters" is an alarm sounded all over New York and the Lower East Side... it's a stigma that can be applied to neighborhoods (Williamsburg), beers (PBR), articles of clothing (fedoras), filmmakers (Wes Anderson), musicians (Connor Oberst), and people (that dude who lives in the apartment above you). It's a universally despised stereotype that gets so much bad press, you'd think it was EVERYWHERE, a plague of locusts on our Manhattan avenues. There are some powerful voices attacking the Hipster... Time Out New York just ran an article called "The Hipster Must Die," and Nothing Nice to Say, a generally amazing punk comic, has run a number of strips whose target was the Minneapolis hipster.
But where are they? I can't fucking find them. I occasionally see a dude in a fedora, or a girl in eccentric post-hippie attire, or someone drinking a PBR, but none of them seem like the shallow bad faith revolutionaries that are such a bugaboo of modern media. For a while, I figured they were specifically a plague on the streets of Willyburg and Minneapolis, and that I wasn't seeing them because I just wasn't in the right place.
But then, one day, someone called ME a hipster. Normally, I'd have just laughed and said, "Oh yeah, you bastard? YOU'RE the hipster, I'm just a kid who lives in Brooklyn" (kind of like in an article in The Onion). But I'm a fucking philosopher, so it makes outright rejection rather difficult. I made the mistake of looking at my own life and tastes and noticing that I share a range of attributes with the stereotype. I genuinely like Wes Anderson, and I like bullshitting about Postmodern film. I have a philosophy degree. I like Bright Eyes. I used to be a punk, and now I listen to The Postal Service and Ted Leo (among many other things). Despite the reassurances of my friends ("hipsters are out there, but you're totally not a hipster!") it started to become a question in my mind: what's a hipster? Did I have the necessary or sufficient characteristics? Who is it I'm supposed to be differentiating myself from?
Article comments
1 - Elvira Black
Nice piece, and I think you're playing the devil's advocate a bit, but my def of a hipster might include a poseur--someone who takes on the superficial acoutrements of the "artsy." Dilettantes who want to be "artists" without the requisite effort involved. Stuff like that. Irony and a sense of general dissatisfaction with the world helps too.
2 - Jesse
Thanks for the comment, EB.
I'm sort of playing the devil's advocate, yes... but the basic idea here is still sound, at least according to my logic. "Hipster" is a label that gets thrown around a lot, but it's almost never applied to a particular person, and when it is, it's always someone we don't know that well. "The hipster" is like "the other."
I realized, after I started writing this, that if anything, it's a response to a common brand of cultural hysteria: projection of anger on an invented adversary. The "hipster" article in Time Out is the best example of this, and it's sloppy editorializing, in my opinion... it shows they don't have a whole lot of interesting material to feature right now.
I'm going to develop this idea more in my blog. I'll keep ya up to date.
3 - Jesse
I don't know if EB, or anyone, has any more interest in following this strange thread and line of logic, you can check out a follow-up post here:
Operation Hipster Freedom.
4 - Matt
This is the most hipster article imaginable..better luck next time, cool kid
5 - derek
"...i'm a fucking philosopher." really? fuck.
6 - Jesse
Wow! It took you folks a while to find this article! How'd you run across it after it left the front page?
How 'bout some substance? I should go back to posting exclusively in politics. Someone over there occasionally manages to articulate an idea.
7 - Michael
I think it's just that you are a hipster â€" you should be trying to reclaim the word and justify hipsterness, not claim it doesn't exist. More specifically, I'd say you're on your way to becoming a post-irony Believer-reading type hipster.
Neither Bright Eyes nor Wes Anderson are okay.
Yay for sincerity! Do something good! Sheesh.
8 - Jesse
Fine, fine, I may fit into your personal mold of "hipster," but is that really compatible with post-irony? That's one of the only characteristics of "hipsterism" that really makes sense to me. Time Out specifically said "Under the guise of 'irony,' hipsterism fetishizes the authentic and regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity."
This doesn't leave a whole lot of room for post-ironic hipsters, in my opinion. Your specific mentioning of Wes Anderson and Bright Eyes is interesting, because I don't see either of those two as particularly ironic (Wes is definitely reserved and intentionally awkward, but his films are pretty sincere). Same with burlesque and post-punk... the few people I know who are interested in those things aren't particularly ironic about it. They're invested in the cultures, largely because they care about the performance and/or the music.
Sometimes I think "hipster" is shorthand for "anything that finds a niche in New York." And that's a lot of stuff.
I WILL agree with you on your last point... yay for sincerity. The more people can manage to totally devote themselves to the things they love, the better we'll all have it.
9 - Doug Wolf
Disagree completely
I hang out with hipsters, and i'm just beggining to realize it. Intellectual, indie snobs who hang out in cliques. Oh, they're out there. I know.
And i live in Michigan
10 - Christopher Rose
I have a different take on this. There is no such thing as a hipster these days because it just isn't possible to be hip anymore.
There hasn't been a truly new creative movement for so many years now, just re-treads of what has gone before.
Now that all things cult have just become mundane everyday mass culture, the day of the truly groovy fuckers outside of the mainstream has slipped away into history.
Whilst I miss that to a certain point on a personal level, I'm left feeling unsure as to whether this is a good thing or not and to where it may be leading us.
11 - bc
i find this absolutely hilarious. perhaps everyone should find a brick wall and repeatedly try and move it with their forehead. anyone who does anything because someone or some group says it is cool is a douchebag including hipsters. try doing things because there is nothing else you would rather do. remain unclassified.
12 - Stead
Amen. Bullshit social constructs have power regardless of how bullshit they are. Thank you for doing your part to disarm this one.
13 - Stead
And Christopher. There hasn't been anything truly original since ancient Greece...
14 - Christopher Rose
What, not even Rock'n'Roll?
15 - karinakarina
This "what is a hipster?" argument was solved in an essay entitled "On Douchebags." You can find it on the Wag's Revue website . It's about 29 pages long, and you can definitely skip the first three, but once you get past the overblown rhetoric, it's pretty amazing at explaining the issue at hand.
16 - You are soo hip
The thing about hipsters is that hipsters always deny being hipsters. Even when they admit to identifying with more than a few aspects of hipster culture! Congratulations, you have successfully reinforced hipster irony..
17 - Bullitmore
Nice article and some good views. I have been reading a few of the hate hipster articles including the aforementioned time out one and it seems the most ironic thing (unless im stating the obvious) is the self deprecation and the fact most of the people writing them would be regarded as hipsters if they were caught out on the street without their soapbox to shout from. I mean come on blogs venomous sneering to people considered 'other' aren't these the characteristics that most of these social critics are defining as hipster. People should just take a step back and learn how to laugh about themselves. Come on hippies didn't stop Vietnam, punks didn't destroy capitalism there just the same as hipsters except they didn't have the internet to spread the news about their scene then turn and sneer at the very people who were adopting this scene, some of the people that given the time , or whether they had a culturally relevant job, or where friends of friends they would probably be their friends. The reason that nobody wants to create anything different is fear of the venomous backlash that will happen from critical bloggers and such . come on we're all people there's a lot more troubling things to worry about.
Hipster and proud
ps sorry for bringing up and old thread but i wanted to have my say
18 - Dacc
GREAT article. You seriously said all there is to say about this hipster bullshit. Thank you.