As you can see from the Wikipedia article, there's NOTHING to go on. There's a vague mention of PBR, and a reference to metrosexuality, but there's really nothing else to reference.
Okay, wait, there's one thing — irony. And in a way, that redeems the definition. If a hipster is someone who adopts an aesthetic with no intention of buying into it or taking it seriously, then I can understand some of the pan-cultural ire they earn. Maybe that's what everybody is talking about? Williamsburg is a neighborhood where people tend to be ironic? PBR is an insincere choice for a favorite beer? Wes Anderson is an ironic filmmaker?
The definition has slipped through our fingers, folks. Even if Wes Anderson is ironic, or people tend to like Wolfmother just for the novelty value of self-deprecation, there's no worthy link between the far-flung accusations and the core complaint. Irony is too hard to pin down, and it's been used effectively in too much art, literature, and music for it to really make sense at the center of a stereotype. So we pile on these auxiliary characteristics, and build ourselves a specter that amounts to nothing.
If you want to make a stand against a culture of irony and excessive bad taste, then assert your own good taste. Become a fashion designer, play the ukulele, write for Blogcritics. Make a positive statement about what's awesome, whether you're speaking with your tongue in your cheek (hipster-style) or you're buying into it 100% (traditional nerd style). It's a worthy cause. Stop distracting yourself with random catharsis, dumped on a scapegoat represented by a term you can sling, but can't really define. No stereotype apparitions need to die for culture to be reborn. We just have to fucking DO IT.
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 " 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?