First, a definition via Wikipedia:
"In the late 1990s and during the 2000s, the 1940s slang term hipster was used to describe young, urban middle class and upper class adults with interests in non-mainstream fashion and culture, particularly alternative music, independent rock, independent film, magazines like Vice and Clash, websites like Pitchfork Media, and organic, vegan, or locally-grown food.[1] In some contexts, hipsters are also referred to as scenesters.[2]
It is difficult to give a precise definition of a hipster, because hipster culture is a "mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior[s]."[3] One commentator argues that "hipsterism fetishizes the authentic" elements of all of the "fringe movements of the postwar era—Beat, hippie, punk, even grunge," and draws on the "cultural stores of every unmelted ethnicity" and "gay style", and "regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity" and a sense of irony.[4]"
Now that we all understand what a hipster is, one would logically ask, "why?" Hipsterism is the result of the times. It is spawned largely out of the suburban boredom common in today's middle class young people. They want to be socially active, but have tasted the fruits of consumerism and want to have the good life as well. Essentially, they all want to be Andy Warhol.Hipsterism is an absurdist, post-modern movement. (Whether or not this is recognized by its subscribers) Irony, the sole principle shared by all hipsters, is a disempowering force. After Duchamp's urinal, hipsterism strives to question societal norms. A hipster's irony questions what is classy and what isn't, what is beautiful and what isn't, what is pleasing to listen to and what is crap.
Hipsterism doesn't deserve the criticism it deserves. Hipster culture is saturated with 'posers' who don't subscribe to the philosophical aspects of hipsterism. These 'posers' create an awful image for the scene as a whole. It is important to recognize that posers exist in every counterculture. Hipster culture is an easier target than most. Like the other absurdist movements of the past century, hipsterism is not appreciated by the masses because it is largely misunderstood. Most hipsters are just thought of as pretentious consumer whores while their works are meant to make a difference.
Maybe you all can hate the hipster movement a little less now that you know more about it. Now, I have a question for you: Is hipsterism dead?
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4 comments:
I think hipster, in the original inauthentic way, is dead. Now it's fully corporate inauthenticity, mass marketed conspicuous consumption, as the way current aesthetics are defined as how they have been questioned in the past.
The major criticisms I have with the hipster subculture are
(a) conspicuous consumption. rebellious consumerism bothers me (see Century of the Self for 1-4 hours depending on yr attention span of why)
(b) pointless reinvention and deconstruction. there is a certain level where trying to reinvent the status quo gets to be a cycle, as the underground becomes mainstream, someone comes along to question the former underground, which leads to...
(c) the current underground existing not as something genuine (which you say is what hipster"ism" strives for), but defining itself as something "other" than the mainstream. defining oneself only as a reaction to the "other" is still not the construction of a genuine "self," as this self is being defined by a reaction against something else.
To claim the values of reinvention and deconstruction as solely hipster, or to claim Dada as hipster 70-80 years after the movement, are ridiculous.
Would you call hipster a social movement, subculture, art movement, all of these, or none of the above?
Did most of that make sense? I hope so.
And did you really just use hipster as an "ism"?
"And did you really just use hipster as an "ism"?"
oh hell yes i did.
After an interesting conversation with my friend Lee, a new definition of Hipster has emerged.
Hipster Apparatus:
The Intellectual, Self-reflective/critical, specter of ourselves. Therefore hipsters do not exist, but are rather an image of what is right/wrong with our world.
Rebellious consumerism is not part of hipsterism, that part belongs to the "posers." The problem with hipsters is that they don't exist. There are only posers who idealize the "hipster."
I see why it is ridiculous to claim dada as hipster, but i merely claimed hipsterism as an absurdist movement.
Reinvention of the underground is wonderful and not pointless. Reinvention of what will be the mainstream destroys what is socially accepted and normal. Nothing is genuine and that's alright.
can i coin "ihy" right here and now, as the converse expression of "ily"? (i kid)
The way you describe "hipsterism" is somewhere between subculture and a real "ism" or philosophical movement. I'd consider it more a part of postmodernism, with no new or separate ideas, rather than its own philosophical movement.
So hipster is dead? in a superposition of states? never existed?
Also the reinvention, especially as part of a radical individualist culture irks me. I figure the Wikipedia arcticle on Century of the Self is a hell of a lot shorter, but doesn't get the message across as well as the documentary.
I believe in authenticity, not in the "unique snowflake" way but rather the acceptance that most things that are a part of yr identity are from other sources. Like how a perspective or action fits the general framework of yr philosophy on life is what defines something as authentic, not whether it's part of some "genuine inner you."
Lots of times when I shit-talk hipsters I really mean those that embrace postmodernism wholly, as I see the two as essentially interchangeable. We're past the postmodern era.
Really what I mean to say is REMODERNISM NOW (not that some remodernist thinkers don't have their flaws too...)
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