Hipsters

[Reyturner]

I think that describes how "hipster" is misused.

For me it's more like "someone who trades in fetishized authenticity as a replacement for being authentic themselves".

[Badfinger]

Could you stop judging 5 year olds for long enough to figure out why I'm upset with you for judging 5 year olds?

[clyde]

Could you stop judging 5 year olds for long enough to figure out why I'm upset with you for judging 5 year olds?

I don't want to upset you. Maybe the misunderstanding is that you think I'm judging 5 year-olds and I think I'm judging the art-works of 5 year-olds. If you are still angry with me for judging the art-work of 5 year-olds, then I'm not sure why and I would like to hear why that upsets you (if you want to share).

If you think that judging the art-work of 5 year-olds is a de-facto judgment on the 5 year-olds themselves then I'm interested in your reasons for believing that. Why are you upset with me?

[clyde]

The best working definition of hipster I have found is "one who makes you insecure about how cool you are". That seems to be the way most people use it.

You sound like a hipster.

I think this "It's hip to be square" fad has gone too far and now it has become uncool to be cool. Admitting that you have taste (good taste and bad taste) has become taboo. Fuck that. I think I'm cool as shit, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise because it's not fashionable. Hipster4Life.

[tegan]

When I worked at Blockbuster, this old lady called me about problems she was having with "a really old movie; you've probably never heard of it."

 

 

 

The movie was Gone With the Wind

[prettyunsmart]

The best working definition of hipster I have found is "one who makes you insecure about how cool you are". That seems to be the way most people use it.

 

Maybe that's how it is often used, but under that definition, dickish members of the football team in high school were hipsters.

 

I think that describes how "hipster" is misused.

For me it's more like "someone who trades in fetishized authenticity as a replacement for being authentic themselves".

 

That raises the question about what is really authentic. Sure, the idea of the hipster is based on the idea of the person who trades on knowing things before they got popular and sold out, and are therefore more authentic, but what would being really authentic look like? Is that a thing we can really pin down?

[Reyturner]

That's why I throw in that adjective "fetishized"; wearing a scarf and thick frames and skinny jeans at the fair trade coffee shop while you write your novel on a typewriter because that's who you are is fine.

Wearing a scarf and thick frames and skinny jeans at the fair trade coffee shop while you write your novel on a typewriter because you hope people will think you're as cool and authentic as the guy in the former case is hipster bullshit.

I think this sums it up.

[TheLastBaron]

I'm really disappointed, I thought this was going to be a thread about jazz and then I came back and it wasn't.

[Badfinger]

I don't want to upset you. Maybe the misunderstanding is that you think I'm judging 5 year-olds and I think I'm judging the art-works of 5 year-olds. If you are still angry with me for judging the art-work of 5 year-olds, then I'm not sure why and I would like to hear why that upsets you (if you want to share).

If you think that judging the art-work of 5 year-olds is a de-facto judgment on the 5 year-olds themselves then I'm interested in your reasons for believing that. Why are you upset with me?

 

Following your question with a question, why are you judging or feel compelled to judge the art work of 5 year olds?

 

I'm really disappointed, I thought this was going to be a thread about jazz and then I came back and it wasn't.

 

I love jazz. Should we have a jazz thread?

[Roderick]

Seems to me the working idea of 'hipster' is deeply rooted in the accusation of someone not being 'real' or 'authentic', which is about the worst bullshit assumption you can make of someone. On par with the 'fake geek girl' and scores and scores of goths concerned with the purity of their group. It's oneupmanship, pure and simple. You don't like someone messing with cultural icons that you feel connected to, and so invent reasons to disparage them.

One would hope people grow out of this. The notion of hipster smacks of this, and I have absolutely no patience for it. I don't care for it, I don't care how people choose to style themselves, I can't and couldn't say how 'authentic' anyone truly is inside, and it's circle-jerk nonsense to try to pinpoint that only to discredit them and make yourself feel better and more special.

[Twig]

Following your question with a question, why are you judging or feel compelled to judge the art work of 5 year olds?

Why shouldn't he? What's wrong with judging things, regardless of their source?

[clyde]

Following your question with a question, why are you judging or feel compelled to judge the art work of 5 year olds?

Art-appreciation and criticism is really enjoyable for me. I'm an artist myself, so I form a venacular to understand what goals are possible, what techniques are available, and how the dynamics of the artistic media play out.

Why I judge some things and not others:

I am used to thinking of some media as more expressive than others. Paintings and drawings are on the more expressive side of the spectrum for me than something like phone-book listings. I think whether or not I consider a medium expressive is probably relevant to how the reality of the piece relates to my expectations. I like art that acknowledges my expectations and then subverts them the most, next up is art that defies my expectations, and then as art becomes closer and closer to my expectations of the medium I find it boring and sucky. In the past, displays of kid-art has evoked all three of these reactions in me so I have decided that kid-art in general is worthy of discussion and judgement.

[clyde]

Seems to me the working idea of 'hipster' is deeply rooted in the accusation of someone not being 'real' or 'authentic', which is about the worst bullshit assumption you can make of someone. On par with the 'fake geek girl' and scores and scores of goths concerned with the purity of their group. It's oneupmanship, pure and simple. You don't like someone messing with cultural icons that you feel connected to, and so invent reasons to disparage them.

One would hope people grow out of this. The notion of hipster smacks of this, and I have absolutely no patience for it. I don't care for it, I don't care how people choose to style themselves, I can't and couldn't say how 'authentic' anyone truly is inside, and it's circle-jerk nonsense to try to pinpoint that only to discredit them and make yourself feel better and more special.

When I read this, I think you are referring to the act of accusing someone of being a hipster rather than the actions of the hipsters themselves. Is this correct? By this reading, it sounds like you have a problem with squares.

Edit: actually, I imagine you would have the same problem if a hipster made a judgement about someone's squarishness.

[Roderick]

Yes, correct. But isn't hipster mostly, if not exclusively used as a derogatory word? I've never seen or heard anyone self-identify as a hipster, but tons of times accusing others of being it.

[clyde]

Yes, correct. But isn't hipster mostly, if not exclusively used as a derogatory word?

No!

This is what I'm fighting for. The squares have managed to wrestle the concept of hipster away from us cool folk and made it exclusively derogatory. Being hip is cool!

The word has an actual meaning. The derogatory use is pure nonsense.

[clyde]

I had no idea that this was such a lost cause. Am I seriously the only self-identified hipster?

Am I the last willing remnant of the counter-culture tradition?

[Gormongous]

I had no idea that this was such a lost cause. Am I seriously the only self-identified hipster?

Am I the last willing remnant of the counter-culture tradition?

 

If there's any cultural force of which I'm actually a part anymore, it's probably being a hipster. I self-apply it on occasion, usually with a wry twist of the mouth, the same way someone might self-apply "yuppie" or "hippie" or any other subcultural identity that's been poisoned in the public eye for being too exclusive or too rigorous.

 

Honestly, I like the first half of Reyturner's definition: "someone who fetishizes authenticity". Authenticity is an elusive, probably imaginary thing, so it makes sense for the public at large to have disdain for those who chase it. I don't know why the "without being authentic themselves" part is needed, though. Do we have a different word for someone who fetishizes authenticity and is authentic? I know a few, I call them hipsters, too. How am I not myself, anyway?

[Reyturner]

Do we have a different word for someone who fetishizes authenticity and is authentic?

I think it would be the same word you'd use for someone who fetishizes not thinking about an orange and never thinks about an orange.

[Twig]

I had no idea that this was such a lost cause. Am I seriously the only self-identified hipster?

Am I the last willing remnant of the counter-culture tradition?

I don't really consider myself a hipster and no one would ever call me a hipster (except my old boss because I would constantly evangelize indie video games to people we worked with), but I find this thread pretty annoying to read because of all the anti-hipster attitude. It's kind of gross. I had no idea there was such animosity toward hipsters. I thought it was just more of a widespread safe fun-poking*, but it seems like some people just actively fucking detest everything about hipsters.

 

*I guess part of the reason for that is because I have a few friends who I WOULD describe as hipsters, and not at all in a pejorative sense. They are my friends and they're awesome.

[Problem Machine]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon

[Patrick R]

I had no idea that this was such a lost cause. Am I seriously the only self-identified hipster?

Am I the last willing remnant of the counter-culture tradition?

 

Oh brother.

[RubixsQube]

This thread is real ridiculous.

 

Clyde! Just like the things you like! You can call yourself whatever you want! Fetishize authenticity, or don't. The problem with continually trying to be counter-culture is that eventually, you have to be counter-counter culture in order to be edgy and authentic,, and then counter-counter-counter culture, and eventually what the hell are you standing for? People give hipsters shit only because they fight so damn hard for the world to recognize their efforts at consumption: "I like this movie! I liked this movie before you did! That makes me special!" 

[Gormongous]

This thread is real ridiculous.

Clyde! Just like the things you like! You can call yourself whatever you want! Fetishize authenticity, or don't. The problem with continually trying to be counter-culture is that eventually, you have to be counter-counter culture in order to be edgy and authentic,, and then counter-counter-counter culture, and eventually what the hell are you standing for? People give hipsters shit only because they fight so damn hard for the world to recognize their efforts at consumption: "I like this movie! I liked this movie before you did! That makes me special!"

I don't feel great about this post. Did you just dismiss all counterculture as a slippery slope? Also, the reason you gave is not the only reason people give hipsters shit, even in this thread.

Honestly, I think I'm learning more about what kind of people resent hipsters than about hipsters themselves.

[Twig]

This thread is real ridiculous.

If I'm completely honest, I find your posts to be the most ridiculous of them all. You're being so incredibly dismissive of clyde's personal identity just because there are some things you dislike in life.

[SecretAsianMan]

The thing I don't like about clyde's definition is that it seems to basically be saying "I'm cool, you're not".  If you think you're cool, great.  If you think you're not, great.  But if you think you are cool and need the rest of the world to know it by using words like hipster, then I dunno.  It seems like it shouldn't matter.  Saying that people who aren't hipsters are squares sound rather arrogant to me.  And for that matter, I'm not even sure what square means.  I can only assume in this context that because hipster is good and a square is not a hipster, a square is bad.  That's how I'm reading all of this anyway.  If I am misinterpreting things, someone please tell me because frankly I am lost.