a stream of consciousness rant on hipsters (or something like that)
(I’m not sure I conveyed my thoughts properly here. I deleted the post, but then a friend told me I should leave it up with this warning. I want to say something about it, but I don’t think this is exactly what I want to say. The article definitely got me thinking and talking with people about it. Maybe I’ll say more later.)
Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization, Adbusters.
I agree with a lot of things this article says, as a stereotype of hipsters in general, but I don’t see things as bleakly as the author apparently does.
Maybe I was late to the party, I’m not really sure, but I think I first started hearing and using the word hipster sometime around the time I moved to Santa Cruz (about two years ago). We tossed the word around pretty loosely, mostly derogatorily, but not entirely. Most of the “hipsters” I knew were actually doing things, they looked the part, but they weren’t some sort of blind consumer, they were socially conscious people that dressed and acted “cool”.
“Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion.” This reminded me of a time a friend was complaining about Urban Outfitters. His argument was that they co-opted the anarchist clothing style and then were trying to sell it back to them at prices they couldn’t afford. (as someone with very little style when it comes to clothing, and no adherence to any one style for sure) I thought that was pretty silly, but I understood the point.
When I moved back to San Diego, maybe it was the fact that it was a year later, or maybe it was San Diego (or more likely that it was not-Santa Cruz) I started noticing the stereotypical hipster, mostly based on appearances. But as I started to meet these “stereotypical hipsters” and become friends, and learn about them on a personal level, not some standing-in-a-club-judgemental-level, I realized they’re not bad people. They’re interested people, sure some of them are consumers, shopping at stores like American Apparel and Urban Outfitters, but others are opening their own boutiques, designing their own clothing, making art and music. I know people that look like they could have just walked off the pages of Vice magazine, but they’re not the mindless, apathetic, consumers described by this article.
I don’t deny that people like those described in the article do exist, I just don’t think that everyone that looks like a hipster, is as shallow and meaningless as the article makes them out to be.
I don’t think the hipster is the end of Western Civilization, I think it’s a passing fad. People will start rebelling again soon enough (some never stopped rebelling, even some that might be labeled as hipsters based on their appearance). I mistakenly tend to think that everyone in the 60’s was a hippy, but I know that’s not true, there were plenty of people that weren’t socially conscious, both those involved in the “hippy movement” and those that weren’t.
