Many would like to see the hipster — the word, to say nothing of the person behind it — go the way of the dodo. Only problem: those who would retire the word can’t help using it.
This point was made Tuesday night by Paolo Mastrangelo on NYC The Tumblr, who noted that even some prominent anti-hipster voices, including one writer at Gawker, resort to using the term as a kind of shorthand for all things young or urban or tight-jeaned or ironic or tattooed or … whatever. It just works.
Maybe people are using the word wrong, and that rankles people. But it does have a use, and it does apply to certain people. Kamer [writing on Runnin' Scared] brushed against its true meaning when he wrote that “maybe” it applies to an “enclave in whatever part of your town is being gentrified by the moneyed children of baby boomers.” Not maybe. Most likely.
What touched off the current round of hipster interpretation was an article in Salon on Monday about young, well-educated people applying in greater numbers for food stamps, and using them to buy sumptuous organic food. Leaving aside the issues raised in the article about public assistance, the article, titled “Hipsters on Food Stamps,” also makes use of a few possible definitions of the much-maligned term: “20- and 30-somethings with college degrees and foodie standards,” “creatives,” “young urbanites with a taste for ciabatta,” “young professionals.” These are, of course, definitions that all pretty much work equally well for the hipster’s bizarro doppelganger: the yuppie.
Lest one think that the effort to nail down the stubbornly useful term has been hashed out solely online, take heart: academics and the academic-minded are hard at work on their own taxonomies. Or at least, panel discussions.
www.themountain.com A short-lived hipster fad: wolf t-shirts.At the end of last month, New York University hosted one such talk, “Hipster Culture and Its Legacies,” in which such heady topics were presented as the hipster figure’s roots in 19th-century France (bohemians, bourgeoisie), the “romanticization of blackness,” the Ganguro trend in mid-90s Japan and all manner of liminal spaces.
The talk joined an expanding discussion, which includes an April 2009 panel discussion, “What Was the Hipster?” That panel, organized by the literary magazine and sometime-hipster-accoutrement n+1, focused on defining what the thing we call “hipster” really is. As the writer and hipster expert Christian Lorentzen, who, ironically declared himself to be a non-hipster, said: “The fraud held that there are people called hipsters who follow a creed called hipsterism and exist in a realm called hipsterdom,” he said. “The truth is that there was no such culture worth speaking of, and the people called hipsters just happened to be young, and, more often than not, funny-looking.”
Which itself followed on numerous articles, including one written by Mr. Lorentzen in a 2007 issue of Time Out New York dedicated to the figure and its coming demise. Title: “Why the Hipster Must Die..”
But the hipster, to borrow the posture of an academic panel, is a protean figure. Or an undead one.
And the blogs dedicated to their wants and desires have seemingly spread like zombies, to the point where you almost feel like creating one yourself: Unhappy Hipsters; Hipster Pets, Hipster Puppies; Stuff Hipsters Hate, Hipster Runoff and in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, Irish Hipsters. (Though that last one may be more of a vision of the future.)
Which actually raises an important — to this discussion, anyway — question: how integral is youth to hipsterdom? Is there an age limit? Or better: will the hipster age better than its boomer counterpart, the hippie?
Around the Web from link to link; today’s chatter in the New York City blogosphere. Have a tip? E-mail us at NewYorkOnline@nytimes.com or send a message on Twitter to @jdavidgoodman.
17 Comments
The term “hipster” has always had a perjorative connotation to me.
Seems to describe some 20-something college grad recently arrived from Kansas who’s trying (without much of any success) to be urban and street-wise. You know, kind of like some “cool” food stamp recipient using the card to buy organic granola energy bars….
— GeorgeHipsters are the tumorous cancer of urban society…
— stressed dessertsThey’re just annoying — their smug and entitled attitudes are just too much to take. Sort of like their predecessors, i.e., the yuppie Baby boomer parents.
— Ghost“It’s Hip to Be a Young, Creative Urbanite!”
I’d prefer a young, PRODUCTIVE Urbanite.
— Randy L“Hipsters are the tumorous cancer of urban society…”
More like “humorous.” Tumorous cancer is sort of redundant.
— AFSEven worse — “Trust-Fund Hipster.”
— GerryAren’t hippsters almost always white? Or non-whites who were adopted and raised by whites? And people apparently intensely dislike hippsters. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. . .
— mocolorI don’t think it’s so bad to eat organic health foods and use a food benefit card. If it’s going to help you and others stay healthy, that’s ok.
But to me dressing up the hipster look is a benign quest for being in the know. Internet meme shirts to me are yesteryear’s Davy Crockett hats, Corona Baja hoodies, & tie dyes. Something based on appearances isn’t really going to make an impact as much as a social movements like suffrage, civil rights, and environmentalism. Good luck to you.
And a word of caution- if faced with deciding on which hipster to hire, I would pick the one who’s humble instead of the smug one who is equally competent.
— Smittyage wise, and because i live in brooklyn, i feel that some would call me a “hipster”. and yes, sometimes i wear skinny jeans. however, the term is SO overused that it lost meaning to me years ago, although i must admit i barely understood it in the first place. my definition of hipster would be an insecure scene-y individual making fun of another, possibly similar, scene-y individual, both in their 20s or 30s. when i overhear people using the term hipster in a negative way they are often making fun of or distancing themselves from others who look REMARKABLY similar to themselves, and probably share many common interests and lifestyles. i can’t wait until people stop caring whether or not they are a hipster, scoffing at the accusation, and using the term as just another negative adjective to make fun of those who mirror themselves. it is a word that has been used throughout modern social history and is such a blanket term that i will never understand why there are repeated attempts to extract meaning or a defined social demographic from it. rich kid crusty punks are much more interesting anyways.
— dSmitty, thank you for those words. Truly positive.
— YesYeahhipsters are trust-fund babies—rich and spoiled, living off their parents’ money.
— SusanHipsters are harmless. They are given a bad rap because basically they are phony. They try to dress the part but the part they are dressing for is reflective of a stereotypical “artist” look. I like hipsters because one thing they do is venture into neighborhoods where other white kids would never venture. One look at 145th Street subway stop and you’ll know what I mean.
— HarlemiteI’ll take a hipster over an investment banker any day.
— annieI don’t think the three wolf shirt is a hipster fad, I believe it belongs more to the internet nerd.
Pop culture case in point: on the TV show the Office, Dwight is the one to wear the three wolf shirt (in the wedding episode) and he is classified as a nerd, especially since he enjoys Second Life. The hipsters of the Office would be Jim and Pam, and they would ridicule that three wolf shirt to oblivion.
— UnhipIt’s a hipstervwank fest. I produce groups in manhattan and the musical trends shift so quickly right now. The 21 year olds are so set in cliff notes mentality that the music they are creating is sometimes horrendous with bands like mgmt and vampire weekend that it spawns great breakthroughs like owl city and a new generation of tiger beat twee pop sensations like Cults and Snufaloughagus. Hipster rebellion or hippie teen pop. Imagine Richard Bransonscgrand kids making music
— Paul KostabiWhy do people criticize a group of people that dress funny, wear their hair a certain way, and who live and work (or don’t work) in a certain place in the city?
You could just as easily do the same for a certain six block area in southern Manhattan — men with slicked back Gordon Gecko hair, khaki pants, penny loafers and a creeping anxiety that their next million-dollars deal will not be able to fund their child’s Ivy League education.
You all look weird to me: you’re people!
— phishawHipsters are much like the hippies of my youth – once discovered by the media, the trend has passed and those remaining are merely poseurs.
— Dono