hipster explanation needed

[Macallan9]

Originally Posted by Magician

I am a hipster.

STALKIN YOU AT VIRGINFEST BROSEF

 

[Makeshift_Robot]

Originally Posted by GraphicNovelty

To be a hipster is to exist in a negative cultural space by which your only signifiers are what can be deemed ironically cool and thus appropriated and intergrated into your personal brand. You do not engage in the creation of meanings (as other subcultures do), but rather, are a part of the dissasociation of cultural attributes from the object's original meanings and a facilitator of their transformation into a kitschy lifestyle accessory that simply signifies "cool." Hipsters, unlike other subcultures, do not create meanings. Rather, through ironic appropriation, they destroy the very authenticity that made them cool in the first place.
Honestly this is true maybe a sixth of the time. There are the "hipsters" who do ironic things because they're supposed to be clever and cool, but I don't think that's most of them. There's a huge contingent of hipsters who appropriate old and storied technology, music, and clothing as part of an overarching aspirational lifestyle where, ideally, you go work in a creative or creative-support field at an ethical or self-owned company, then you go to a globally and ethnically diverse party at a repurposed living space or warehouse, meet some sort of winsome inscrutable muse (male or female), and wake up in your dustily lit loft apartment while Belle & Sebastian's "Winter Wooskie" plays on repeat. They tend to be the vintage photoeffects and typography people. That actually is a full subculture of sorts. And then there are tons of people who like some of the music or fashion beloved by either group (which is anything from thrifted suits to APC, and anything from Sleigh Bells to Fleet Foxes), but are frightened by the idea that other people and corporations can influence their identity, so they intensely dislike being called hipsters.

 

[MetroStyles]

There are two ways to tell a hipstar on SF:

1) They get angry when you call them a hipster
2) They volunteer the information that they are hipsters (usually not real hipsters though)

 

[MarkI]

This hipster nonsense has to stop.

 

[mondayc]

This youtube video.

 

[*intellect*]

hippie + indie + slight bit of rock

 

[A Fellow Linguist]

Originally Posted by GraphicNovelty

Words +

Hipsters, unlike other subcultures, do not create meanings. Rather, through ironic appropriation, they destroy the very authenticity that made them cool in the first place.

Holy ****, an intelligent post on SF from someone who isn't Fuuma.

Although, a lot of the things that hipsters re-appropriate are things that were never considered "cool" (despite their status of authenticity) even when/if the were popular. i.e. bicycles, bow ties, jorts, etc. Every subculture re appropriates bits of culture to some degree, but for hipsters it's a subversive show of power to make cool something that never had a popular appeal in the first place. By taking something that's not cool in the first place they show a rejection of mainstream values, but by turning it into a symbol of the "in group" the value of that symbol completely changes. This aggregation of trends and non-trends is like a meta analysis of past subcultures, which is kind of funny considering meta analysis is in a way a trend itself.

 

[Lane]

this thread is everything I hate about hipsters put in such an eloquent way.

 

[chronoaug]

Originally Posted by Saul Silver

i want to like this but i don't know magician and i wave our hipster flags high. join us Also, god it's depressing watching people get so irritated/jealous/philisophical/insecure about whatever constitutes a hipster in a bunch of threads

 

[KitAkira]

Originally Posted by c00kz

Idk, "hipster" kinda varies on the region. When one person calls another a hipster though, there's usually a guaranteed set of characteristics. 1, hipster is thin(ner). 2, into (possibly misguided) style. 3, likely a narcissist to some degree, from a casual fan of myspace self-portraiture to, y'know, the raving pathological narcissists, like those girls who stab others in the back and climb the social ladder with religious fervor.
Thank god for #3, I is not hipster.

Originally Posted by madstaxbro

If you opened this thread for more than 2 seconds you are a hipster.

Originally Posted by Saul Silver

If you like Helvetica and vintage photo effects, then you are a hipster.

Originally Posted by buttman

Aren't authenticity and irony opposites? I thought you can only achieve authenticity through sincerity (e.i. wearing an item of clothing for its intended purpose).
Obviously the irony is that the hipster authenticity is based on hipster irony to achieve a authentic irony made up of ironic authenticity. Hipsters love Peter Gabriel. Hipster girls are often rather hot, so long as they aren't fat. Hipsters, while annoying, are nothing compared to straight edges.

 

[jaychiz]

"hipsters" are just nerds lthat apply their knowledge to their lifestyle (food, fashion, social) opposed to nerds to those to apply their knowledge to work, sports, video games, comic books etc.

i don't think it's much more complicated than that

i love hipster girls

 

[Synthese]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

Do you mean Bourdieu or Badiou (both excellent but quite distinct thinkers).

Oh and you meant "foi" (faith) not "foie" (liver).

lulz yup you're right to both, badiou and not bad liver. blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol

perhaps the only comment I would make is that murakami's empty signifiers and discussion of the superflat often seem to touch on nihilism, and since we've all read zizek, we know that hipsterism can't be the absence of ideology - unstable, maybe, particularly since "hipsterism" is a typically adolescent phenomenon; although in this case collage becomes a fundamentally stable platform for ideology. It's not so much flattened as absorbed like cultural katamari; more like post-post-modernism - collage becomes irony, taken seriously.

 

[ppllzz]

i love big words! <3 fuuma and how smart he is.

 

[GraphicNovelty]

Originally Posted by jaychiz

"hipsters" are just nerds lthat apply their knowledge to their lifestyle (food, fashion, social) opposed to nerds to those to apply their knowledge to work, sports, video games, comic books etc. i don't think it's much more complicated than that
As a nerd who's applied my knowledge to my lifestyle who really doesn't get along with "hipsters" as my definition, I would argue that hipsterdom requries a level of posturing wherein one is insulated by a sense of detached irony. So in one sense, i guess you're right, with the caveat that hipsters are "nerds of cool" rather than "cool nerds" (which is how i'd like to describe myself and my friends.) Also, it should be noted that Hipsters, as stated above, don't want to think of themselves as hipsters (which pins down their identity in a way that is antithetical to their ideal set), and oftentimes derail, dismiss, or refuse to discuss the topic in general, because all descriptions of their subculture and lifestyle are antithetical to that coolness. Fuuma does have a point though: that the creation of a collage of decontextualized signifiers is an act of creation in and of itself. The problem is, what happens when that cultural cache runs dry? And by flattening and reassembling those signifiers, does that alter their meaning in other contexts? Obviously pedophile mustaches aren't going to stop being pedophile mustaches because a bunch of kids in Williamsberg have adopted them as an ironic accessory, but what about other (counter)cultural signs that might have authentic meaning? Ironic hipster metal is one example: by making metal a "hipster" thing, does that gentrify and de-signify the metal subculture to the point of meaninglessness? Unfortunately, I can't go on about signs and signifiers and the rest of that wonderful postmodern theory, because my background in such matters is woefully thin (I studied economics in school, but i studied it at Wesleyan, so this particular subject is one i've had plenty of exposure to.) P.S. Fuuma: I used your explanation of the popularity and marketing of workwear vis-a-vis its reification of masculine identity in a job interview a couple days ago as part of a larger point regarding post-metrosexual masculinity and impressed the **** out the interviewer. So thanks!

 

[wangvicous]

Smoke menthols, drink pbr/40's or some other cheap liquor, poor, no real career goals, and like to bring back things from their childhood(ie. kickball, rollerblading etc.).