The Evolution of the Hipster
"What's a hipster," you ask? The question you should be asking is: "What was a hipster?" Mark Greif explains:
If I speak of the degeneration of our most visible recent subculture, the hipster, it’s an awkward occasion. Someone will point out that hipsters are not dead, they still breathe, they live on my block. Yet it is evident that we have reached the end of an epoch in the life of the type. Its evolution lasted from 1999 to 2009, though it has shifted appearance dramatically over the decade. It survived this year; it may persist. Indications are everywhere, however, that we have come to a moment of stocktaking.
The whole piece in NY Mag is long, but worth a read. Chances are you'll glean a factoid or two about a predominant American subculture of which you may not even have been aware.
- Comment (8)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
Comments :
Oct '10
Re: The Evolution of the Hipster
I grew up in this 99' to 09' decade and honestly I can't think of a subculture that I despise more than the hipster. Even the Emos have more appeal to me than them. The hipster subculture combined leftist elite snobbery with consumerism/materialism at its finest. The hipster preaches all the right opinions, spends vast sums of their parents money on all the "right" products while looking down their noses at every person out there who earns their own way in life. By far the vast majority of hipsters are white (I'm white) upper middle class kids who have been coddled all their lives and have an inherent sense of entitlement. Concepts like joining the military because you'd rather pay your own way through college rather than rely on mommy and daddy are not only foreign to them, but unthinkable and below them. The thing that has always driven me nuts about hipsters is simply the fact that they are the embodiment of a spoiled generation. At least the Emo's major concern is not whether or not their mocha was made with free trade beans and soy milk.
Oct '10
Re: The Evolution of the Hipster
Well, I made it through half the article at least. I think I went to school with a lot of wannabe hipsters - trucker hats, aviators and wifebeaters were not in short supply. I say good riddance.
Oct '10
Re: The Evolution of the Hipster
I hadn't even heard of hipsters until a year ago. Didn't miss much, evidently.
Re: The Evolution of the Hipster
I'm often entertained by this group of harmless, fun-loving people called hipsters. To be ironic purely for irony's sake is a great joke. Its also fun to see what products they flock to: Pabst Blue Ribbon, lens-less glasses, american spirit cigarettes?
However, I do hold some grudges against hipsters. After all, they did help elect Barack Obama and are wholly responsible for the decline of my beloved indie rock.
Their disappearance will be bittersweet.
May '10
Re: The Evolution of the Hipster
They should include a label with all sales of those douche-y square glasses
"Warning. May cause smug"
Aug '10
Re: The Evolution of the Hipster
That's the most incoherent piece of garbage I've seen in the NYT. The word hipster is synonymous with hepcat, and dates back to at least 1937:
a person who is unusually aware of and interested in new and unconventional patterns (as in jazz or fashion) - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hepcat
I grew up in San Francisco when there were beatniks, a word coined by Herb Caen of the S.F. Chronicle - he claimed. The beatniks morphed into hippies - another Caen word - when San Francisco's own sound was born via The Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, and Quicksilver Messenger Service.
I was a hippie - a word we hated - and experienced the whole Haight-Ashbury Summer of Love Utopian dream cum nightmare. The same motivations and goals animated all of us, Utopian dreams and the desire to be unique, elite, when every other form of elitism was unattainable or repellent to us.
The Bohemians of Montmarte, and the artist-philosopher fringe groups of New York, London, Paris, Berlin, and other cities throughout history are largely made up of society's outcasts, eccentrics, and criminals. A few contribute enormously with their creativity. Most of the others don't.
Jun '10
Re: The Evolution of the Hipster
I made my way through the NYMag piece. The only thing that comes to mind is an out of context movie quote from City Slickers:
Curly: You make a lot of smart remarks at my expense, don't you?
Mitch: I'm joking. I do that with everybody. It's just my way.
Curly: I don't understand that way.
I guess I'm far too unenlightened here in the southern portion of the unwashed middle. The games people play, and all that, I suppose. Whatever floats their boat.
May '10
Re: The Evolution of the Hipster
I live in NY. We trip over hipsters at Union Square.