From Adbusters...

I‘m sipping a scummy pint of cloudy beer in the back of a trendy dive bar turned nightclub in the heart of the city’s heroin district. In front of me stand a gang of hippiesh grunge-punk types, who crowd around each other and collectively scoff at the smoking laws by sneaking puffs of “fuck-you,” reveling in their perceived rebellion as the haggard, staggering staff look on without the slightest concern.

 

The “DJ” is keystroking a selection of MP3s off his MacBook, making a mix that sounds like he took a hatchet to a collection of yesteryear billboard hits, from DMX to Dolly Parton, but mashed up with a jittery techno backbeat.

 

“So… this is a hipster party?” I ask the girl sitting next to me. She’s wearing big dangling earrings, an American Apparel V-neck tee, non-prescription eyeglasses and an inappropriately warm wool coat.

 

“Yeah, just look around you, 99 percent of the people here are total hipsters!”

 

“Are you a hipster?”

 

“Fuck no,” she says, laughing back the last of her glass before she hops off to the dance floor.

 

Ever since the Allies bombed the Axis into submission, Western civilization has had a succession of counter-culture movements that have energetically challenged the status quo.

......

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

 

"But after punk was plasticized and hip hop lost its impetus for social change, all of the formerly dominant streams of “counter-culture” have merged together. Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.”

An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society. "

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Will Russia ban the hipster now?  Seriously, though, I've known this for some time.  We are the worst generation the planet has ever known.  Everyone bags on the hippies for selling out, but at least they stopped a war and got the ball rolling on civil rights and environmental awareness.  We sit feeling ultimately entitled, and yet we've done nothing to stop the war in Iraq, our identity is constantly dictated to us by Urban Outfitters nostalgia, and Starbucks are everywhere.  The bums lost and the hipsters don't even care.

Part of me thinks that this is the way that it works -- there's nothing unitary to rebel against, we settle for small compromises that gradually become bigger and bigger. The whole notion of "hipster" has its own geneaology, and the present sense of the word doesn't have much to do with its origins in jazz. It has everything to do, however, with how capitalism is reconfiguring bodies and work to extract more value for fewer people. The idealized hipster (kind of a cipher of a concept, but useful) is someone who is cosmopolitan but revels in localism -- the sort of person who hangs out in pseudo-dive bars, drinking Pabst while checking their email on an iPhone. It's someone who is part of the creative class -- someone whose work is part play, and whose leisure time feeds into their work as a creative. It has everything to do with precariousness -- the ideal hipster would be a freelancer. I wish that there were a comprehensive explanation of how things got this way, but it also seems basically impossible. If we're not "for" or "against" anything in particular, then it's a function of not really looking into what our political content is. And I think that identifying a segment of the population as "hipster" is maybe inevitable, but sort of counter-productive. No-one will ever claim to be one -- even if they base their fashion and sense of humor on Vice or whatever. Everyone's in the same situation; these aesthetic choices are a function of economic and social conditions, not a deliberate "turning away" from reality or an obsessive, narcissistic self-absporption.

i have like nothing intelligent to add, but i would like to see this conversation continue.

 

i will say that i am terribly, terribly thankful that tecate has usurped pabst as the hipster beer of choice here in sf, because it's light years better and now there's drink specials on it all over the place. bravo.

We've had enough columnists bash hipsters. We need more bands, movies and artists to do the same.

actually saw this posted on a music mailing list on today.

i don't even know what a hipster is anymore. i think it's basically become people you don't like who wear tighter jeans than most people.

it was a term that worked for a year or two, tops.

 

now its gone back to its cave of meaninglessness, until someone digs it up again in another 40-50 years.

I think saying the term hipster is meaningless is an attempt to distract from its real danger, and uses hipsters' tools (relativism, simulacra theory) as a defense against criticism. We know what a hipster is; there's a look (tight jeans, ironic shirt, asshole haricut), sensibility (being a nerd about whatever topic you're a nerd about, holier-than-thou), and politics (none, because who are we to say what is right and what is wrong). Meanwhile our government is getting a free pass for torture, privacy invasions and a shit war because the segment of the population that should be protesting it is too jaded to care.

ditto daba. the term is completely devoid of positive content and is only useful to deride the superficiality or perceived inauthenticity of others as way to hysterically mask one's fears about oneself.

Post-script: Adbusters sux

haifishch, that reeks of postmodernspeak. again, it's the classic hipster defense, because you can't prove a negative, clearly my attacks are worthless, right?

The term hipster has lost all meaning. 

 

It reminds me of how emo totally changed meanings although hipster I think means nothing at all other than a way to criticize someone you don't like who dresses a certain way.

 

About five years ago, I remember thinking oh hipsters....they want to be in the scene, at the good parties but know nothing about anything including music. Basically they just wanted to look cool. Then I remember an acquaintance telling me that we were all hipsters. Her defense was we liked indie music and were at a bar in Williamsburg. I thought she was out of her head. Hipsters are phony mfs that don't know shit about music and have no integrity. That guy right there, he likes shitty music like Morningwood and wasn't going to Fugazi shows when he was 16. My friend didn't see it my way and soon I found that a lot of people were using the term hipster the way she was. 

 

That was the first time I heard the term hipster used this way and through the years I think it's only been overused to the point that it doesn't mean anything.

 

Regarding your definition Ethan, the only thing I agree with is the look. Hipsters wear tight jeans and have bad haircuts. But again, how are people labeling people hipsters if they don't know them, i.e. I went to a show and I was surrounded by hipsters. To me that just translates to I was around these people, they annoyed me and the wore tight jeans and annoyed me.

 

In any case, I agree that the term has lost all meaning. Overdone. Played out. Deaded. The term hipster once meant something, but now it has various meanings. It's basically become a term used to put down people you don't like that happen dress a certain way.

what a piss-poor article. i really have no opinion on this issue other than: debating it is for tards

We argued about whether or not that 45-year old guy with a cowboy hat was a hipster or not a few weeks ago ACB!

I always thought a hipster was a cunt who saw his/herself on the cutting edge of whatever cultural scene they were commiting to (design, art, fashion, music). But had no socio or political opinion beyond whatever field they were in.

 

These scene nerds, who know nothing outside of their particular scene, and didnt care to know... are what I consider hipsters. The tight jeans is mostly a fashion choice. Hipsters are one dimensional experts who impress only themselves.