Definition of a Hipster, baby

13:55 / 18.11.06

What's shaking hep-cats?
Inspired, in part, by the 'Eerie Indiana' thread over in Film&TV, I want to ask: Just what is a hipster?
Now, it's something I should probably know about, having been to Hipster academy Reed College (which is the X-men Mansion if Wolverine was Sufjan Stevens), having 'hung' in Portland, LA, London and, um... Norwich (which is surprisingly hip, daddio). I'd probably call a lot of the people I'd know 'Hipsters', and yet I wouldn't know why, and maybe I'm a hipster myself. Think of this thread as the bizarro counterpart to Rural Savage's Definition of a Chav thread.
Hipsters then, what's that all about?

15:11 / 18.11.06

Predilection for drinking cheap beer because of kitsch value.

Boys: skinny girls' jeans, trucker hats, shaggy overly styled hair, giant belt buckles worn for a sense of "irony."

Girls: mismatched clothes--usually tight, trucket hats, shaggy overly styled hair, 80s style leggings worn for a sense of "irony."

Usually artists or musicians, very disdainful of those who don't cotton to the hipster lifestyle.

Often they work in retail.

Hipsters only date other hipsters.

They talk during music shows, even ones they paid for. They frequent bars that are supposedly dives but are only faux dives. Quite often they are spoiled rich kids who pretend poverty for street cred.

I see them everywhere. I live in the Hipster Capital of the South.

They make me angry.

15:44 / 18.11.06

Predilection for drinking cheap beer because of kitsch value.

Pabst! Blue! Ribbon!

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

15:54 / 18.11.06

Hipster beer of choice, baby. I'd rather drink hydrochloric acid meself. It would taste good before I wouldn't be able to taste anything at all.

Essential Dazzler

16:06 / 18.11.06

Cat and Girl. Hipster souts!

18:15 / 18.11.06

Predilection for drinking cheap beer because of kitsch value.

Pabst! Blue! Ribbon!

Hey! Some of us are both poor and hip. The stuff's a dollar a pint, how can anyone turn that down? Plus they're the only beer that support NPR.

I blame people from new york for turning PBR into a hipster beer. Shame on you.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

18:25 / 18.11.06

It doesn't matter if it's cheap; it's utter shit.

Spend the next fifty cents and go for the High Life. That's a cheap beer that goes down like champagne. Cheap champagne, but hey...

18:41 / 18.11.06

It doesn't matter if it's cheap; it's utter shit.

It's all relative, man. PBR is a step up from Steel Reserve. Talk about a cheap shitty beer, the first sip of Steel Reserve tastes like a punch in the face. But at least the hipsters won't claim it as kitchy.

19:22 / 18.11.06

You say that now, but I'd be careful were I you.

19:36 / 18.11.06

We don't have PBR over here so our hipsters aren't as rubbish.

19:50 / 18.11.06

Having seen Hipsters on both sides of the Atlantic I can say with utter certainty that they are. The cheap beer meme hasn't taken off (what do British hipsters drink?) but everything on Kali's check list above is present and accounted for. Remember Nathan Barley?

20:12 / 18.11.06

All hipsters are rubbish.

Olulabelle

20:13 / 18.11.06

Do we even have hipsters in the UK? Are they the people with the mullet haircuts and the funky glasses?

20:27 / 18.11.06

Ah yes. If it's on TV it must be true.

20:53 / 18.11.06

Oh, there are Hipsters in the UK. Here in the N-to-the-O-to-the-R-Wich, they're generally from the art school, do coke, and go to a club which plays thirty seconds of a pop/R'n'b/dance song dubbed over thirty seconds of another pop/R'n'b/dance song dubbed over glitchy Venetian Snares beats (Hipsters rarely listen to music they actually like in a club setting, preferring instead to do blow until their heart syncs with DJ Spinbastard's 'Ain't no other man/In Da Club/Luke Vibert can kiss by whiteboy indiepunk ass' mash-up).

So why is it that Hipsters are so reviled- especially by their natural enemy, Hipsters, who are the Mods to their Rockers. They tend to be educated, non-violent and not bigoted. Some Hipster's predication for nose-candy excepted they seem to be lovely people. So why is it every time I see Hipsters on the street I want to hit them so hard that their parents die?

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

21:31 / 18.11.06

Well quite a few of them probably have better hair than you.

Not. Possible.

Why don't you just beat up your mum? I mean she basically brought you up to have a problem with people hotter than you. Hotter people with better hair. Hott people are cool.

8===>Q: alyn

00:48 / 19.11.06

Nerds are way better. They have more sex, for one thing.

Slim

05:09 / 19.11.06

Qualyn: Not only are you wrong, but you very well might be insane.

Kali: The fact that you mentioned Miller High Life leads me to believe that you are a hipster in denial. I myself love the High Life but I'm fully aware that it is just as much a hipster beer as PBR. Admit it, you're a closet hipster.

Benny the Ball

05:19 / 19.11.06

London Hipster's fit almost the same profile - rich kids, living in faux shitty areas (brixton, hoxton they love the ...ton's don't they) they have the shaggy hair, normally cut to different lengths, they have the caps and all that crap. They tend to drink ironic coctails (white russian's are always good) as well as expensive beers, the more exotic the drink the better. Oh and they most definitely are into the early stuff, you know, the stuff you didn't hear, because it was released on white label only or something.

Corey Waits

05:50 / 19.11.06

That's odd - the trucker cap was never big with the indie hipster kids here in Australia. It was huge for a while, but it was more of a mainstream-trendy thing, rather than a indie-trendy thing.

Another Aus-hipster thing: the girls all wear vintage/op-shop clothes, especially dresses. Poker-dots (sp?) were a hipster thing, but now they're in every trashy, mainstream store which means they're obviously no-longer "hip".

Beards on guys were big for a little while too. I think that's passed though, 'cause I haven't noticed any lately (then again, I haven't been out to any indie gigs for a while).

07:58 / 19.11.06

The fact that you mentioned Miller High Life leads me to believe that you are a hipster in denial. I myself love the High Life but I'm fully aware that it is just as much a hipster beer as PBR. Admit it, you're a closet hipster.

Hah! He's right. You've caught the disease!
"I ain't a hipster! I just go to the same shows, live in the same area, wear similar clothes, drink the same beer...um..."

I see you with a Steel Reserve in your hand and I'll sock you in the eye.

Michelle Gale

09:08 / 19.11.06

Oh, there are Hipsters in the UK. Here in the N-to-the-O-to-the-R-Wich, they're generally from the art school, do coke, and go to a club which plays thirty seconds of a pop/R'n'b/dance song dubbed over thirty seconds of another pop/R'n'b/dance song dubbed over glitchy Venetian Snares beats (Hipsters rarely listen to music they actually like in a club setting, preferring instead to do blow until their heart syncs with DJ Spinbastard's 'Ain't no other man/In Da Club/Luke Vibert can kiss by whiteboy indiepunk ass' mash-up).

Thats actually sounds kind of fun, Imho a hipster is not intrested in fun, having a good time doesn't come into it, Hipsters Dont like music its just neccesary, it is a means to an end.

Being seen is ALL,

Leeds is probably the hipster capital of England the place is mucky with them and their nodescript haircut indie.

People Don't dance anymore, which is crap.

Bah!

sleazenation

09:48 / 19.11.06

So, lets see if i'm keeping up here, the UK equivilent of a hipster is a trustafarian?

Olulabelle

10:03 / 19.11.06

I can't identify this group in my head. I need a photograph of the hipster species please.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

10:41 / 19.11.06

So how is this different than the chav thread, exactly?

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:49 / 19.11.06

Good shot, MS. I think the difference is that there's a different interplay of ideas about class, privilege, culture, behaviour, clothing, etc., with the first two being the important ones. In some ways the concept of the 'hipster' and the concept of the 'chav' are opposites - 'hipsters' are often reviled for being pretentious, overly weirdly dressed, arty farty, in other words the things that the 'chav' would supposedly wrongly want to beat someone up for. But it's definitely possible for people to scorn both, and position themselves in the middle, as, y'know just a normal person, just a regular guy or girl. "I don't follow fashion or trends, I just dress however I want."

Where 'hipster' is pretty much the same as 'chav', however, is that nobody's definition is quite the same, and 90% of people's definitions are pejorative, i.e. it's basically an othering technique.

Char Aina

11:02 / 19.11.06

OMG!
white russians?!?!
who could drink them, seriously?!?!?!

fuck me, you guys need to get a grip.
hipsters don't like music?
are you sure you arent just projecting?

11:20 / 19.11.06

Lula- Lastnightsparty has many (generally NSFW) pictures of New York hipsters in their natural habitat. The front page has a picture of a vintage high-heeled shoe with eighties tube sock stamping on a human face, in a nod to Orwell.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:31 / 19.11.06

...Who was, after all, really very worried about This Sort of Thing.