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Underground > Conversation >

Defining "The Hipster"

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All Acting Regiment

12:49 / 12.08.08

Also, why, when talking about counter-cultures, do people always seem to talk about the same canon of (by now, if not then) classic rock worthies? The sequence that runs 'The Beatles - Sex Pistols - Morrisey - Kurt Cobain' doesn't include dub, hip-hop, soul, all of which had arguably more political importance; if one is bemoaning the current 'lack of a counterculture', then what about bhangra, grime or dubstep today?

It's also interesting how, while for Hebdige punk was political as opposed to the 60s precursors, now we seem to see an affinity there, a comfortable grouping of 'the 60s stuff' in with 'Punk', an affinity that is probably fictional.

museum in time, tiger in space

13:23 / 12.08.08

now we seem to see an affinity there, a comfortable grouping of 'the 60s stuff' in with 'Punk', an affinity that is probably fictional

It kind of depends on what '60's stuff' we're talking about, doesn't it? I certainly don't think it's that counter-intuitive to see groups like The Stooges, MC5 or Destroy All Monsters as precursors in at least some ways to 'punk'. This isn't an entirely recent idea, either:

Another uncompromising 60s artist, Frank Zappa, told me in 1977 that "I liked 60s punk rock like Sky Saxon and the Seeds. But I saw the Sex Pistols on TV and I didn't think they were too suave." (from here)

All Acting Regiment

13:36 / 12.08.08

Well, in America, yes, there's always been less of a distinction, and musically the sound is similar. I think Hebdige mentions some other things though, in a UK context. I'll try and dig out the book.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:51 / 12.08.08

I responded to the post that you wrote.

Which wasn't written in a vacuum, but rather with the assumption that it would be taken in context with the thread of which it was a part. Anyway, sorry for being snappy. It goes without saying that I was drunk, but I shouldn't have said that, really.

20:04 / 13.08.08

Seems to me like it's taking things you dislike and making it your own to render it harmless.

Can this be a small part of the motivation for hipsters?

I don't think it's quite that political or even serious-minded. Seems to me it's more along the lines of "Wow, this ____ is so uncool, that it's actually pretty awesome." It's like a revolution against what used to be cool and a delighting in things that used to not be so. In fact, even "being cool" itself is distinctly a bad thing.

20:56 / 14.08.08

My experience with hipster culture is entirely limited to my time at a relatively elite American private university in a major American city (not New York). And, admittedly, this environment of introverts with high test scores may be skewing my understanding, but I've always thought that affiliation with "hipster" fashion and culture is a pretty clear-cut expression of the self-doubt and vague, floating guilt complexes that are practically universal among (mostly white) educated young people who grew up in households with a certain (relatively high) income level. Expressing a deeply-held personal value is such a vulnerable proposition that they (we?, I mean, I'm white, educated, etc. but I don't dress like that) sneak round to the back entrance of "so-bad-it's-good" or "at-least-nobody-else-has-heard-of-it", which often results in infuriatingly lazy consensus opinions delivered as though one didn't just read it off the internet that morning (and if you ever want to see something really sad, call one of them on it--"Oh yeah, someone said that in the comments at the AV Club the other day. {pause} Was that you?"). It's boring but also really depressing that all these kids with means and expensive educations think that self-confidence is somehow politically untenable (is that it? Or is it honest-to-god existential doubt?) Or maybe it's just that conformity is attractive to most people most of the time, and this is just its current flavor among a particular demographic.

20:58 / 14.08.08

i heard that, man. i guess hipsters really are just blending in with each other like so many 'scenes'...

Anna de Logardiere

21:28 / 14.08.08

rather with the assumption that it would be taken in context with the thread of which it was a part

You didn't quote back directly, you were writing on the 2nd page of the thread and you focused on 'like' when you meant 'irony'. I did take it in context and I disagreed with what you actually wrote.

04:06 / 15.08.08

For a while I had the theory that hipster culture was what happened to people with a lot of cultural capital, and relatively little economic capital, after the kind of collapse of values of postmodernism. It's a way to assert your cultural capital if you can't make a straightforward value judgment, by holding ALL judgment at one remove, as somehow tainted or uncool.

I don't know if I really want to stand by this theory now, but I thought I woud run it up the flagpole anyway.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:19 / 15.08.08

You didn't quote back directly, you were writing on the 2nd page of the thread and you focused on 'like' when you meant 'irony'.

Yeah, I should probably also have clarified a bit more rather than just saying "people" when I actually meant "the people being defined here as hipsters". Reductio ad absurdam only really works if I don't make the mistake of assuming everyone else has followed the thought process I had before I started typing, I guess.

Anna de Logardiere

11:09 / 15.08.08

Fine, stay in your own head.

13:39 / 15.08.08

people with a lot of cultural capital, and relatively little economic capital

That's quite interesting, actually. I guess I wouldn't find hipsters so annoying if I thought they were broke. One of my unexamined assumptions about them must be that they're rich kids.

03:58 / 16.08.08

I agree that they tend to be upper middle class by background, but they also tend to be students or working kind of weird, precarious jobs, so they're in a part of their life where they don't have tons of money relative to their class position.

05:41 / 16.08.08

So it's not so much that they're asserting their cultural capital, maybe, as that they're asserting their class/status via culture during a phase when money is temporarily less accessible?

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