I am planning to work on a thorough and definitive study of Hipsters, but naturally I’m putting it off, because it involves a lot of work.
However, I think we can all agree for now that a Hipster is someone else, not oneself. It’s someone we disdain, in the same way we once disdained Yuppies. Hipsters can be described as people who are already sick of something you have only just discovered.
Tonight, my nephew came over and found me at my computer, enraged by some shit I was reading. I started ranting about how much I hate the way Hipsters have to covet and collect things that might be considered morbid: old medical instruments, taxidermy, creepy shit like this nineteenth century Japanese pregnancy doll.
He rolled his eyes and said dismissively: “That was hip maybe twenty years ago.”
I got very excited, having trapped a live Hipster in the act of being a Hipster! I asked him to tell me what was hip RIGHT NOW, this week, and I even promised not to reveal the valuable secret. He told me that he’d have to think about it. Then we went out to have dinner and I got drunk.
While drunk, I accused him of being a crypto-Hipster, which was so satisfying that I didn’t even care about his denial as the conversation drifted to post post post-modernism. Please feel free to go around slandering and annoying your loved ones with this useful new insult (which I thought I made up before googling it and seeing that it already exists.)
maybe I have a distorted view of ‘hipster-ism’ (I was raised in rural area several hundred miles from NYC) but isn’t one of the central operating policies of the true hipster to never, ever, acknowledge what is (or is not) hip? I think if you find yourself trying to explain a concept as ephemeral as “cool” to someone who might not–probably won’t–get it, you wander out onto the thin ice of potential embarrassment. Only a pseudo-hipster would get involved in something as banal as an explanation, especially one that might leave them open to the horror of exposure! But then again, how would I know?
Wait…I love that doll! 🙂
For further research, please read “The Field Guide To The Urban Hipster” by Josh Aiello. By the way, hipsters in my hood stink. Maybe from all that bike riding.
I am so stealing the crypto hipster. It’s going to be the only pseudo insult I lobby this week!
Sister Wolf…you da bomb! That’s all i got…
I have been told, many a time and oft’, that I am more of a crypt-hipster. For example, I think the latest ‘hip’ thingie is jiving! I fsuspect it will deal a death blow to the waltz and the foxtrot but one must try and keep up with the times!
v funny, David 🙂
“Hipsters can be described as people who are already sick of something you have only just discovered.” That’s a very good definition.
As you should know from my etsy-hipster email the other day, I detest them with every fiber of my being.
A couple of weeks ago, some friends and I went to an event put on by hipsters, initially for hipsters, but it’s somehow spread to a more mainstream audience (well, as mainstream as the weirdos of New Orleans are capable). Anyway, my friends were meeting one of their new friends there. She brought her boyfriend, and when she introduced us to him, my first thought was “Oh god someone please kill him or me now. I cannot take this level of purposeful irony.” And that was followed by actual gagging and stomach churning. I tried to disappear into the column I was standing near, but realized that amongst the room full of hipsters and hippies (it was Jazz Fest time), there was not point…
My naive friends (who are younger and have no sense of jadedness) looked at the Hipster Boyfriend and took his ironic garb seriously. They were shocked that their friend (who they met in Burlesque class!!! Hello?!) would date such a guy, but figured that she must have just been really nice and open minded. Eventually, the guy started talking about how excited he was about his outfit, and described their day long shopping trip to obtain all the elements. Real mullet. T-shirt with airbrushed dragon scene. Skin tight acid washed jeans. Shiny white puffy hightops. Terry wristbands. Maybe even a terry headband, I can’t be sure. Oh, and a moustache, which he’d clearly been working on for awhile. I really wanted to punch the guy.
Later, when trying to discuss the annoying hipsterness with one of the aforementioned friends, she completely denied it and just thought he was really funny. Clearly she has a different definition of hipsters. That and she doesn’t have time at work to look at websites like: http://www.latfh.com/
Hi, I’m a first time commentator, love the blog sisterwolf!
Just have to say after clicking on the link from honeypants, i had to comment on Yokoo from etsy being featured. Lover her knitted accessories, and disagree with her being slapped with the hipster label. But Agree on the definition of the hipster as someone who’s already bored of something you’re just discovered. Maybe thats why they inspire so much hate, they’re always there first…but then if you were, that would make you the hipster. Not really sure where I’m going with this. Anyway.
And that doll is creepy
A) I want the doll, and I don’t care what anyone thinks;
B) I lived 1/2 century w/o knowing what a Hipster was/is;
C) Is there such a thing as an anti-hipster like in anti-matter (you know when you put the two together they cancel each other out, in dramatic fashion);
D) Sister Wolf, I wouldn’t know anything if not for your blog. Thank you!
Insomnia – You are exactly right about that policy, plus the fact that no hipster would willingly ‘self-identify’ as one. Hence, I was not able to get an answer to the question of what’s cool. So, I’m dealing with a savvy crypto-Hipster here.
WendyB – SAME HERE! That’s what got me enraged in the first place.
Bex – Uh oh. My nephew is ia member of a guerrilla bike-riding group. He smells great, though.
K-Line – Let me know how it goes over!
Jill – NO, you are.
David – You might be a post-Hipster. I don’t trust you for a moment!
Honeypants – But, aren’t all those people more like douches than Hipsters???
EmilyT – Thanks! It IS interesting how unwanted the label is….it’s worse than racist, have you noticed?
Deni – A) Me too. B) I know one when I see one. C) Excellent theory! D) Ha, as if.
Hey – do you know you won the prize for making me feel better about the ugly sandals? You should send my your address and I’ll mail you something. PS – I’m notoriously slow at this, so don’t go waiting by the mailbox tomorrow…
Love the post post post modernism debate about being a crypto hipster – had you inventive this word a few months ago I would have put it into my celebrity culture essay. I thought my retro fetishist one was good until you bingoed me with the crypto number – goddam it Sister Wolf!
I meant invented btw – lots of work makes for poor typing.
I think that sounds like a new bacterial strain found on the side of alessi urinals in underground clubs – which is appropriate really.
xx
Yay! This means you have to make a trip to the hipster mecca, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And we can walk Bedford Street together drunk (in 5 months) holding hands and yelling “fuck matthew barney!”
Crypto hipster? You must be very interested on what hipsters are if you spent time googling what they are. If a different type of people want to be defiant to mainstream shit, let em. you look real pathetic making a blog and getting upset that you envy “hipsters” it’s ok, we understand. The only reason I’m fomenting on this is because I’m bored and wanted to see what the latest haters in the world look like today and you my friend is a prime example of a hater. The only reason why you envy hipsters is because what ever subculture your in is plain and boring and original. I’ll confess, I am a “hipster” though hipster is what the name this subculture was given as an insult just the same way as racist giving other cultures insulting names. I am black and proud to be, but the subculture I was born into was not the type of person I wanted to be, in fact,I didn’t want to be apart of any subculture considering the idea that we don’t like the fact that this world is always has to be categorized and the fact of being a follower like you doesn’t have to be an option for people who want to be different.you can talk shit all you want about “hipsters” but in the end, writing this stupid blog which was a waste of your time also made you look like an idiot and yet again, a prime example of a hater.