firecat | What is hipster?

There is a company that sells printed magnetic sheets the size of your whole refrigerator*. This one depicts 35mm cameras, Converse basketball shoes, round glasses, something that looks like a cassette tape, and something else I can't parse. This particular magnet is called "hipsters set."

http://www.kudumagnets.com/hipsters-set

I thought I had an idea of what hipster is. But this makes me think that hipster is nostalgia for the 70s, and that's not what I thought it was.

*If you ask me, that takes all the fun out of refrigerator magnets.

Crossposts: http://firecat.livejournal.com/761739.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

teigh_corvus

That's a very odd use of the term hipster. And not very accurate.

And I totally agree that that takes the fun out of refrigerator magnets. Thouhg I'm tempted by the giant sugar skull. >.>

From:

firecat

I kind of like the spices.

From:

staranise

Those are all things hipsters in my area wear/use, in an ironic way. As in, "I am ironically going to wear unfashionable/ugly clothing, and laugh about how awful it is." Ideally the look is completed by courdoroy pants, a button-up denim shirt, a vest, and a fixed-gear bicycle. Then they will go to a place that pretends to be a greasy-spoon diner with a moose head on the wall, that will charge these hipster kids $10 for a spiked milkshake.

Hipsters in my area kind of drive me nuts. (I think the essence of hipsterism is "to never be interested in anything that is actually popular, as only stupid people like popular things, and your taste is much more refined and quirky than that". So it becomes a moving target.)

The thing you cannot identify is a cup with foam coming out of the top.

Edited Date: 18 Apr 2012 06:26 pm (UTC)

From:

firecat

I'll believe they're serious about being unfashionable when they start wearing mullets.

From:

staranise

I have seen this.

From:

firecat

That makes me happy for some reason.

From:

bibliofile

OMG, that's just nuts.* [pounds cane on floor and goes on about kids!thesedays]

*and I say that as a (technically) crazy person

From:

firecat

Actually I guess it's quite a thing. Although some of those look more like a wide mohawk. (Which is what I have. If they want to look like a 50 year old woman, I find that amusing.)

https://encrypted.google.com/search?&q=hipster%20mullet

From:

cleverthylacine

...I've always kind of liked those. Sorry.

From:

firecat

Actually, I like them too. It seems to me they never got a name until they were long out of fashion, and then a lot of people were screaming about how dorky they were.

From:

firecat

Also, it seems to me that to never be interested in anything popular is as old as the hills.

From:

staranise

Yes. So now hipsters have seen that it's uncool and poseurish to deny everything popular, so they are systematically taking over bits of pop culture--you can be excited about The Avengers if you do it in a dorky (but not genuine!) way. So you can have a Captain America lunchbox, or read the original comics, but not both.

It's like a worm eating its own tail. It's like rich kids acting like the people I grew up around (blue-collar white people) are fucking hilarious. It's the stink of people desperately afraid that if they give up trying and just be who they are, their lives will be over.

</bitter>

From:

firecat

I remember the pressure to not be interested in anything. I'm glad I never managed it.

From:

yarram

"It's the stink of people desperately afraid that if they give up trying and just be who they are, their lives will be over."

Not to rain on your parade, but this is pretty much the thing that keeps QUILTBAGs in the closet. I do understand what you're pointing at, it's just that the phrasing bugs me, and I wanted to name for myself why.

From:

cleverthylacine

Apparently I am a hipster (when I'm not a lolita), which amuses me no end. Ever since I went gluten-free and lost enough weight to shop at some of the weird/quirky shops I like (not intentionally, it was just a side-effect, and the sizing is hit or miss for me), people have begun looking at me like I belong in those shops, which, as has been pointed out to me by several very amused friends, are hipster shops.

I am older than most of them but most of my close friends are in that age group and so far as I can tell, being a hipster seems to mean a habit of wearing horn-rimmed glasses and quirky clothes which people who don't fit the demographic find unfashionable, but which I hesitate to call unfashionable when almost everyone I know who cares about fashion at all likes them.

I'm not big into the ironic/pretending not to be interested thing but I do sort of think it's ironic when I run around wearing Angelic Pretty's Decoration Pony necklace (intended to be worn with lolita), a waffle shirt, and a My Little Pony beanie and/or barrettes?

Anyhow, the style is basically dark rimmed/cat eye glasses (if you wear glasses), narrow pant legs, tunic dresses over leggings/slim pants, scarves, etc but the really big things that denote "hipster" to me are the juxtapositions, when people wear t-shirts with old labels or graphics on them with modern clothes, or an item that is a kid's accessory or a vintage piece or an ethnic/traditional piece with their other clothes. And really cool socks. Hipsters love awesome socks. They also love clothing styles that people wore in the 1950s-60s-70s. This sometimes causes me to gape with horror when a friend announces that they really like something that looks like a horrific thing my mom tried to make me wear in 1975, but I really love a lot of the stuff like cat-eye glasses and dresses that look like they belong on Mad Men (with or without leggings and flats), so idk.

I think a lot of the people who wear this look maybe take themselves a bit too seriously but that's a thing that people in their early to mid 20s who are afraid people will think they're kids have done since time immemorial.

From:

firecat

Thanks! I'm starting to get the picture now.

This sometimes causes me to gape with horror when a friend announces that they really like something that looks like a horrific thing my mom tried to make me wear in 1975

I feel that way pretty often...

From:

janetmiles.livejournal.com

Is the thing you can't parse printed in yellow, and is there one about halfway down the upper portion, about one-third of the way in from the left? Because I think that's maybe an espresso cup, with foam or whipped cream on top.

And the cassette tape with the cord may be an adapter to run a Sony Discman through your car tape player.

I don't know what a hipster is, either, except that it's apparently insulting to call someone one.

From:

johnpalmer.livejournal.com

I think so, too, but I think it's an *evil* espresso cup that's holding a throwing disk with a razor edge that it's going to throw at you if you dare slurp its whipped cream. Or maybe it's going to throw it *just because*. Because, you know, evil.

From:

firecat

It's definitely holding a throwing disk, but it looks more like a semi-microwaved marshmallow peep than like whipped cream. Maybe it's a giant semi-microwaved marshmallow peep in a car from a Teacup fairground ride.

From:

kshandra

And the cassette tape with the cord may be an adapter to run a Sony Discman through your car tape player.

It's not a cord - it's a loop of tape that's escaped the cassette. Someone hand me a Bic pen, will you?

From:

firecat

Only it looks like it's not going back in the other end, so the Bic pen trick might not work.

From:

kshandra

If the tape got creased, it could just be curling back in on itself (I certainly saw that happen a time or three), but it'll definitely be a weak point and at risk for breakage. Time to pick up a new copy. ;-)

From:

firecat

But try to play it one more time for kicks and giggles, because it might have weird backward or wah-wah effects.

From:

klwalton.livejournal.com

A #2 pencil works better :).

From:

firecat

It's not Geek Answer Syndrome because you phrased it as a question. But even if it were, it would be fine. :)

I guessed froo froo coffee drink too. That sort of spoils the "nostalgia for 1970s" theme.

I had one of those cassette tape adapters...

From:

snippy

The tape is clearly broken.

From:

graymalkin13.livejournal.com

Wallpaper for refrigerators. Huh.

Yeah, I didn't associate those things with hipsters either, but I'm pretty out of touch with the outside world. Miles told me that hipsters like to be ironic about being hipsters -- apparently, being a hipster is so uncool that you disappear up your own backside and become cool. Maybe anything can be Hipster if you're using it with irony. o_0

Edited Date: 19 Apr 2012 09:42 am (UTC)

From:

firecat

I think probably it can. Over on the DW version of this post we're talking hipster mullets. ;-)

From:

graymalkin13.livejournal.com

Hipster mullets. o_0

Well, it makes sense, I guess. I wonder if hipsters carry around Monkees lunchboxes. I suspect anything less than a spectacularly ironic lunchbox would be verboten, since the Spooky Kids were carrying around lunchboxes in the 80s-90s so it's too soon to carry any old lunchbox. Like my Edward Gorey lunchbox. That wouldn't be ironic enough.

If you're male and have the right facial hair, it seems, everything else you do will be seen as hipsterly ironic. Unfair advantage, if you ask me.

From:

firecat

I don't know about Monkee lunchboxes, but there is a clothing company called Monkee Genes that makes clothing they're labeling hipster (although I suspect what they mean by that is "low-rise").

Female people can be hipster by wearing fake moustaches, can't they? There's even a whole blog devoted to it:
http://hipstergirlsinmustaches.blogspot.com/

From:

graymalkin13.livejournal.com

Oh right, fake moustaches! The first time I encountered the concept was on the facebook page of someone I don't like very much but who is definitely a Cool Person and possibly a hipster. The fake moustache trend is not something I'm into, but I thought it was clever for about 10 minutes. (God, I'm a nasty old woman.)

I think if you buy clothing that's labeled Hipster, you're probably considered just a wannabe by "real" hipsters. It's the same in every subculture that's been coopted and turned into a commodity. Like hippie, punk, and "gothic" cultures. "Gothic Elders" regard kids who buy their clothes at Hot Topic as the worst kind of poseur -- consumers of a mass-produced, commercially labeled imitation of people who were actually creative with their appearance. Then again, hipsterism is so ironic that maybe buying Hipster Brand clothing is totally hipster.