What is hipster?

[firecat]

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.

Comments

[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.

[firecat]

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

[staranise]

I have seen this.

[firecat]

That makes me happy for some reason.

[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

[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

[cleverthylacine]

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

[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.

[firecat]

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

[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>

[firecat]

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

[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.