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

[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.

[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/

[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.