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

[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. >.>

[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.

[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.

I hope this isn't unwelcome Geek Answer Syndrome?

[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.

[snippy]

The tape is clearly broken.

[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