I tend to find most ‘anti-hipster’ rants as annoying as what is being ranted against. Yes, everyone hates to have their particular obscure sub-culture invaded and exploited by those who are deemed ‘less committed’, but the term ‘hipster’ is thrown around with such reckless abandon that you seemingly cannot ride a bike, listen to music, wear fitting clothes or glasses, eat at outside restaurants or have a beard without being labeled a hipster. It’s like Trotskyists arguing with Anarcho-Syndicalists: the differences are so obscure and open to debate that arguing, instead of working with the 99% of the population who doesn’t give a shit about any of it, is a waste of time.
But (there is always a ‘but’), I love this article: Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization in Adbuster’s Magazine.
This quote says it best:
‘An amalgamation of its own history, the youth of the West are left with consuming cool rather that creating it.’
Has everything new already been created and turned inside out? Is this it? I doubt it.
Thanks to Joshua at Discerning Brute for pointing me toward this article.
Interesting article. While I don’t believe the “situation” is THAT bad, it does a good job of illustrating just how difficult it is escape any kind of presumptuous labeling simply by wearing a pair of jeans that fit and riding a bicycle. I remember in the early nineties a Gonz T-Shirt (sk8!) that featured two cartoon characters. One asked the other, “What’s cool?” The other answered, “Nothing is cool.” Prediction of the future or is this all something that has happened before and will eventually shake out? Then again, maybe I just don’t quite see just how much of it’s own tail the snake has eaten by living in a city that is traditionally a little behind.