By Nathan Pipenberg
Today I have to discuss hipsters, and I'll start off by saying that I know this will be a difficult task because I have yet to meet anyone who willingly describes themselves as such.
I don't even want to talk about hipsters, mostly because they know what the term "post-modern" means and what kind of music the band MSTRKRFT plays. This upsets me.
Unfortunately, as far as social forces go, the hipster is actually important to try to understand. As their ironic moustaches grow longer and their ironic tattoos become more numerous, the formerly vivid world of American youth counterculture is disappearing.
Countercultures still exist. You don't have to tell me this. I'm a regular attendee of the hacky sack world championships (seriously) so I know what it's like to be a part of a strange group of friends.
But I'm talking about powerful countercultures that define a generation.
In the past we've had the beatniks, hippies, punks and b-boys. Clearly, I wasn't alive during any of the decades that these groups reigned supreme, but their influence on American society is clear. Beatniks inspired classic novels, like Jack Kerouac's On the Road. The hippies spawned the genius of Jimi Hendrix, and b-boys popularized urban art forms like graffiti. Punks almost succeeded in convincing us that the government sucks and anarchy is a good idea.
Countercultures attract some of the most creative and innovative thinkers. They mobilize the youth and accept novel ideas -- like the civil rights movement -- long before most Americans are willing to.
So, what does our generation have? The hipsters -- a vacuous hoard of faux intellectuals more interested in measuring the vertical drop on their v-neck than taking part in something real. How lovely.
Ask a hipster, and they'll swear on a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon that they aren't even a hipster, really. Sure, everyone else at the party is a hipster, but something makes them different. It's the first counterculture that purposely doesn't self-identify.
It doesn't make sense. Hippies prided themselves on being part of a peace-loving collective. Hipsters pride themselves on transcending a label that clearly fits them to a tee.
Really, hipsterdom is just the end product of all previous countercultures meshing into one. Part punk, part hippie and part old school hip-hop, hipster is indefinable and doesn't really exist.
Everything that's ever been cool over the past five decades is being rounded up, printed on t-shirts, posted on Tumblr, remixed in rap music and throttled to a very uncool death.
There's nothing of substance that makes a hipster any different from anyone else. There's no underlying social dysfunction they object to. Their primary emotion is apathy. Their musical tastes are based on fashion rather than an expression of their feelings. And, by and large, they accept mainstream culture, if only through the lens of witty condescension. In the name of irony listening to "Soulja Boy Tell 'Em" becomes okay.
Previous countercultures were important because they did things. The beat generation rode the rails. Hippies protested the war. Punks, for lack of a better term, f***ed s**t up. In every case, each counterculture engaged in an activity that broader society didn't understand. The clothes they wore were simply a way to identify a kindred spirit.
I'm not saying that hosting peaceful protests and hitchhiking across the country are the best ways to spend your time.
But it's infinitely more useful than posting pictures of your ironic moustache and fake black-rimmed glasses on Tumblr. This is an inarguable fact.
Obviously, there are more important things to concern ourselves with than the downfall of American counterculture. But countercultures reflect these larger issues because often it's the countercultures that tackle the issues head-on.
America relies on the youth to be impassioned, outraged, inspired. We're supposed to embrace high ideals and rage against the authorities that threaten those deals.
Well, I'm sorry, but I don't trust the hipsters to do that. They base their fashion choices on what was popular among 1970s-era lumberjacks, so what's the chance that they'll have a new idea when it comes to social protest?
Of course, you'll have to take this all with a grain of salt -- I'm really a closet hipster. I've been growing out my ironic moustache all week.
Nathan Pipenberg is a junior majoring in journalism and international politics. He is The Daily Collegian's Wednesday columnist.
it's imitative, other than technically theres very little original to it.
it's been thirty years since emotional resonance was considered imperative in the arts. everything has been backburnered to business & salability. why should someone who was not even born before the values changed be able to even understand, at least in any real way, that there are other ways of thinking?
not even from reading, you cannot truly know the contextual whys of being when you have no experience w/ anything but a lackadaisically antithetical context. life amid the circuses when you have enough money to afford bread isnt all that inspiring. it's uninspiring, it's demoralizing. but it's almost impossible for a person, or a people, even, to want to change something which is, perhaps, only illusorily non-destructive.
&, of course, our current broad but shallow culture moves so quickly that making what are only tiny adjustments, tiny forgettable movements outward & elsewhere can be mistaken for progress. for innovation, even. doesnt matter if what you actually have is dandied up complacency. which it is. but you have to be outside--or willing to go outside--of what makes you comfortable to know.
& that is a lonely place to be at best. anyway.
i think we have that today. sure, i get annoyed at a trendy coffeeshop surrounded by mustached jerks sighing over their apple computers. but i also know people who are passionate activists, people who are working hard on their zines because they believe in beauty for its own sake, people who make music just because music rules, etc etc. i also know plenty of young people who are working hard to make a positive impact, in whatever way they can.
so don't give up on us just yet.
Tumblr, Etsy, and the like, exist because people are choosing to construct and share what they would like to see in the world, and fine, it is a bit self indulgent, but thats what self expression is.
It's pretty common to see people non-conform as a group. People tend to latch on to certain cultural memes that have proven themselves (dressing like the brawny man for instance), and hipsters certainly do this. B-Boys tended to dress alike as well. People don't like Hispters, and that's fine. No one liked hippies, punks, zoot-suiters, etc. either. You don't see the impact until years later. Try getting out of the house for a bit. Go see a band, or check out an art opening. There's a lot of great creativity out there, and hipsters are driving all of it.
Sorry for the long winded response, I just don't like to see people lash out at things they don't understand, especially in a place as respected as The Huffington Post.
This endless critique of the "hipsters" seems to be little more than a gross projection of ourselves, of our "consumer culture" mentality onto a particular (ill-defined) segment of society.