Hipster? So What? (3/13/09)

Lots of people have derisively called me a hipster in my day (most frequent offender: my brother. Also my hipster music friends). Yet most people I know also claim to hate hipsters, are ever-vigilant against the threat of hipsters ruining the things they like, and would be mortally offended to be described as one.

However, no one had ever reasonably explained why being a hipster is so bad. Things that have gotten me called a hipster lately are: reading internet comics (more nerdy than anything, I’d think), liking Neko Case, wearing wellies (also referring to said boots as “wellies”), having a blog and liking (allegedly) “ironic” tote bags. Oh, and wearing large, vintage-esque sunglasses. I get called out for that on an near-weekly basis.

These things seem inoffensive. In fact, a lot of them are simply what I would (totally objectively) describe as having good taste and liking the finer things in life.

The best anyone seems to be able to come up with to explain why “hipster” is a dirty word is something about how they expend energy to be cool (rather than just going about their business with the faith that they are cool by default, which is what most people I know do*), and may in fact misrepresent their tastes to be perceived as cooler than they actually are by their peers. Which, I find, is only offensive to people who are also doing that. Some one pretending to like what you like is harmless. Some one pretending to like what you are just a little better at pretending you like is an opportunity to make yourself look like the shit at their expense. Hence the prevalence of the insult “poseur” amongst my high school clique.

I’ve also heard the slightly more damning critique that “hipster culture” is so entrenched in privilege that it is inherently racist, sexist, pretty much discriminatory against everyone who isn’t a white dude. I say, I believe you are speaking of American culture, my friend. There is no one more annoyed than I with “ironic” racism and other such nonsense, especially from self-described progressives, but I don’t think that you can single out one sub-culture as worse than another (unless that sub-culture is, like, white supremacy).

Anyway, the point being, call me a hipster all you want. I’m prepared to admit that I basically fit this description:

“Hip-ster \ˈhip-stər\ noun: A slang term used to describe a person in their twenties to early thirties, generally from a middle class upbringing whose sense of identity encompasses many of the following elements and/or activities: a pretentious knowledge of independent music, art and film, wears thrift store or handmade clothing, has childhood nostalgia, an interest in DIY activities, consuming organic/vegan/vegetarian foods, usually possessing some level of higher education, a well developed sense of irony, often possessing a general knowledge of and strong opinion about world politics.” -How to Impress a Hipster

I’d take issue with the word “pretentious,” or at least argue that I am only pretentious concerning literature. However, as many people (ahem, my brother) use the term pretentious to mean “more knowledgeable than I am inspired to be on this particular topic, and yet perversely not ashamed of their unnecessarily superior knowledge,” I don’t object too strenuously.

Basically this is a description of the sort of person who has been responsible for a lot of the positive social change since the middle ages, the bourgeois intellectual.

So, seriously, what’s wrong with that?

*Obviously, we all say that we don’t care if people think we’re cool or not. This is only true depending on how you define “cool.” I don’t care if people think “Wow, there’s a chick who is way in tune with the latest trends!” but I do care if people think “Wow, there’s a chick way who’s interesting and worth getting to know!” And so most does everyone else. Because we are social creatures.