A Great Piece On Hipsters And Why They Must Die
Under the guise of “irony,” hipsterism fetishizes the authentic and regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity. Those 18-to-34-year-olds called hipsters have defanged, skinned and consumed the fringe movements of the postwar era—Beat, hippie, punk, even grunge. Hungry for more, and sick with the anxiety of influence, they feed as well from the trough of the uncool, turning white trash chic, and gouging the husks of long-expired subcultures—vaudeville, burlesque, cowboys and pirates.
(Read more of WHY THE HIPSTER MUST DIE )
Breathtakingly clear eyed and on target– makes the hairs on your neck stand up.
This Christian Lorentzen is my hero.
Many argue that there always have and always will be hipsters, but I feel like this latest storm of shitheads (I noticed them 5 years ago or so in Echo Park– early adopters) are far worse than any other sub-culture in that they are the Shang Tsung (the shapeshifting Mortal Kombat II boss) of sub-cultures in that they have nothing of their own to offer and yet are calmly ruin everything they touch with the same modicum of ennui and contemn.
That doesn’t mean that these hipsters don’t take themselves seriously— au contraire— not like the hard boiled yet meek gutter punks of the late 90’s who knew their look and worldview was a joke they’d one day grow out of, the hipsters of today consider their apparel an inside joke but overall consider their mission to be very serious– whatever it may be. It’s always something vast and pretensious— Music, Film, DJing, Art, Design, Fashion, Liberal politics. etc. etc.
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junkyard
I read an interesting article about hipsters by this dude, Douglas Haddow, on AdBusters. Here are a couple of my favorite of his talking points:
“An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.
Hipsterdom is the first “counterculture” to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.”
I think this pretty much sums the whole hipster thing up in exactly two paragraphs.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:02 am