Toward Freedom, In Defense of Hipsters:

A counterculture is a social group for-itself, conscious of themselves as different, as distinct from “mainstream society”, as promoting a competing vision of how to live. Hipsters are simply not this. They are a subculture, a social group only in-itself, labeled and described by others, differing from the mainstream only haphazardly or unconsciously, because a large number of its individual members as individuals happen to choose to differ from the mainstream in the same way.

As such, as a group that does not consider itself a group, whose members continuously loudly disaffiliate themselves from it, hipsters are by nature incapable of having consciously shared beliefs. And this is why a critique of hipsters as “not believing in anything” is utterly disingenuous. What they are being faulted with
here is not having an ideology, a set of beliefs that bind them together as a group and allow them to express common goals and aims. Hipsters, as a subgroup ashamed of their own existence, cannot have an ideology. In this sense it is true – in fact, axiomatic – that hipsters as hipsters don’t believe in anything. This is also why this fact simply does not matter.

A very well-written analysis of the don’t-cares and the oooh-shiney kids in response to Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization (which I mentioned before). The justifications for the vintage clothing are debatable: a lot of those zany “80′s tees” cost more than normal, cheap clothing. Unless they really are wearing $2 shirts from Goodwill. Then I just call that being somewhat fiscally responsible.

The hipster is a modern backlash against the tradition of being a radical while still being squeezed into the mold. While a punk or a hippie (and I mean real hippie) cannot interact with authority or older folks and is somewhat alienated from certain segments of society, the hipster is not. Because they are nothing more than a lost, quirky kid. Older generations look at them and say, “give’m a break. They’re just confused.” The punks on the other hand scare Baby Boomers and the hippies are useless to them.

I think there is a bit of a charade happening with the hipster label though. It’s being used in a “faux-poser” kind of way. Liken it more to photocopy or facsimile, except the copy is nicer looking (but less favored) than the original. And considering that everyone in their twenties possesses some of the traits, it seems that there is a threshold where one ascends into hipsterdom and is thus expelled from the group. The feeling I get is that to remain in the group you must maintain an equality. Punks can be as extreme as they like (or could, at one time) and will still be considered ‘in’. The same goes for hippies.

Identification is disavowal of inclusion. So they’re kinda like the CIA!

Related posts:

1. my school is full of them, and i know their bars like the back of my hand!
2. This country sucks, part 4012
3. This sort of thing sucks
4. My dear sister lives there, sucks for her