The hipster aura is growing bigger and bigger. Those who cling to the fringes are all of a sudden the “in” crowd, and there doesn’t seem to be any rational explanation as to why.
The perceived idea of being cool and "ahead of the curve" in arts, and music, and fashion, and pretty much anything interesting in the world has now been denoted to the hipster kids. Why is this so? How is it that the more attention you pay to popular culture and the more you care about success and the material world has now made you uncool?
A night out in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, aka Hipster Mecca, displays a who’s-who of hipster cool kids. Every night, you will see the streets flooded with combat boot wearing, ripped t-shirt donning, American Spirit smoking youths, who have become “socialites” in an odd, twisted way. In a world in which success and riches have been recently tied in with corruption and greed, hipsters have buried themselves deep within the idea of having less means WAY more!
You could not possibly fit in with them unless you live off of food-stamps, no air conditioning, and unless your clothes came from a thrift shop, forget about it, your opinion doesn’t matter, you are way too “mainstream.” Unless you listen to music by artists who will never be famous and eat food that was grown in your own backyard, you are an outcast.
So why use the term hipster? You are not hip; you are in fact the exact opposite, right? I mean come on; your drink of choice is PBR, the official beer of trailer parks and homeless Vietnam vets.
The catch-22 here is this: being a hipster has become cool, but the whole idea of being a hipster is being as far away from cool as possible. The problem is how goddamn pretentious these fuckers are. They hold a huge air of entitlement and look down on the rest of us as a lesser version of humans. It is sickening.
I am here to break through to our confused and impressionable generation and show them that hipsterism is for the birds.
I will start by bringing context to what a hipster is. The term arose in the Jazz age (the 40’s) to describe middle class whites acting like black musicians. It has now evolved to be a subculture of urban young adults associated with independent music, a mottled un-mainstream fashion sense, Apple computer products, liberal political views, and alternative lifestyles. They have an obsession with the “authentic” and are synonymous with fringe movements like the hippie, punk, beat, and grunge.
The new hipster rebels against the norms of society by paying more attention to them than anyone else. It is a hypocritical herd mentality that spews regurgitated and unauthentic peripheral thought, and is more clique-driven than sophomore year at an all-girls high school.
They are a 21st century subgroup that has a disdain for counter-cultures that become mainstream, and an all-out hatred for anything “popular.” What once was a subgroup that promoted creativity and self-expression has now become a regressive, stigma-driven force, based largely on exclusion and egoism.
It is ridiculous how rigid the hipster state of mind is, when it is constantly being expressed as a movement that is all about open-mindedness. It is ridiculous that if a band reaches pop ears, they have “sold out” and are kicked to the hipster curb. It is ridiculous that this is becoming a trend amongst our youth, and it is ridiculous that it has no signs of slowing down.
I think it’s time for people to get their heads out of their asses before American culture is defined more by what we don’t care about than about achieving greatness. So sorry guys, Elite is not hipster. We have real plans, for real success. Not hypocrisy, not conformity, not irony. We like what we choose to like, and we believe what we choose to believe. So if that means we stick out at the hipster bar, then that is a problem we are happy to have.
Other things to note:
Every time you buy a pack of cigarettes you are funding right-wing big corporate America. Somewhat counter-intuitive to your ideals no?
And by buying a $3 t–shirt for the sake of irony and pairing it with a $150 pair of boots for the sake of fashion is sending mixed signals.
And finally, just because your music is “authentic” and “pure” does not make it better than mine.
Elite.
