The discussions surrounding American Apparel trying to open a store on Valencia Street in San Francisco have brought up the term “Hipster” quite a bit. The name means different things depending on who you talk to, so I decided to ask people on Twitter what their definition of a Hipster was. Here’s what they had to say.
So, what’s your definition of a Hipster? Let us know in the comments.
Speaking of which, check out the hilarious Hipster Olympics by POYKPAC.
UPDATE 1: The cover story of Adbusters #79 was “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization” [Gavin McInnes (founder of Vice) wrote a post on Street Carnage about “Hating Hipsters” [via Micah].
UPDATE 2: Gretchen Robinette shot this photo of a “No More Hipster Scum” sign being made at the Feburary 1st American Apparel protest. People are finding it a bit ironic.
UPDATE 3: Lori points us to this MasterCard “Priceless” commercial:
photo by Gretchen Robinette
Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
- Hipster Olympics, An Epic Battle of Apathetic Grandeur
- Cool in the Cool Way – Invasion of the Hipster Bodysnatchers by My First Earthquake
{ 39 comments… read them below or add one }
1. Behavioral: Hipsters are people who cultivate a fashion aesthetic of intentional re-appropriation. Whether it’s a trucker hat, a pirate eye-patch or a handle bar mustache, you’re a hipster if you wear things that mark you as a member of a group you’re not a part of.
2. Meta/Conversational: You’re a hipster if you’ve ever participated in a conversation about what hipsters are or are not.
Don’t forget the “is he iconic vs ironic?” poll!
http://burritojustice.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/iconic-hipster-or-ironic-hipster/
Hipster: what my parent’s were in the late 1960’s. What I desperately try to be, but never really can – because they were too fucking cool!
Actually Hipsters stemed from the Hepcats of the 1940’s. Hip, hep and hipi derive from a West African language of Wolof. Etymologically meaning “to see” or “to open ones eyes.” These terms blossomed and were being used by black Jazz musicians to describe someone who was cool, in the know, or ahead of their times. Hipster along with all kinds of jive terms were being used by anyone into Jazz in that era. Hippie, which your parents were in the 1960’s surely stemed from this vocabulary.
I love Jeffrey Kalmikoff’s definition. It works perfectly with Cosmo Kramer’s ‘hipster doofus’ expression!!
A hispter is a friend you haven’t met yet.
thats right kevin. you sport that white belt with pride.
a cool dude (non-sexual term) ;
“with it”;
up on the lingo of the time;
personification of the trend-of-the-day
The guy who is still wearing that Powder Blue Leisure Suit Friday Nights on the MAX heading into Portland for Drinks. He looks like he stepped out of a 70s Cop Drama Mustache and all… like time stopped.
Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: *scoff* You mean you don’t know?
The definition of “hipster” is personal, subjective, and culturally relative and its application includes many shades of gray. But that doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. To quote Justice Potter Stewart “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of people I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so, but I know one when I see one“.
In the context of the dicussion- it’s the Mission residents. It’s the hipster capital of SF- go to Zeitgeist any night. But now that has happened and been identified, it’s too hip- Delfina(gag). Now the meta-hipsters have started settling Bernal and Potrero (the hills used to scare them because, really, who wants to ride their fixie up one of those buggers?). That’s why all the rents are starting to go up there.
Really, I thought the 80s gentrification of the Haight was bad. The Mission infestation of the 90s definitely puts that to shame.
A lot of people forget or just plain don’t know that the word is WAAAY old. Read some Kerouac and you’d know.
My dad callled the beats hipsters, and Kerouac referred to them in his books as college kids or cafe faggots (both used with heavy irony).
So what you’re discussing now is the mainstream version is scenesters.
Also see The Hipster Handbook, published, what 4, 5 years ago? (and hilarious).
And see perhaps the best web show on the subject: TheBurg.tv
A hipster is someone who complains about gentrification even though they are a part of it
As the Chief Anthropologist with the Mind Shaft Society, I highly recommend to two people who we think define “hip” or “hipster”. One is Neal Cassady, subject of On The Road by Kerouac. You can learn about Neal at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Cassady.
The other would definitely be Geitz Romo. You can listen to two recordings about How to Speak Hip at http://audio.skeyelab.com/howtospeakhip/ where you can listen to Mr. Romo teach you how to speak hip.
someone who is younger than you that pays more attention to style than you
people that take on the aesthetic of a (counter) culture without investing a more than a basal effort into either understanding it’s origin or attempting to enjoy other aspects of the culture/movement (e.g. philosophies, politics, art, music, lit).
I knida like the hipsters.
They know they’re being Ironic.
They’re wayy less pretentous than alot of these Burning man idiots.
And as long as they piss off the aging Yuppies, I don’t mind.
cuz i’ve hated Yuppies since the late 70s.
I think a hipster is someone who has a love/hate relationship with modern culture… they use physical and aesthetic artifice to simultaneously express themselves to and protect themselves from the world.
They see themselves as products of a lifetime of over marketing. They know that almost everything that has ever given them joy has been sold to them in some way or another. They feel betrayed but have embraced the slime…darting in and out of the cultural 4th wall as they please.
There is a freedom to it. They also know when they are being shit on.
The ultimate hipster to me is Maynard G Krebs who’s idol is Polonius Monk and who hates work because its a four letter word.
You know – I am sorry. All my decent friends and acquaintances live in the mission and I don’t give a fuck what they are.
What it is, is the feeling of things in general being so uncertain. So many friends with no jobs even though they are brilliant… coming to some sort of loose rationalization that AA has a place in the mission if only to bring spill over customers to my friend’s shops on valencia- and being disgusted with that compromise because if that corridor isn’t protected from the worst kind of infestation in corporate homogenization then it too will loose it’s meaning.
What happened there was a confluence of an exceptionally frustrating day and the BS with American Apparel- neither of which should have triggered any misplaced judgement on any neighborhood. Toss in my ability to type utter crap in to a form on the internet and you see what you get.
So, what’s a hipster? I nominate the internet. It is the ultimate.
Maynard G. Krebs – yes! He is indeed the iconic beatnik hipster. Aside from social commentary, are there etymological insights? Did this come from “hepcat” or “hip” as in swaying hips, swaying to hip music? I dunno… I think it’s a late 40s, 50s term – beats and jazz and all that – originally.
eigenstates, I want to protect the Mission too – but the “beachhead” effect is not how Prop G or any other law works. To say such things as “corporate homogenization” and “infestation” is projecting and generalizing far beyond this instance, based on notions of one instance setting a precedent or creating a legal opening for many more instances. That is not what can happen because the law (a) requires individual review for each formula retail application and (b) has explicit provisions for considering the kind, number and balance of formula retail. I think it’s good to keep most formula retail out of the Mission, but the Stop American Apparel campaign was based on false and misleading information.
I once read in the paint-soaked bathroom of the most hipster Cafe in Santa Cruz, in sharpie scrawled across a flattened out USPS flat rate package glued to the wall where the mirror should be (but has been removed so as not to let hipsters hog the toilet, pretending to be peeing while ruffing their hair) “Hipsters = vintage materialism” I’m torn between that definition and simply “hipsters = flannel and rolled up jeans”
Also a hipster can be analyzed quite easily now by counting the hipster bashing forums he contributes to. The latest shift in this bizarre cultural phenomenon is blatant self criticism. But people have always tried to distance themselves from the heritage they are embarassed of. I think the hipster lineage will be passed down through rank underground rave scenes for generations to come
Back in the Beat era, when the word originated, a hipster was someone clued into underground art scenes revolving around jazz and poetry and snappy clothes and bohemian intellectualism. Hipsters were a part of a groovy, largely unco-opted subculture, daddy-o, and it was cool to be one. Nowadays the word hipster has a derogatory connotation, implying someone that’s not as hip as they think they are, someone whose sense of self indentity revolves so much around superficial things like their clothing style and artistic/musical tastes that they see others outside their own subculture as inferior or a threat to their own self-imagined cultural superiority.
James Brown, i dig what you’re saying. i consider myself to be a hipster but look or act nothing like all the supposed “hipsters” around town. it’s all a state of mind. if you truly know where IT is at, then you’re a hipster. you don’t have be pretentious about anything. all you have to do is know.
Wow. See folks, that’s a hipster. You realize what you just said, right?
A horn player with Tower of Power.
What’s ironic is that the guy in the red hat making the sign is in a group of one of the most prolific taggers defacing the neighborhood — EUROE! cancer carl, BKF, etc.
……aNoTheR QUiZ???? QueSTiOn????? mOST TeST’s i TaKe????? i fAiL……..bUT LeMMe giVe ThiS a sHOT bASed oN my pAST eXpeRieNces……..iN The 60’s i did beLL boTToM jeAns/LoNg hAiR……70s……dRugs/ALcOhOL……..80s i fORgeT,,,,,90s…..i wAS a wANNa be aRTisT……aNd i fOrgeT?????????…..nOW cReepiNg iNTO The yeAR 2009…..i LoOK bACK @ my pAST aNd ThinK hOW ridiCULOus i LoOKed aNd wAs??????? LOoKing aROuNd me aT aLL sO cALLed ? ReVoLuTIoNARies/hiPSTeRs????? i LaUgH @ my seLF deep iNside….ThiNKing hOW muCh eNeRgy iT TaKes TO Ride biKes n…..LOoK hip?????? oKay????…oKay OpiNiOns LiKe aSs-HoLes………….i hAVe oNe…..ThaNk yOu
eigenstates:
Dude, the rents skyrocketed starting in the 80’s in PHill … what you are seeing is insult to injury. That said, awesome views, best weather … no wonder, hipsters notwithstanding.
Ron M – I think you mean Thelonius …
I dunno. I live in the Mission. I’m young. I occasionally may be mistaken for someone who’s cool. I promise I’m not. I’m dorky and shy and can’t keep up small talk for more than 2 minutes. But I get all confused because some things that “hipsters” seem to stand for (like indie music, being more interested in local culture and business than corporate stuff) are really valuable to me, and other things (the fashion?? inexcusable) really gross me out.
So I think a hipster is someone cooler than me. I can’t tell. I think also I’m not skinny enough.
Who cares what a hipster is, anyway? The same people that cared who teeny boppers were? The same people that care who zoot suiters were? The same people that cared who stoners were? The same people that care who slackers were? The same people who cared who flappers were? The same people that cared who swingers (both 40s and 70s swingers) were? The same people who cared who hippies were? Who punks were? Who disco dancers were? Who beatniks were? Who [insert timely definition of group of people] were? Nobody cares. Nobody.
Now now Mr Badedukation, Don’t get all “Emo” on us.
Everyone does care.
It’s a need to be needed.
even if its Negative attention.
And deep down inside we are all Flower Children.
Yes even the Satanists smell the roses and harp on hipsters.
Now go Hug someone……..
That guy in starbucks with a hybrid car, iPhone, iPod and Mac laptop, who blogs about his neighbours, cat and how he ‘wants to do more for the environment’ but never will while twittering to other people instead of using an IM program, txting or actually calling them.
He’s a hipster.
Its this:
> people that take on the aesthetic of a (counter) culture without investing a more than a basal effort into either understanding it’s origin or attempting to enjoy other aspects of the culture/movement (e.g. philosophies, politics, art, music, lit).
~As stated above by the person named Ken
And Jeffrey Kalmikoff’s statement mixed together
We can all move on now
Hipster: one who adopts a lifestyle that reflects what is “hip” to them in the moment the lifestyle is adopted. It can be hip to adopt an ironic lifestyle. Often the hipster is trying to express a statement of individuality through this lifestyle and choice of fashion. The label of hipster as a negative definition is usually given to a person who is adopting the lifestyle and fashion of others who are considered part of a counter culter thus causing the counter culter’s status as such to be in question.
The hipster often defines themself by ascribing to what others deem cool. This is a complicated process because what may be cool one minute might become passé the next and then Ironically cool later.
While the hipster may strive to be an individual, and origional, they generally comingle with others similar to themselves. While they may proport to seek a personal identity, they seem subconciously to be seeking a community or pack identity.
A hipster is a person who dresses like you and listens to the same bands that you do that you don’t like.
The king of all hipsters – Mike Damone from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
http://tinyurl.com/6yvjly
http://tinyurl.com/c24xjm