When did you first realize that you were a hipster?
[Any variation on an answer is valid. Kind of like “the way you choose to answer the question IS the answer itself” ish. I’m working on an end of decade piece, and I’d love to see what you all think about about the problematic nature of the “hipster” label.
never tried this crowdsourcing thing, but Tumblr seems like the right place to start for this particular query. Judging by my tumblarity, no one will answer, but it’s worth a try. IF you’d like to reblog, and answer on your own blog, that’d be awesome. Thanks? Thanks! (if I end up using your idea in any way, I will of course attribute it to you.)]
I don’t consider myself to be a hipster, and I don’t consider you to be one either, but I suppose others might. It’s not a term one hears much in the UK. I do listen to Animal Collective, though.
The upper-middle classes have always defined themselves by rejecting popular culture. In the past couple of decades this rejection has evolved into a belief (on the part of what was first called the ‘indie scene’ and is now called the ‘hipster scene’) that widespread popularity has a de-valuing effect on art. The wikipedia definition of ‘Hipster (contemporary subculture)’ talks about independent films, alternative music, non-mainstream culture: if one accepts that anything liked by the ‘masses’ must be bad then it follows that the more obscure a band, movie or writer is, the better they/it must be.
The web has fuelled this trend by making it easy for people to specifically seek out art that has a very small fanbase (thesixtyone.com is a good example of this), which I find to be the most positive aspect of ‘hipster culture’. A legion of people scouring corners of the web for the next best thing you’ve never heard of has already uncovered hidden gems and propelled people from obscurity to various levels of fame, and will continue to do so.
There is, however, an interesting paradox at the heart of the true hipster. Hipster culture places the most value on art that is the least widely known, and confers higher social standing upon people who demonstrate the ability to find new nuggets of obscurity. If a hipster wishes to gain the respect of their peers, they must seek out some new or recently emerged piece of art and share their knowledge. By increasing the level of popularity of the art they increase their social standing but, crucially, decrease the value of the art. This means that champions of hipster culture like Carles are actually bad hipsters, because every time they tell someone about a new and exciting band they have found they make that band worse.
Consider, if you will, the paragon of hipsters. He consumes only that culture which meets the highest standards of hipsterdom. He owns the only copy ever printed of an EP that was recorded by a band whose members were all deaf, and who destroyed all of the masters immediately after recording and then all died in unrelated accidents on the way home from the studio. He owns it, but he can never tell anyone about it, or even listen to it. Just by knowing of its existence he has reduced its worth, and to increase his own or anyone else’s knowledge of it would reduce it further. So the paragon of hipsters sits in his apartment and looks at the greatest EP ever recorded, lying on his table right next to the greatest book ever written, which he can never read, and the greatest film ever made, which he can never watch.
The upper-middle classes have always defined themselves by rejecting popular culture, but as a friend of mine once quipped, the fact that popular culture is rubbish doesn’t help.
