User:Kangaru99/Sandbox
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. WikiProject Culture or the Culture Portal may be able to help recruit one. |
A hipster is an individual who avoids and often explicitly rejects whatever is seen as mainstream or corporate in nature, instead embracing alternative forms of expression. Often, these alternative forms quickly become mainstream or corporate themselves, thus creating an arms race between the genuinely trendy and the "played out." Indeed, even the label "hipster" is no longer desirable, and it is rarely used for self-identification, except in an ironic or self-deprecating way.
Contents |
[edit] History
- See also: Hipster (1940s subculture)
"Hipster" derives from the word "hip." In the early days of jazz, musicians were using the word "hip" to describe anybody who was "in the know" about an emerging culture, mostly black, which revolved around jazz.[1] They and their fans were known as "hepcats." Subsequently the word "hipster" was coined to replace "hepcat."
The first printed dictionary to list the word hipster is the short glossary "For Characters Who Don't Dig Jive Talk," published in 1944 with Harry Gibson's first album, "Boogie Woogie In Blue." The entry for "hipsters" defined it as "characters who like hot jazz." This short glossary of jive expressions was also printed on playbills handed out at Gibson's concerts for a few years. It was not a complete glossary of jive, as it only included jive expressions that were found in the lyrics to his songs.
[edit] Hipster Behavior
Norman Mailer’s 1957 essay, entitled “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster”, reflects on the racial role reversals and structural perversions embraced by the hipster subculture. [2][3]. Although Mailer's focus on racial roles has lost its relevance over time, the spirit of subversion, perversion, and reversal is still significant for the contemporary hipster.
For example, many modern hipsters identify themselves, if only superficially, with the working class. Pabst Blue Ribbon emerged from historically low sales after being adopted by the hipster subculture in Portland, Oregon. Executives of the company had noticed that sales were growing without explanation. Further research found a local Portland bar The Lutz had changed its offering to Pabst after a local beer went off the market. It was found that the local community was made up of a large counterculture along with working class people who had adopted Pabst.[4] The popularity of Pabst has spread and it is now a popular beer among hipsters.
Likewise, Christian Lorentzen of Time Out New York sees metrosexuality as the hipster appropriation of gay culture. But for Lorentzen, the modern hipster drinks in underground culture with a heavy dose of irony and insincerity. He writes that "these aesthetics are assimilated — cannibalized — into a repertoire of meaninglessness, from which the hipster can construct an identity in the manner of a collage, or a shuffled playlist on an iPod."[1]
Since hipster tastes move with -- or ahead of -- current trends, it is impossible to pin them down. Sarah Silverman, who hosted the 2007 MTV Movie Awards, is "played out," according to a Time Out New York poll, while "big dogs as pets" are still "cool."
The mainstream conception of the hipster look is "skinny jeans, trucker hats, Costello glasses, slogan tees, PBR, Vans, and All-Stars," according to TONY. Naturally, this means that "all are declared “dead” by the media and hipsters themselves."
Despite ever-changing tastes, TONY asserts that hipsters owe their lifestyle to certain icons, including Twiggy, Elvis Costello, Grunge Rock acts such as Nirvana, and '70s fashion in general.
[edit] "Death" of the Hipster
Having now reached the mainstream, the hipster lifestyle has more recently been the target of some backlash. David Brooks of the New York Times described the current incarnation of hipsters as "laid low by the ironies of consumerism". Robert Lanham's The Hipster Handbook (2003) lampoons the hipster life, and Time Out New York ran its May 31-June 6 2007 issue with the headline: "The Hipster Must Die," calling for an end to the "pretentious" and "unoriginal" existence of "the cultural zombies" known as hipsters.
