hipster area (Chicago, Marissa, Time: cliquey, credit, wages)

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by quigboto

I don't get the smug thing so much, really. I am a pretty uncool guy, but the place I often hang out in is a mix of hipsters and some locals, and I get along with everyone pretty well. Of course, there are douchey exceptions, but I don't know if that is necessarily more prevalent in this crowd than any other.
I will say that when the hipster to local ratio goes in favor of the hipsters it makes me feel....OLD (But that's my issue, not theirs)

Yeah, I don't get the smug thing either. As was mentioned before the term "hipster" is pretty vague. No one claims to be a hipster, and I've seen the term applied to a WIDE variety of people over the last 10 years or so. I was actually called a Hipster by someone this weekend, and I'm in my 40's and was wearing an LL Bean parka and Costco jeans at the time. If I have any fashion style at all it is best described as classic New England Townie.

All in all I think most of the people who throw around the term "Hipster" as a derogatory term just have some insecurities they need to get over, the way the term is thrown around just feels like some weird junior high school type thing to me. I've never had any more problems dealing with 20 something art students than I've had dealing with any other demographic group.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by Attrill

All in all I think most of the people who throw around the term "Hipster" as a derogatory term just have some insecurities they need to get over,

People who accuse others of having insecurities do so in order to compensate for their own insecurities.........

[andrew61]

Why is everyone so down on hipsters? I think they add color and flavor to the urban landscape, and should be regarded as part of that "diversity" that is such the buzzword these days. And who cares how many of them are true artists and how many of them are mere wannabes?

(Disclosure: I am not a hipster, nor do I believe I could pass for one. Sometimes I think I would love to do the skinny-jeans-wearing thing, but I'm getting a bit old for that now and my body wouldn't cooperate.)

I never understood why people were so down on yuppies 25 years ago either.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by andrew61

I never understood why people were so down on yuppies 25 years ago either.

Because they were typically materialistic and shallow thinkers. They were even shallowly materialistic prefering proper brand and image to substance in goods. The kind of people who thought an accountant in an Audi was different in a fundamental and important way from an accountant in a Buick.

[Hendu]

Originally Posted by quigboto

Hipsters bring commerce. Even if they aren't artists themselves (And many are, contrary to your assertion) they are patrons of the arts. They support music, dining, bookstores, retail, etc. You know, the things that make a neighborhood a desirable destination. It seems like your experience with hipsters has been limited to cartoon hipsters and stuffwhitepeoplelike.com (Funny site, BTW)

I know plenty of hipsters and listen to the same music as a lot of hipsters, go to the same bars, am a die-hard Fire fan (lots of hipsters in Section 8) etc. Some of them are artists and cool people, but a lot of them are indeed just followers of a scene who think they're special because they're "discovering" neighborhoods that existed before them, and will exist after they move to the suburbs. It especially sucks seeing honest, blue collar bars being taken over by kids in skinny jeans with bad facial hair patting themselves on the back for slumming it or being ironic or whatever. As long as they put My Bloody Valentine or Sonic Youth (showing my age there) on the juke box, it's all good though.

Edit: And yeah I realize I'm kind of a hypocrite considering I have a very white collar job, and here I am defending the sanctity of blue collar bars.

[tollfree]

Chicago is a conservative city, of course hipsters are going to be hated, lol. Very midwestern trait - if they aren't like everyone else...should be hated. If they aren't obsessed with Cubs/Packers/whatever local pro or college team...they are just too different/bizarre for the regular midwest folk. A lot of them are annoying and were probably nerds in high school and finally found a group to identify with.

Hipsters are all over NYC and LA and no cares enough to blink. Of course Chicago being the center of everything midwestern, outside their little neighborhoods they become a marginal group to everyone else. You can go somewhere that should be "normal" with professional people there, and see people with pink hair and they don't even stand out. This is in LA or Seattle.

The only place in the midwest you wouldn't see such hatred towards the hipsters in Minneapolis, but it also has a Seattle/Portland vibe.

[tollfree]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

Because they were typically materialistic and shallow thinkers. They were even shallowly materialistic prefering proper brand and image to substance in goods. The kind of people who thought an accountant in an Audi was different in a fundamental and important way from an accountant in a Buick.

Probably in the midwest yes. There is an archaic "good ol boy" mentality still prevalent in too many ways. Some of those yuppies/hipsters were probably former boy scouts, that should make you happy. People grow up, and decide for themselves who they are, what they want to be - this excessive "be this way" judgment only really exists in the midwest and south.

[MannheimMadman]

Originally Posted by RonnieJonez

Chicago is a conservative city, of course hipsters are going to be hated, lol.

Why don't you try running that statement by any ACTUAL conservative who lives in this city, let alone county.

[tollfree]

Originally Posted by MannheimMadman

Why don't you try running that statement by any ACTUAL conservative who lives in this city, let alone county.

I don't mean politically. I lived in Chicago and know it's democratic, yet there's nothing liberal/progressive about it.

The mentality there is conservative. I should have re-phrased. Very middle America with a democratic voting pattern.

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by andrew61

I never understood why people were so down on yuppies 25 years ago either.

An important thing to remember about Yuppies is that they started as Hippies, or Yippies, before they became Yuppies. Yuppies was not just a demographic term - it was a direct extension of Hippy and a term for what the baby boomers had become as they grew up. They went from free love, end the draft 20 somethings to "baby on board" Reaganites in their 30's. The complete 180 in political and social philosophy is where a lot of the criticism came from.

I still regard "Yuppies" as an anachronistic term that has no place no place in the 21st century. The term "Hipsters" is a lame attempt to apply Baby Boomer concepts of generational identity to a group that has no coherent identity.