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I cannot believe I opened a thread about "hipsters" and was treated to a long discussion about sports stadiums. I cannot think of anything less "hip" than professional sports.
Regardless, as others have noted, the devolution of the term hipster is really irritating.
I'm 35. Old enough I'm not really a young person any more, but young enough that I had a bunch of friends who moved to Brooklyn in the early 2000s when they got out of college. Hipster used to be a specific term for someone outside of your social circle who seemed to be trying too hard to be the most cutting edge. Who cared a buttload about fashion and their image, but didn't seem to have any real political or intellectual stances. Or just that annoying guy you saw doing lines of coke with heiresses at the Interpol show.
Regardless, the thing about the term is it was always something that underground people called other underground people. You would be like "I'm not a stupid hipster, I'm a vegan indie rocker who DJs an electroclash night every Thursday. I wait tables on the side, but my real dream is to be a travel writer." Or something like that. But you'd still make fun of hipsters.
Then the mainstream media grabbed the term, and now use it to as a catchall to describe virtually every young person who lives in a city and doesn't appear to be "normal." Something as minor as having a beard, glasses, or riding a bike gets you called a hipster. Which is inane, because for the most part these kids are just doing what they enjoy without reflecting upon it deeply, which is the polar opposite of what the very image-conscious hipsters were doing 15 years ago.
The term has become basically a way for old people to slag on kids they don't understand. And also for "normal people" of that age to essentially continue to mock/stereotype nerds into adulthood. It needs to die.
I cannot believe I opened a thread about "hipsters" and was treated to a long discussion about sports stadiums. I cannot think of anything less "hip" than professional sports.
Regardless, as others have noted, the devolution of the term hipster is really irritating.
I'm 35. Old enough I'm not really a young person any more, but young enough that I had a bunch of friends who moved to Brooklyn in the early 2000s when they got out of college. Hipster used to be a specific term for someone outside of your social circle who seemed to be trying too hard to be the most cutting edge. Who cared a buttload about fashion and their image, but didn't seem to have any real political or intellectual stances. Or just that annoying guy you saw doing lines of coke with heiresses at the Interpol show.
Regardless, the thing about the term is it was always something that underground people called other underground people. You would be like "I'm not a stupid hipster, I'm a vegan indie rocker who DJs an electroclash night every Thursday. I wait tables on the side, but my real dream is to be a travel writer." Or something like that. But you'd still make fun of hipsters.
Then the mainstream media grabbed the term, and now use it to as a catchall to describe virtually every young person who lives in a city and doesn't appear to be "normal." Something as minor as having a beard, glasses, or riding a bike gets you called a hipster. Which is inane, because for the most part these kids are just doing what they enjoy without reflecting upon it deeply, which is the polar opposite of what the very image-conscious hipsters were doing 15 years ago.
The term has become basically a way for old people to slag on kids they don't understand. And also for "normal people" of that age to essentially continue to mock/stereotype nerds into adulthood. It needs to die.
What's even more sad is that now so many "wannabes" have come out of hiding that you really can't tell the difference between them and the "real" hipsters. I wish the term would die and the fashion trend as well. The ability to detach and not take yourself too seriously shouldn't be undermined by trivial fads or put-downs by the type As of our parents' generation.
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