Why!!!! Hipsters!!! Why!!!!!

[AtomicEraTom]

That's how I feel about it. I mean, of course you can't tell a hipster just by appearance, oftentimes you can, I guess.

Just the whole point of being a hipster, mocking peoples' way of life, in the name of some sort of twisted ironic enjoyment just makes me sick. To me, it's no better than a person walking around in blackface, behaving in offensive stereotypes. Making fun of what people are is just not right.

To me, hipsters are mocking people to their faces without uttering a word.

[Jaxworx]

Just the whole point of being a hipster, mocking peoples' way of life, in the name of some sort of twisted ironic enjoyment just makes me sick. <...snip...> Making fun of what people are is just not right.

You intended the irony of that juxtaposition, right?

It seems to me that transgressive clothing has been a staple of every generation young enough to be looking for a leg up. When you don't have real power (money, influence, earned respect), you start tapping on all the levers to see what you can come up with. That's how we get entertainers like Gaga and before her Madonna and before her Cher and all the way back past Nina Simone to I dunno... maybe Mata Hari?

And every generation since forever has decried the following generation's "lack of respect." Your parents and grandparents did the same.

In the 50s it was considered aggressively antisocial to repurpose a leather flying jacket for motorcycling or general wear. Now it's a yuppie cliche (actually, the term "yuppie" itself has become a catch-all meta-cliche, but that's a bit far afield). Since around the turn of the century in Seattle, Cretins M.C. members have sported industrial short blue mechanic's jackets, eschewing both biker leathers and the armored ballistic nylon of "serious" riders.

Warehouse districts become hollowed out wastelands, then artists and garage bands move in, and within a few years they've advanced the coolness of the district to the point where new young talent has to find some other undiscovered hellhole and move it up the food chain.

My high school U.S. history teacher, a small man with big perspective, gleaned no end of amusement from the 80s resurgence of skinny and "rooster" ties. "All I had to do was wait," he would cackle. "Everything comes around again."

Up until then, he was the only man I knew to wear a porkpie hat regularly.

As an occasional browser of Goodwill stores (my wife dragged me into it, G-D bless her), I find this little spurt of pop culture amusing (don't watch at the office; strong language):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes

There are no unmixed blessings. Increasingly, rockin' a nice fedora gets more compliments than funny looks... and that's why the prices are rising.

Cheers,

Jack

[AtomicEraTom]

No, I meant what I said. Hipsters aren't really anything. A hipster is a man without a country. He is a person who can't come up with a style to make his own, whether it be from indecisiveness, or lack of self-confidence, I don't know. They just find it easier to not commit to anything and mock what others are.

You intended the irony of that juxtaposition, right?

[Jaxworx]

No, I meant what I said. Hipsters aren't really anything. A hipster is a man without a country. He is a person who can't come up with a style to make his own, whether it be from indecisiveness, or lack of self-confidence, I don't know. They just find it easier to not commit to anything and mock what others are.

Hunh. How did they manage to acquire an identity label? Rootlessness, confusion, and rebellion ain't hardly unique to hipsters (or hippies, or beatniks, or Wobbly trade unionists, et al back to forever ago).

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint." --attributed to Hesiod, 8th century BC

Buncha little wiseacres, just like they always were. Fortunate enough to undergo a corporate crash in the late 90s, I ended up working with and around a fair number of young Seattleites you might reasonably characterize as "post-hipsters" (i.e. they were so cool and detached that they mocked the kids trying to buy the "right" t-shirts).

They showed me a lot of heart, those hipster kids. I watched them work -- and work HARD -- at transforming the world into a milder, sweeter, more sustainable place. They tried boiling up biodiesel in the basement, invented bicycle cargo trailers, protested various injustices and indignities (real or perceived). It's not my style, but I can't help respecting their intent.

Preemptively stereotyping people whom one imagines may be mocking others doesn't strike me as a winnable game. That approach eats its own tail pretty quickly.

Respectfully,

Jack

[AtomicEraTom]

I'm sure they did, I'm not saying that every single person of any group is inherently good or bad. Nobody wins that battle. I can only speak of the hipsters I have had dealings with and they behave in a manor such as what I have described and I find that offensive.
I don't have any respect for punk kids, regardless of what clique they pal around with. If I would have behaved disrespectful to my elders, heck even now as a grown man, my parents would whoop me one for it, whether it be via being rude, mean, or mocking them.

They showed me a lot of heart, those hipster kids. I watched them work -- and work HARD -- at transforming the world into a milder, sweeter, more sustainable place. They tried boiling up biodiesel in the basement, invented bicycle cargo trailers, protested various injustices and indignities (real or perceived). It's not my style, but I can't help respecting their intent.

Preemptively stereotyping people whom one imagines may be mocking others doesn't strike me as a winnable game. That approach eats its own tail pretty quickly.

Respectfully,

Jack