I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m starting to resent the word, “hipster.” Yes, this is how I’m opening my newest blog focused on culture and the arts. So, obviously, I can’t deny that I’m both a hipster and a hypocrite.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you know what I’m talking about. For those who may be in the dark, I’m talking about those artsy-fartsy, skin jeans-wearing, shaggy-haircut sporting, plaid-clad, music-Nazi, irony loving types. Even if you don’t have a friend (or ten) that fit this description, you’ve definitely seen them bicycling across campus at break-neck speeds. If Hot Topic is for the dark, emo kids then hipsters are the “Urban Outfitters generation.”
It’s a stereotype that has blown up in both population and criticism over the past few years. The indicative hipster clothing and music have bled over into pop culture, like the Target commercial forecasting plaid as the next-big-thing this fall. As the trend becomes more and more prevalent, so do the jokes: the websites Stuff Hipsters Hate (http://stuffhipstershate.tumblr.com/) and Look At This F@*# Hipster (http://www.latfh.com/) have become enormously successful recently.
After months of denying the label, I gave in and accepted my hipsterism last year. Although some of my friends don’t believe me, I became one coincidentally and I’m not a prime example. I had other friends hold on to their dignity, defend their self-respect, and deny they were hipster, to which I responded, “It’s so much easier to give in to being pathetic!” But I don’t really think of it that way; rather, I know there are all kinds of subcultures with their own stigmas. In a culture fond of labels, I’m bound to fall under one category or another, so why should I be concerned about potentially being a hipster?
All of that being said, I have to admit that the word “hipster” is wearing thin. The term is used without discretion to the point where now I can’t see a girl wearing a vintage dress or a guy in square glasses without thinking, “God, what a hipster!” It has even come to the point where I almost wanted to call Clint Eastwood a hipster when he drank Pabst Blue Ribbon in Gran Torino (“almost” being the imperative word here).
Being the hipster that I am, I was listening to the Dandy Warhols’ song “Bohemian Like You” the other day and it led me to reassess some things.
Back in the day, someone fitting the description of a hipster would most likely be called a bohemian instead. Bohemians were also young people who leaved cheap, pursued artistic interests, and wore exotic clothing. They, too, were influenced by European culture and were sometimes seen as pretentious in their effort to be unconventional. However, it seems to me, the bohemian lifestyle is a more positive and romantic idea. Sure, it falls under ridicule, but “bohemianism” is a term that certainly carries more respect than “hipsterism.”
Are there no Bohemians left? Did they lose their respect and become “hipster?” Or was “indie” the 1990’s version of the “bohemian,” and “hipster” is the new “indie?” Or maybe I’ve put more thought into this than I should have.
Ultimately, none of these labels really matter, and neither will the next label that comes along. But labels are unavoidable, and as such I plan to put a little more thought into whether I judge something as “hipster” or “bohemian.”
by Katie Fraley
Posted in Creative Writing, Photography
Tags: Katie F
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