Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization

[Shadowstorm]

There's a really fantastic piece of editorial journalism (one of the best I've seen in months) that I really encourage you to read. It is an article on the counterculture of Hipster.

Link (http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html#comments).

Makes a lot of really great points and arguments against the vain, pretentious, superficial environment that hipsters thrive in, consuming things that they think they invent but don't. A fabricated environment where everyone is too self-aware, etc. Here's a couple great quotes that I really like:

“He’s 17 and he lives for the scene!” a girl whispers in my ear as I sneak a photo of a young kid dancing up against a wall in a dimly lit corner of the after-party. He’s got a flipped-out, do-it-yourself haircut, skin-tight jeans, leather jacket, a vintage punk tee and some popping high tops. “Shoot me,” he demands, walking up, cigarette in mouth, striking a pose and exhaling. He hits a few different angles with a firmly unimpressed expression and then gets a bit giddy when I show him the results.


“Rad, thanks,” he says, re-focusing on the music and submerging himself back into the sweaty funk of the crowd where he resumes a jittery head bobble with a little bit of a twitch.


The dance floor at a hipster party looks like it should be surrounded by quotation marks. While punk, disco and hip hop all had immersive, intimate and energetic dance styles that liberated the dancer from his/her mental states – be it the head-spinning b-boy or violent thrashings of a live punk show – the hipster has more of a joke dance. A faux shrug shuffle that mocks the very idea of dancing or, at its best, illustrates a non-committal fear of expression typified in a weird twitch/ironic twist. The dancers are too self-aware to let themselves feel any form of liberation; they shuffle along, shrugging themselves into oblivion.


What they may or may not know is that “cool-hunters” will also be skulking the same sites, taking note of how they dress and what they consume. These marketers and party-promoters get paid to co-opt youth culture and then re-sell it back at a profit. In the end, hipsters are sold what they think they invent and are spoon-fed their pre-packaged cultural livelihood.


Hipsterdom is the first “counterculture” to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.


We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.


Fantastic read.



Discuss.

[Bad Buddha]

The counterculture of Hipster.

Discuss.

Just the latest round of kids thinking they're the first to ever be in the situation that they're in right now.

"What're you apathetic about, Johnny?"
"Whaddya got?"


Wankers. :cool:

[Superman's Dead]

Just the latest round of kids thinking they're the first to ever be in the situation that they're in right now.

"What're you apathetic about, Johnny?"
"Whaddya got?"


Wankers. :cool:

Perfect quote, Buddha!

I disagree about it being the 'first counter-culture born under the advertising industry's microscope', however.

Rock and Roll happened because teenagers had spending money and free time for the first time in history. As soon as record execs realized what they had in hip-hop they got it under their thumb and the industry's been trying to get out ever since (read up on the beginning of the Wu-Tang Clan for some of the best music group management ever, in my opinion).

I agree that our generation is for the most part apathetic, but I'd say that its the same for every previous generation as well. They just cover it up better with hobbies and careers...and our generation's hobby is bitching.

[nnanji]

The first comment is the best.

Has anyone pointed out yet that Adbusters is a blatantly hipster publication?

[digitalErich]

It's cool to be first, even if that means the first to cannibalize yourself.

Hipster culture is no worse or harmful than any other youth subculture...end of Western Civilization my ass, get some perspective. However, with its focus on almost extreme narcissism, Hipster culture is one of the most annoying youth sub cultures of all time.

This article is part of the problem, IMO.

[Scaryfaced]

Are hipster's the same as "scene kids"? I'm only 24 and I already feel out of touch with today's youth.
________
Gang bang chinese (http://www.fucktube.com/categories/586/chinese/videos/1)

[Atepsflame]

Are hipster's the same as "scene kids"? I'm only 24 and I already feel out of touch with today's youth.

They're all the same, scene kids, goths, emos, punks, hippies, metalheads, etc. They just have different uniforms and music.

That was a good read. I know a lot of hipster's down in ol' Iowa City I'd like to lay that on.

[Whunpo]

Huh. Interesting read, indeed.
I don't know if I'm a hipster or not. I think that I probably have some hipster qualities, but I don't think I really fit in with most of this generation.

[TrackZero]

Sounds like someone who's bitter that they've lost their youth and boost their ego by slamming on those younger than they. While the observations are true, they always have been. There's always those who just do/act/dress like they expect they should and vice versa. Moot article.

[TrackZero]

..and our generation's hobby is bitching.

Trust me, you're not the first generation to do that either. ;) (And nor was mine.)

[Hotcod]

Sounds like someone who's bitter that they've lost their youth and boost their ego by slamming on those younger than they. While the observations are true, they always have been. There's always those who just do/act/dress like they expect they should and vice versa. Moot article.

no, this generation of kids really are far far far more annoying than we where. Hell even the little nu metal kids they used to be before growing up where better. I've done a lot of work around local gigs, in my band and for my freinds promotion company that's now the biggest for unsigned bands in the country. And honestly the scene and indy (hipperster) kids are just the most vapid and annoying i've ever come across. I know there where people like that when me and my freinds where younger but i don't know the big things where either metal of some kind or poppunk/ska and emo was far more honest and more about geek's in hornrims than swept hair styles. It was just more... i don't know... not happy as such but a hell of a lot less judgemental. but i'll stop here before i get in to a full scene kid rant mode... which isn't purdy.

[n3rdXcore]

From middle school to early college, I was pretty balls to the wall punk rocker / rude boy combo. The whole reason I "rebelled" (sounds pretty dumb now that I'm older, haha) was because I couldn't stand all the I-have-to-look-great-centric attitudes of all of the popular kids (I was quite unpopular :p). That seemed like a pretty standard reason for most people joining some sub/counter-culture. But now I look at the recent hipster phenomenon, and I realize they are just the cool kids disguised as douchebags, since being a douchebag is cool now. Living in Seattle may have something to do with that though, as there are just so gosh darn many of them here.

[ClannerDelta]

no, this generation of kids really are far far far more annoying than we where. Hell even the little nu metal kids they used to be before growing up where better.

Sorry, you're just getting old. Every generation has thought the generation after it was a bunch of annoying punks.

I'm sure the Egyptians have some 4000 year old hieroglyphs saying much the same thing. :p

Fuck up is the human being's natural state of existence.

[Hotcod]

Sorry, you're just getting old. Every generation has thought the generation after it was a bunch of annoying punks.

I'm sure the Egyptians have some 4000 year old hieroglyphs saying much the same thing. :p

Fuck up is the human being's natural state of existence.

I accept i'm getting old in some of the stuff i find annoying and i'm sure we where annoying but at the heart of this generation of "alternative" kids is a truly judgemental superficial and empty fashion. It's lost the acceptance of any individuality with in a group. I don't know, maybe i am just getting old but if we where that vapid and empty and judgemental then we must have been amazingly hypercritical.

I mean as much as i find other "youth" culture annoying i know that it's a personal thing and i don't get it... it's just that scene kids and the like are directly linked to what we did and it's horrid to think things we did spawned them. It's like the fact that the scene kid fashion has more to thank blink and atticus for than anything else. Me and my freinds are still in that world, we still go the rock clubs, i have and still am in bands playing poppunk, i've worked a hell of a lot of gigs in one way or the other... and the whole feeling has changed in what we've seen as a very negative way out side of "we don't understand this beacuse we are getting to be old gits" heh

[ClannerDelta]

I accept i'm getting old in some of the stuff i find annoying and i'm sure we where annoying but at the heart of this generation of "alternative" kids is a truly judgemental superficial and empty fashion. It's lost the acceptance of any individuality with in a group. I don't know, maybe i am just getting old but if we where that vapid and empty and judgemental then we must have been amazingly hypercritical.

I mean as much as i find other "youth" culture annoying i know that it's a personal thing and i don't get it... it's just that scene kids and the like are directly linked to what we did and it's horrid to think things we did spawned them. It's like the fact that the scene kid fashion has more to thank blink and atticus for than anything else. Me and my freinds are still in that world, we still go the rock clubs, i have and still am in bands playing poppunk, i've worked a hell of a lot of gigs in one way or the other... and the whole feeling has changed in what we've seen as a very negative way out side of "we don't understand this beacuse we are getting to be old gits" heh

I understand what you're saying, but you have to step back and realize that you're incredibly biased.

That's not an insult, but you point out that you've been in this kind of situation for a long time. Any change is going to be perceived as negative and you, as an insider, have no idea how annoying you were to everyone else. :p No one wants to admit that they were once the annoying rectal inflammation that society hated.

[Hotcod]

I freely admit that we must have me amazingly annoying to people i'm not saying we weren't. What i'm saying is that when i was younger there wasn't the same level of judgement with in a group for the way you looked. I've spent a lot of time around the scene kids and while a lot of them are grate and i've heavily relied on them both to suppourt my bands and to come to gigs to make me money a lot of the ways they act towards each other is amazingly negative and something that did not happen very much if at all when we where there age in the same places.

I don't like where the scene has ended up at... i've watched a subset of poppunk and a poppunk fashion turn in to "hardcore" in the most laughable "i'm so cool i can listen to music that sound shit with out understand the history of music" way to the idoitic glam rock crap we've ended up with with "emo" bands which are really really really bad heavy metal bands that jumped on the band waggon ext... but that's not what i'm trying to talk about. I don't like the fashion or the music and think it's mostly laughable... and that is me getting old seeing these young people co-opt and kill something i rather loved.

So what am i saying? i'm saying i don't like a lot of there current sub culture even more than i may have had i not been "involved" in creating it. But i don't like a hell of a lot of sub culture full stop... yet i'm the last person to judge people for enjoying something they enjoy no matter how much i don't understand it beacuse i know lots of people won't understand why i enjoy what i enjoy...

What i'm trying to get at is that i'm well aware i'm bitter for how the sub culture i was involved in has ended up in something i personally dislike i know that that happens. But i've also seen first hand how that change has brought a level superficial judgement about the way people look that wasn't there when i was younger. I'm not trying to say that there wasn't any but 6/7 years ago gigs where not the uniformed fashion parade that they've honestly turned in to.

So ya... my views that the current scenes sucks are my views and as such subjective and i wouldn't force them on any one. But there is also my views that the current scene is judgemental and superficial in a way that it didn't use to be which i'd hope are based purely on the fact it's what i feel i've observed happening at gigs and the like over the last 5 years and separated from my own personal distaste for some of the fashion and music involved.

So i don't know, while i hope i could objectively see a change like this maybe i am just bitter.... but it would honestly have to have me acting in a way that is utterly different from how i remember acting and make me then and now a giant hypocrite in the worst way.

All i can say is that from how i remember my self and my freinds being we would never act in the awful way that i've seen the scene kids act with each other at times about the way they looked and in fact a lot of us ended up "alternative" beacuse we hated that kind of behaviour that is rather prevalent in main stream culture fullstop. I've just found it rather sad to see that kind kind of behaviour creep more and more in to a place that existed partly to get away from it.