“It destroyed two vintage T-shirt stores and a banjo”
April 30, 2013 1:42 PM   Subscribe

The Hipster – a lexicon from the NYT.
posted by timsteil (91 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
fta:

•"Kings of Leon" (October 5, 2003)
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:51 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Commenter "My Number Is My Address" at The Awl article describes hipsterdom as "The uncanny valley between the self and the square."

That seems to work.
posted by LogicalDash at 1:52 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


"bespoke frontiersman beard[s]"

To be fair, who hasn't looked at the Beard Aisle at Target and just sighed at the lack of individuality?
posted by DU at 1:52 PM on April 30, 2013 [10 favorites]


Cue denials that "hipsters" exist, or that the word is anything other than a disparaging term used by frustrated oldsters to describe "young people" in 3...2...1...
posted by escape from the potato planet at 1:52 PM on April 30, 2013 [6 favorites]


•"cocktails with artisan bitters" (May 31, 2012)

haha, yeah.

I went to a gin tasting a few years back, I guess both bourbon and rye were already played out by then. Everyone already knew about shit like the Angel's Share and White Dog. The dude who was hosting it told me he made his own bitters, I was like "wait what? Thats possible"?

I mean hipsters do some cool stuff too sometimes.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:53 PM on April 30, 2013


Cue denials that "hipsters" exist, or that the word is anything other than a disparaging term used by frustrated oldsters to describe "young people" in 3...2...1...

I believe the standard gambit in these threads is "If you are talking about hipsters, it is you who are the hipster." Which, yeah, trap sprung and all.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:55 PM on April 30, 2013


Hipsters don't really exist, it's just a term used by frustrated old people to ... POOP ON YOU.
posted by swift at 1:55 PM on April 30, 2013 [3 favorites]


What exactly does "bespoke" mean? Also, even I'm kind of hipster hated out.
posted by jonmc at 1:56 PM on April 30, 2013


Oh god stop posting these.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:57 PM on April 30, 2013 [12 favorites]


Hey.. I mean.. they're pretty on.
posted by ReeMonster at 1:59 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Cue denials that "hipsters" exist, or that the word is anything other than a disparaging term used by frustrated oldsters to describe "young people" in 3...2...1...

Well, we already had the "lol olds" comment, so I guess we're about due.
posted by entropicamericana at 2:00 PM on April 30, 2013


Bespoke is the British term for custom. Like Bespoke suit.
posted by Ad hominem at 2:01 PM on April 30, 2013


The mention of hipsters on MetaFilter is totally free bananas in the kitchen!

it just makes me giggle every time...here we go again...
posted by iamkimiam at 2:04 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm kind of hipster hated out.

Oh god stop posting these.

Wait. I thought this post was making fun of the NYT.
posted by DU at 2:04 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Don't look at me, I already fessed up
posted by Ad hominem at 2:06 PM on April 30, 2013


Consider the NYT's core audience, largely people who are unsure that younger people still exist.
posted by The Whelk at 2:09 PM on April 30, 2013 [8 favorites]


Oh, NYT, you do try to be relevant to the whippersnappers, don't you? Or at least as a Field Guide to the Urban Hipster for Those Who Don't Like People on Their Lawns.
posted by Kitteh at 2:10 PM on April 30, 2013


Can there be a post-hipster reality for any of us?
posted by OHenryPacey at 2:10 PM on April 30, 2013


Very nice. It's like a cross between the Harper's Index and Spy.
posted by Room 641-A at 2:13 PM on April 30, 2013


"Radiohead and The Killers"

lol as if
posted by nathancaswell at 2:14 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


ex post hipster, maximus sincerus
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:15 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Exunt, pursued by hipster.
posted by The Whelk at 2:17 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


previously
posted by gubo at 2:18 PM on April 30, 2013


Yes, bespoke originally referred to men's suits. As contrasted with off-the-rack, that is suits that are already made, and made to measure, in which a pattern is adjusted in a few ways to fit your own particular measurements and a suit made from that.

Interesting fact: the reason it's "bespoke" is because the suit is not held to exist, even as a pattern or plan, until the customer bespeaks of it. It's the most customized, most expensive way of making a suit. An off-the-rack suit will fit okay on most people. A made to measure suit will fit pretty nice. A bespoke suit might, say, compensate for the fact that one of your shoulders is a quarter inch lower than the other.

Not sure how that applies to beards, to be honest. Isn't everyone's beard bespoke, made only for the wearer, by the wearer?
posted by echo target at 2:19 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


It really should have been clearer - for the DRTFA crowd - that this is The Awl's parody of the Times rather than the Times's parody of itself.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:22 PM on April 30, 2013


Consider the NYT's core audience, largely people who are unsure that younger people still exist.

My favorite is the occasional foray they make into the suburbs where they post amazed articles like explorers covering a new world about this strange new land where people have lawns and it doesn't cost $2000 for a shoebox apartment and there's parking everywhere. And yet these strange and savage people still have restaurants and theaters and culture!
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 2:24 PM on April 30, 2013


FOR FUCKS SAKE MAN IF I WANTED TO HEAR DROLLERY I'D WATCH A PRODUCTION OF BLITHE SPIRIT BY NOEL COWARD, JESUS.
posted by The Whelk at 2:24 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


Did anybody watch I am not a hipster, that indie film that recently came out? It's on Netflix instant so I watched it the other day. I thought it was pretty good! Made me tear up a little, too.

Interestingly I don't believe the word "hipster" is ever uttered within the film's dialogue.
posted by Doleful Creature at 2:24 PM on April 30, 2013


I went to a gin tasting a few years back, I guess both bourbon and rye were already played out by then. Everyone already knew about shit like the Angel's Share and White Dog. The dude who was hosting it told me he made his own bitters, I was like "wait what? Thats possible"?

Ugh, gin. The only gin I've ever been able to stand is Hendrick's. The bartender at Socca in Chicago offered a sample when I asked for a vodka martini. He was horrified that I didn't like gin, and promised me he'd find one I'd like. He did!

Making your own bitters isn't hard, and you can have a ton of fun with it if you're a lush like me. Soak a sugar cube with violet bitters and drop it into a glass of champagne, oh my! You can make your own Grenadine, too, and it tastes SO much better than Rose's Grenadine (which doesn't taste like Grenadine at all!).

(Pretty sure I'm not a "hipster". I'm in my 40s! I just like nice booze, is all.)
posted by MissySedai at 2:26 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


And yet these strange and savage people still have restaurants and theaters and culture

I always thought that was a kind of hidden pandering to the Suburbian readership, see the times approves of your existence, please keep uproar subscription.
posted by The Whelk at 2:26 PM on April 30, 2013


Isn't everyone's beard bespoke, made only for the wearer, by the wearer?

I had a guy in Red Hook design and grow mine for me. He uses this technique that was brought over by German immigrants in the 1840s, but pretty much went away after industrialization. It's pretty cool. You just can't get that kind of bushiness anywhere else these days.
posted by mcmile at 2:26 PM on April 30, 2013 [10 favorites]


The Complete Glossary of Hipster Hallmarks

Above this headline:
The Next Big Thing is here: check it out.

Epony and Irony
Together in perfect harmony . . .
 
posted by Herodios at 2:28 PM on April 30, 2013


•"[a] fedora perched atop the head just so" (August 5, 2012)

So... they wrote that statement as an example of? I just keep reading that, and it's like a cat fight between brilliant hypocrisy and daft irony in my head.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 2:28 PM on April 30, 2013


I had a hair stylist who did not have a computer, but collected and watched old VHS tapes and thought that TV on the Radio has gone downhill ever since "OK Calculator".
posted by KokuRyu at 2:29 PM on April 30, 2013 [3 favorites]


ALSO CAN WE PLEASE LEAVE BEARDS OUT OF THIS

They never did anything to you

I love beards
posted by Doleful Creature at 2:29 PM on April 30, 2013


(Pretty sure I'm not a "hipster". I'm in my 40s! I just like nice booze, is all.)

If you have ever made something yourself, done something differently OR the same as everyone else, or enjoyed yourself, you're a hipster. Doubly so if any music other than the Rolling Stones was playing at the time. Sorry, mon amie, them's just Mefi rules.
posted by FatherDagon at 2:29 PM on April 30, 2013 [11 favorites]


If you have ever made something yourself, done something differently OR the same as everyone else, or enjoyed yourself, you're a hipster. Doubly so if any music other than the Rolling Stones was playing at the time. Sorry, mon amie, thems just Mefi rules.

Far be it from me to flout the rules, then!
posted by MissySedai at 2:31 PM on April 30, 2013


You can make your own Grenadine

This is intriguing. Two of my favorite drinks, the New York and the Red Devil both contain Grenadine.

BTW, Thurston Moore is 54, age is clearly not proof against hipsterism. Anyone can be a hipster and not even know it.
posted by Ad hominem at 2:35 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Matthew J. X. Malady sounds like the name of a Pynchon character.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:35 PM on April 30, 2013 [3 favorites]


*Ctrl Fs for "mandolin"* Dodged that bullet.
posted by drezdn at 2:36 PM on April 30, 2013


Doubly so if any music other than the Rolling Stones was playing at the time.

Oddly enough, there was a period (late 90s/early 00s) where liking old Stones stuff was a totally hipster thing to do, since they hadn't done anything worthwhile in decades and all the squares were tired of them at that point. So, for us folks born in the 70s it was kind of a rediscovery. See: Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaum soundtracks.
posted by LionIndex at 2:39 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Did anybody watch I am not a hipster, that indie film that recently came out? It's on Netflix instant so I watched it the other day. I thought it was pretty good! Made me tear up a little, too.

Dude I saw that film years ago, before it was even in theaters.
posted by OHenryPacey at 2:39 PM on April 30, 2013 [6 favorites]


Anyone can be a hipster and not even know it.

Talk to your doctor today.
posted by The Whelk at 2:47 PM on April 30, 2013 [3 favorites]


Talk to your doctor today...

...if you've had a "fixie" for over four hours.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:49 PM on April 30, 2013 [15 favorites]


Just out of idle curiosity...are there any *new* memes/phrases about hipsters? What are they? I guess I'm just wondering if the productivity of saying things about hipsters has sort of run its course and now we're just recycling the old stuff. Ironically, of course. And on vinyl.
posted by iamkimiam at 2:50 PM on April 30, 2013


I don't think there's been anything new since all those barbershops appeared on Greenwhich Ave so ...not for at least four years.
posted by The Whelk at 2:52 PM on April 30, 2013


If you have ever made something yourself, done something differently OR the same as everyone else, or enjoyed yourself, you're a hipster. Doubly so if any music other than the Rolling Stones was playing at the time. Sorry, mon amie, thems just Mefi rules.

Don't forget grown men wearing pedal pushers.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:53 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


I guess I'm just wondering if the productivity of saying things about hipsters has sort of run its course and now we're just recycling the old stuff.

I started beating this horse before it died.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:54 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Mad magazine was doing "the lighter side of hippies" well into the 80's. I mean I had to ask my parents about the references. You ever watch Gold Rush? When you strike gold keep digging.
posted by Ad hominem at 2:56 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


I started beating this horse before it died

I'm a Plioscenester.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:57 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


Man, the Times doesn't care who's toes it steps on!
posted by The Whelk at 2:57 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Nothing about feathers? I was sure feathered jewelry would make the list....

Wait. I thought this post was making fun of the NYT.

It is. But aside from the music (kings of leon), this list is pretty spot on in describing a fairly amorphous and shifting subculture.

I've been as pro-hipster as anyone on here, I think, and of course it's a lame description, but it would be silly to ignore the common motifs of the scene (beards, kaffiyehs, man buns, mustaches, nerdy glasses).

So, yeah, bashing hipsters is stupid, but the NYT doesn't look so horrible here. To me.

Perhaps most importantly, this list missed PICKLING. And probably a bunch of other NYT references. Hardly comprehensive.
posted by mrgrimm at 3:00 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Quick, what are the current crop of 17 year olds doing? Rocking to themselves slowly in a dark room while they contemplate thier future? How can we monetize that?
posted by The Whelk at 3:04 PM on April 30, 2013


Thank god there are a few posts between Classical Gas and this thread or the anti-hipster+hipster reaction would be massive.
posted by ersatz at 3:05 PM on April 30, 2013


Eventually people will move on to hating the next big trend years after the trend had its moment. I expect the dubstep hate to kick in any day now.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 3:09 PM on April 30, 2013


Quick, what are the current crop of 17 year olds doing?

I assume they're all just waiting for "the drop."
posted by drezdn at 3:10 PM on April 30, 2013 [6 favorites]


*scoff* I've been hating dubstep for years.
posted by entropicamericana at 3:10 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


Why did the hipster burn his mouth?

He ate his dinner before it was cool.
posted by Ned G at 3:11 PM on April 30, 2013 [10 favorites]


I decided to treat myself today. I just left the optometrists office where I ordered a pair of classic wayfarer seeing glasses. Then I put my name in the waiting list at the $75 for a haircut and beard trim place staffed by long bearded tattooed dudes who use real boar hair brushes to lather artisanal soap in order to shave you with a straight razor. While my turn comes up I am at the bar next door drinking a Moscow mule made with local artisanal vodka and artisanal ginger beer. It is served in a vintage copper mug. Before that I had a kombucha and beet juice at a sidewalk stand.

And I am happy to that I rode my bike here. The fat tire Surly.

I don't know how many hipster alarms I set off, but I am just an overweight dude in his late thirtied enjoying a day off in the mission, and I am about as cool as the surface of Venus (not cool at all).

What I am getting at is that I want to thank hipsters everywhere for making it possible for all these things to exist. If it were not for them I would be having a bud lite in a sports bar waiting for my turn at supercuts and thinking about the price of gas for my big ass car.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 3:22 PM on April 30, 2013 [4 favorites]


This is intriguing. Two of my favorite drinks, the New York and the Red Devil both contain Grenadine.

It's SO easy! Get a quart of pure pomegranate juice - any brand is fine, I think POM is the one that's most easily found. Dump it into a heavy bottomed saucepan, set it over high heat, and let it boil for a couple minutes, then turn down the heat to a simmer and let it go until reduced by half. Stir in 2 cups of sugar, stir until completely dissolved. Remove from heat, cool, pour into a bottle, then chill.

Unlike Rose's, this will not keep outside of the fridge. It's also more pink-y and less red. And it is so fucking delicious, you'll want to put it in and on everything. (It's a delight drizzled on vanilla ice cream, dark chocolate ice cream, and on orange sherbet.)
posted by MissySedai at 3:29 PM on April 30, 2013 [10 favorites]


I went to a gin tasting a few years back, I guess both bourbon and rye were already played out by then. Everyone already knew about shit like the Angel's Share and White Dog. The dude who was hosting it told me he made his own bitters, I was like "wait what? Thats possible"?

Gin is so out. The new thing is organic ginever.
posted by octothorpe at 3:36 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Anyone can be a hipster and not even know it.

Talk to your doctor today.
"

Hipsters? In my vagina?
posted by klangklangston at 3:43 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yeah this just makes the NYT look a bit sad.
And I'll take any kind of hipster affectation* over that horrible period in the 90's when everyone started swing dancing because of that Vince Vaughan movie. That shit was embarrassing.

*Except maybe PBR. I still don't get it. Here in Ontario I just feel sorry for the young guys I see buying that at the Beer Store. It's not any cheaper here and it's such shitty beer.
posted by chococat at 3:45 PM on April 30, 2013


Hipsters suck, hepsters are awesome
posted by Tom-B at 3:47 PM on April 30, 2013


( I like the swing era hair styles, sorry.)
posted by The Whelk at 4:02 PM on April 30, 2013


I'll be damned if high-top Converse will become a hipster thing, when those are the shoes of both the Ramones' badass rock n' roll uniform and John F. Kennedy's kinda fruity touch football outfits. Bastards.
posted by DecemberBoy at 4:31 PM on April 30, 2013


I'll be damned if high-top Converse will become a hipster thing,

Oh, dude, I have some less than optimal news for you.
posted by Think_Long at 4:40 PM on April 30, 2013 [5 favorites]


Bad news from ...like 99 to tell you.
posted by The Whelk at 5:21 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


"I'll be damned if high-top Converse will become a hipster thing, when those are the shoes of both the Ramones' badass rock n' roll uniform and John F. Kennedy's kinda fruity touch football outfits."

You know THAT'S EXACTLY WHY HIPSTERS LIKE THEM, right?

"Bad news from ...like 99 to tell you."

Oh, god, Bush, 9/11, Iraq, The Strokes… uh… and food trucks. The food trucks are OK.
posted by klangklangston at 5:37 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


We eventually got Tumblr and now we all have to live with it.
posted by The Whelk at 5:42 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


I've heard people mocking football hipsters. Is that legitimate usage, or are they just run-of-the-mill obsessives?
posted by TheShadowKnows at 5:44 PM on April 30, 2013


If they're wearing Brooklyn Lions jerseys, they're fair game.
posted by klangklangston at 5:50 PM on April 30, 2013


Would a football hipster just be an American Barça fan?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:52 PM on April 30, 2013


Then I put my name in the waiting list at the $75 for a haircut and beard trim place staffed by long bearded tattooed dudes who use real boar hair brushes to lather artisanal soap in order to shave you with a straight razor. While my turn comes up I am at the bar next door drinking a Moscow mule made with local artisanal vodka and artisanal ginger beer. It is served in a vintage copper mug. Before that I had a kombucha and beet juice at a sidewalk stand.

I'm not sure whether I'm incredibly envious of your day or want to give in to the reflex to poke fun at it. ;)
posted by sourwookie at 6:14 PM on April 30, 2013


hair that looks as if it had fallen on a guy’s head as he fought his way through a wind tunnel

this image is going to have me giggling to myself all day.

I liked it when my nephews asked if I was a hipster. I wear all black, big boots, and have blue hair. Kid, you're barking up the wrong subculture.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 6:16 PM on April 30, 2013


And I'll take any kind of hipster affectation* over that horrible period in the 90's when everyone started swing dancing because of that Vince Vaughan movie. That shit was embarrassing.

We will have to agree to disagree on that. I can tell you for sure which one is going to look ridiculous and embarrassing to the next generation when they’re looking at old pictures.
posted by bongo_x at 6:21 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


football hipsters

I really only watch teams that run the double wing...
posted by nathancaswell at 6:35 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Football hipsters need a new team to prattle on about since Dortmund made it to the Champions League final. But the real football hipsters are watching Peñarol.
posted by kendrak at 10:59 PM on April 30, 2013


Would a football hipster just be an American Barça fan?

Oh no, there's way more to it than that.
posted by Ned G at 1:47 AM on May 1, 2013 [2 favorites]


Then I put my name in the waiting list at the $75 for a haircut and beard trim place staffed by long bearded tattooed dudes who use real boar hair brushes to lather artisanal soap in order to shave you with a straight razor.

Wait, what? Why not just go to a Turkish or African-American neighbourhood barbershop and get exactly the same haircut and beardtrim without all the pretension and for at worst a third of the price?

It's still conspicuous consumption even when it's all local, artisanal and comes with provenance.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:29 AM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


Or we could just not criticise other people's lifestyle choices and how they choose to spend their money.

But where's the fun in that?
posted by Wolof at 4:52 AM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


Because the expensive barbers are not a two hour subway ride away?
posted by The Whelk at 7:05 AM on May 1, 2013


I've heard people mocking football hipsters. Is that legitimate usage, or are they just run-of-the-mill obsessives?

...

Would a football hipster just be an American Barça fan?

...

Oh no, there's way more to it than that.


OK, that was really good. Even with the typo I chuckled out loud @ "Rename your cat Klopp."

But it makes me think that "hipster" is being conflated with the old-fashioned meaning of "geek" or "wonk." (or as first noted, the run-of-the-mill obsessive).

It's still conspicuous consumption

That would, I think, be the most valid criticism of "hipsterism" - but EVERY subculture is going to be hijacked and commodified.

Or we could just not criticise other people's lifestyle choices and how they choose to spend their money.

But where's the fun in that?


None. That's where. If you're going to spend $8/pack on cigarettes, smoke near my kids, then throw your butts into the bay, I will criticize the weak-ass buzz of your lifestyle choice and your lame-ass littering. Get off my lawn. Seriously, I mean it. Oh wait what?
posted by mrgrimm at 8:18 AM on May 1, 2013


it makes me think that "hipster" is being conflated with the old-fashioned meaning of "geek" or "wonk.

Actually, for a large part hipster is the commodification of nerd.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:11 AM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


agreed. it's my observation that hipsters just started out as urban geeks (the folks who run the back-end of etsy, for example), that have come to temper the white hot energy of their cynicism and outsiderism with a new-found understanding of aesthetics and culture. this started in tech hubs like brooklyn, san francisco, seattle, etc, and spread quickly, to the saturation point we're plagued with today.
i should note that some of my best friends are hipsters and geeks and coders. and i don't mind or correct when i'm categorized as a hipster. i should also note that i'm in my mid-40s, so i'm not sure if that makes me truly hip, or truly pathetic.
posted by rude.boy at 9:34 AM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


that current geek chic-etsy-DIY "hipster" was not how I remember the word "hipster" meaning in High School and college in the late 90s, early 00s.

"Hipster" meant electroclash listening, loud clothing wearing, cynically disengaged hedonists perusing obscure bands in dark unlicensed clubs doing lines of coke off copies of Vice Magazine.

Then at some point in 08 they all had kids and got into politics.
posted by The Whelk at 10:36 AM on May 1, 2013


it's my observation that hipsters just started out as urban geeks (the folks who run the back-end of etsy, for example), that have come to temper the white hot energy of their cynicism and outsiderism with a new-found understanding of aesthetics and culture.

I definitely think this is a thing. I was getting into an argument with somebody this week about his lazy use of "hipster" as a slur for vapid kids. This guy is a geek and very proud and happy to to be ascribed the geek moniker. To him, "hipster" is the superficial rejection of the mainstream to be different or cool. Of course he thinks I'm a hipster. Fine whatever. But he doesn't seem to get that my geeking out about obscure bands isn't because they're unknown, it's because I like the thrill of the chase and learning new things. When people hate on me because I happen to geek out on punk bands that nobody really has heard of or liberos because it's not an approved topic (like popular sci-fi fantasy) it's laughable.

This is basically why modern anoraks are called football hipsters... and I'm totally in that group.

With all movements, there's the leading edge and then the trail, where it's been commodified. Lots of people like to indulge in their obsessive tendencies, but some just want to consume and have fun. It's fine. When that happens what are we supposed to do? I'm just waiting till it passes and there's less competition for the records I want. The definition of hipster will change with the fashion.
posted by kendrak at 10:39 AM on May 1, 2013


Like... Polly Ester writing for Suck.com, The Black Table's chic misery, strip club trips to Montreal, Garage rock, ridiculous club-wear one-up-manship, 70s fetishism, that's what I associate with the word "hipster" when I first started hearing it.
posted by The Whelk at 10:42 AM on May 1, 2013


I also wonder how much of what you might lazily call the current hipster/portlandia lifestyle with its emphasis on handcraft and time intensive hobbyism is the result of chronic underemployment of a huge swatch of the twentysomething/thirtysomething middle classes, more so than can be explained by trustafarians or college kids. That is, if you can't find a proper job anyway, why not start that steampunk cupcake bakery of your dreams?
posted by MartinWisse at 12:23 PM on May 1, 2013


I figure it was the perfect storm of growing distrust of large companies, a desire to be more Ecofriendly, and nobody actually having a job anymore.
posted by The Whelk at 1:13 PM on May 1, 2013


The Fucking Hipster Show
Surveying the last thirteen years’ worth of New York Times’ articles — the length of time when, according to a recent Gawker compilation of New York Times hipster ethnographies, our paper of record has been shocked by and enamored with the H-word — this capacious figure encompasses both the ironic and the sincere. The cynical and the committed. Professional artists and trustafarian dilettantes. Studiously cool fashionistas and earthy, backward-looking community gardeners raising chickens. Apolitical trend-mongers and, in the wake of Occupy, radical anarchists — presumably like the ones who resided at 13 Thames Street.

But why worry about these people, when the Times has a tattooed and mustachioed dummy and its writers know how to make him speak? And speak he does, on a regular basis, about small batch pickle making, DIY literary history, and the new unicycling purists. Better to focus on the kinds of things that suggest effete privilege — all their free time frivolously spent and with whose money? — than offer a critique of the truly privileged and the socioeconomic system which sustains their privilege.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:13 PM on May 12, 2013 [1 favorite]


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