The Inevitable Outcome of the Behavior of Large Numbers of People

February 28, 2019 1:44 PM

Complexity science explains why efforts to reject the mainstream merely result in a new conformity. The hipster effect: Why anti-conformists always end up looking the same
posted by chavenet (66 comments total)

How do we know hipsters were trying to be non-conformist. Maybe instead their subculture style was intended to single to other they shared similar tastes?

Anyway, it's pretty interesting how the hipster aesthetic has largely disappeared.
posted by JamesBay at 1:56 PM on February 28, 2019 [20 favorites]

Delayed negative feedback is well-known to cause oscillation. But their claims go further than this: that they have an explanation for "hipster" agents choosing the same alternative even when there are more than two alternatives are available. I'd like to learn more about that explanation.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 2:08 PM on February 28, 2019 [5 favorites]

As JamesBay hints, it seems pretty likely that non-conformists would mostly want to signal their non-conformity to other like-minded non-conformists rather than just appear deranged. As Frank Zappa once chided his audience: Everybody [...] is wearing a uniform, and don't kid yourself.
posted by merlynkline at 2:16 PM on February 28, 2019 [21 favorites]

Below some threshold you get "hipster" or "dandy" or "flapper" or "hippie", above the threshold you get "fashion". What's strange to me is the expectation that universal adoption would be the normal case, and that it would be contrasted with random variation.
posted by idiopath at 2:17 PM on February 28, 2019 [4 favorites]

Connie Willis explored this in Bellwether.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:23 PM on February 28, 2019 [11 favorites]

I'm skeptical that the motivating observation is even true: if an extraterrestrial with no preconceptions about "hipsters" and "mainstream" went out and tried to categorize people's fashion choices, I doubt they would end up with two neat categories.
posted by Pyry at 2:24 PM on February 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

What has changed since he first published this finding in 2014?
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 2:26 PM on February 28, 2019 [4 favorites]

Look. You've got it all wrong. You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves. You're all individuals!
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:26 PM on February 28, 2019 [30 favorites]

I reject this. I self-identify as non-conformist and I most definitely do not dress, look or act like hipsters or any other group I have seen. I'm not being ironic, I am not deluded, I honestly think his theory is wrong, unless he is saying they were never non-conforming to begin with by definition.
posted by Cosine at 2:40 PM on February 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

> Anyway, it's pretty interesting how the hipster aesthetic has largely disappeared.

I dunno. The hipster esthetic started in the early 00s, which means it's at least fifteen years old now. Those people are now approaching their mid or late thirties; it's time for the next youth style.
posted by ardgedee at 2:40 PM on February 28, 2019 [7 favorites]

Look. You've got it all wrong. You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves. You're all individuals!

I'm not
posted by treepour at 2:42 PM on February 28, 2019 [26 favorites]

I most definitely do not dress

Without touching upon the methodology or quality of the analysis in the linked post, that author is dealing with cohorts rather than individuals. I don't think it's supposed to have predictive or explanatory power for any given person.
posted by salt grass at 2:46 PM on February 28, 2019 [7 favorites]

I self-identify as non-conformist ... -- posted by Cosine

You are 90 degrees out of phase.
posted by sjswitzer at 2:47 PM on February 28, 2019 [31 favorites]

Like others in this thread, I'm suspicious of the premise that the goal of a "hipster" is to merely to reject the mainstream. I'd certainly qualify as a "hipster" to a lot of people in that I have some brightly colored hair, some tattoos, and other things, but I never once said to myself "I'm going to do these things so I don't look mainstream." I did them because I saw other people doing them and I liked the way those people looked.
posted by treepour at 2:47 PM on February 28, 2019 [21 favorites]

To me, and many others here I suspect, the term "hipster" refers to a fairly specifc aesthetic whereas I believe this article uses it to simply mean "non-conformist". That seems to make some of what it says a bit more plausible.

From the article:
[...] a society composed of conformists who copy the majority and anticonformists, or hipsters, who do the opposite.
posted by merlynkline at 2:48 PM on February 28, 2019 [5 favorites]

If you're fashion non-conforming, you end up wearing clothes that aren't being pushed to consumers -- work clothes, for example, so a lot of NCs end up looking like maintenance workers, or Cowboys, or soldiers, but then fashion comes in behind that and makes fashionable versions of all those styles.

Then the NCs start mixing fashionable modes in unfashionable ways, and you end up with outfits like cocktail dress tops, blue jeans, and combat boots. Then fashion comes in behind that and .....
posted by jamjam at 2:56 PM on February 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

you end up with outfits like cocktail dress tops, blue jeans, and combat boots

YOU LEAVE THE EARLY NINETIES ALONE WHAT DID THEY EVER DO TO YOU
posted by praemunire at 3:01 PM on February 28, 2019 [64 favorites]

If hipsters could grow a mustache, a square beard, or a goatee

I question the premise of this study
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:01 PM on February 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

Yes, we are all individuals...
posted by PhineasGage at 3:02 PM on February 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

My parents bought me a book called How to be a Non-Conformist when I was like nine that was a terrible burn on my budding individuality. But I'm not sure they understood it was satirical. (It was also weirdly dated, aimed at actual hippies.)

Ahhh...here it is.
posted by praemunire at 3:05 PM on February 28, 2019 [6 favorites]

Dressing the same as your peers, but in a way that is perplexing to outsiders makes it easier to spot the narc.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 3:12 PM on February 28, 2019 [7 favorites]

Young person fashions are always being confused by outsiders: "goth" melts into "punk" melts into "rockabilly" etc etc. If you're not well-versed in whatever sub-community being discussed, everything might look alike to you because all you notice is that they don't look like a Kohl's ad. I don't think the "nonconformist" people want to look different from their chosen peers; they want to signify that they're different from the people outside that group.

...as to the aughts hipster, I've always felt that the style developed as an alternative to the Banana Republic/Abercrombie/Juicy era. Aughts hipster styles don't seem as distinct because a) a lot of hipsters have kids now and spend their time in workwear or athleisure and b) those styles spread until they became a lot less notable as a "hipster" thing and more of a whole world thing.

(Except for The Kids, who live in ugly streetwear. The Kids all look alike, to me, because they're very young and I don't know anything about streetwear.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 3:13 PM on February 28, 2019 [7 favorites]

these days, who can tell? we're all glued to our phones anyway - except me
posted by pyramid termite at 3:17 PM on February 28, 2019 [5 favorites]

Can someone point me at the table in Costco which I can frequent to look hip? Surely that will disguise my age and out-of-it-ness. (Points if it disguises fat and bald, too.) TIA
posted by maxwelton at 3:29 PM on February 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

Can someone point me at the table in Costco which I can frequent to look hip?

I sense a flaw in your fundamental methodology.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:36 PM on February 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I am widely recognized as a damn hipster*, and I don't make fashion choices to be non-conformist, I do it because I want to look like people I think look cool. I do it specifically to fit in with a social scene.

I was truly non-conformist in high school, because I didn't really give a shit. And you know how I dressed? Like a creepy fucking weirdo! Black fuzzy sweatpants that were too short, and bright orange shirts with frayed edges. Clothes that didn't even fit me. My whole attitude was "I'm so above it all" but eventually I just felt like I was isolating myself from everyone else in a conscious effort to be non-conformist.

So now I make an effort to dress in a way that other people will recognize as cool, because I live in a social world and I'd like to be a part of it. Other people can and do pull off the ultra-cool you-do-you look, but since I can't, I gladly do what works for other people. Usually that means wearing plaid and/or metal band shirts with slim-fit jeans, so it's not even like it takes a lot of effort.

I mean, this does seem like a valuable model for some things, but I always bristle when human behavior is so oversimplified, because it seems like people are allowed to do stuff because they just like it.

* Funny enough, I never actually thought of myself as a hipster, but once "hipster" became a thing, that's what everyone started calling me. Now I'm basically the only person in my friend group who doesn't roll their eyes at the word, but I'm also the biggest nerd. Which is also funny -- in my hipsterish friend group I look like a nerd, but to other people I look like Mr. Silverlake.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 3:39 PM on February 28, 2019 [10 favorites]

Do they cite the prior work in this field, S. Reit & G. Woodbridge, "How to be a MAD Non-Conformist", MAD Magazine #47, June 1959?
posted by zompist at 3:54 PM on February 28, 2019 [8 favorites]

He's failing to account for the different definitions of 'non-conformist' -- he's mapping out for true non-conformists but actually talking about a cohesive, easily recognized group who fit the other definition.

There are two distinct ways to define non-conformist wtr clothing. First there is 'dressing in a style that is not congruent with standard clothing worn by 'mainstream' society'. The second is 'dressing in a style that is deliberately dissimilar to any current style of dress, whether mainstream or subculture'.

Hipsters follow the first definition. As is pointed out above, they want to dress differently from 'normal fashion' and also signal their alignment with a subculture they identify with, even if they claim otherwise. Goths are famous for this last bit as well.

I know a few true non-conformists, and encounter a fair number where I live. I can guarantee you that true non-conformists do not 'sync up', largely because there are an almost infinite number of clothing choices and combinations available.
posted by ananci at 3:57 PM on February 28, 2019 [7 favorites]

@maxwelton what you're looking for are a pair of Kirkland 11's, which took streetwear by storm 2 years ago, the reverberations of which are still being felt to this day. "Basic" sneakers that you can buy at places like Foot Locker are really big right now. Nike's Air Max 90's are even being walked on runways. Dad shoes are in.

Articles like this are one of my biggest pet peeves, because nobody can seem to define "hipster" outside of 1940's jazz heads. I imagine most people think of hipsters as bearded men wearing flannel and drinking coffee from a Chemex, or at a 3rd wave coffeeshop. Those people definitely exist, just not to the extent that the entire world outside of major cities seems to think. And nobody can seem to define "mainstream" either. The difference being that when people call you a hipster it's not a good thing. It may actually be something that gets you beaten up, because there is a distinct feminization of the term and the way that it is used, a la "metrosexual" (which is literally the same definition). Whenever I've gone back to my hometown of Phoenix I've been called both a hipster and a f*g for wearing cut-off shorts. Sorry it's like 110 degrees outside... I guess I should have been wearing huge Dickies or some shit?

And I'm sorry, but if you're walking around wearing near bondage leather and chains with liberty spikes, you are outside of and rebelling against the mainstream. This was one of my stupidest parts about high school to me, where you'd have a huge suburban high school filled with Republicans and they loved to call anybody who didn't look like them a f*g while also commenting "you all think you're rebels but you all look exactly the same!" ignoring the fact that 10 punk or theater kids hanging out with each other didn't look anything like the other 200+ people in their graduating class much less the entire school.

But I want to bring this back around to my main point, which is that there's no clear definition of what a hipster actually is other than "something you know when you see it". I'm no mathematician but it seems kind of spurious to say you're making an observation on a social construct that you cannot define.
posted by gucci mane at 4:02 PM on February 28, 2019 [12 favorites]

Looking at the paper, it seems like it's a much more abstract paper about an information theory model--which the author of the paper refers to as a "toy model"--than his apparently tongue-in-cheek use of the h-word suggests. An unfortunate choice of colorway, as it were.
posted by salt grass at 4:12 PM on February 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

Steve Martin -- Now let's repeat the non-conformists' oath:

• I promise to be different!
• I promise to be unique!
• I promise not to repeat things other people say!

posted by filthy light thief at 4:19 PM on February 28, 2019 [6 favorites]

There's a funny in-group, out-group thing going on. I was trying to get at it before. Chuckling about hipsters all looking the same is an out-group thing. In-group (as much as you can be in-group, since "hipster" is such a vague term), there's a ton of variety. I recently worked at a record store, surely a bastion of hipsterdom, but people there all looked really different to me. You had your hip hop nerds, your experimental music people, your goth-types, your jazz aficionados, people into soul, etc. Everyone dressed differently in uniquely identifiable ways that either matched up with a subculture (like the goth people), or were otherwise recognizable as being A Thing.

So it's actually kind of offensive (mildly offensive, more annoying than anything, but still bothersome) to be reminded that, oh yeah, people still do the old "you're trying to be special but you're nooott" thing. You have all these people who have all these different interests, and they're reduced to one label (hipster) by people who aren't familiar with them or their interests. It's a way of devaluing genuine interests and diversity, and then claiming that it's a kind of conformism based on irony, etc etc. Like, yeah, I do conform to a look, but it's a much more specific one than the generic label implies, and it's based on more than superficial stuff. I joke about being a hipster (see my profile), but I actually have strong opinions about how people tend to talk about this stuff.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 4:31 PM on February 28, 2019 [9 favorites]

This thread reminds me of a full page comic I once saw on alternative rock back in 1994 (it was in a magazine one of my classmates had -- I think it might have been Esquire), in which one of the panels showed a large audience of people all calling out, "WE'RE EXPRESSING OUR INDIVIDUALITY!!!!"
posted by orange swan at 4:43 PM on February 28, 2019

1971. Still relevant.
posted by freakazoid at 4:52 PM on February 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

Maybe people are confusing "what I hate about you" for "what motivates you". Go ahead and hate members of some subculture for being different, but describing them as motivated to be different as a goal, without anyone in that group confirming it, is weird. I guess there were/are some hippies that aspired to that kind of fashion solipsism, but as someone who's spent years in in cities like Portland and Olympia, that's not going on with the people you call hipsters.
posted by idiopath at 5:00 PM on February 28, 2019 [6 favorites]

I found some of my parents old sweaters from the 80s and 90s in the basement while I was cleaning up and now I have some really choice huge sweaters including a gigantic wool one that used to be dad’s in like 1985 and a really beautiful magenta monster that was mom’s in the 90s. People are bringing back 90s fashion right? Does this mean I’m with it?
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 5:20 PM on February 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

I deleted facebook in 2010 to prevent myself from paying attention to my ex's life, and then I liked it so I never got back on, and for that reason people call me a hipster.

When I am not in professional clothes I wear leggings (basic bitch), or farm work clothes (hipster) which are supposed to be two opposite sides of fashion.

In conclusion I think this article misused the word hipster and I might not know what it means either.
posted by Emmy Rae at 5:35 PM on February 28, 2019 [6 favorites]

“But the ‘cool’ part— and I don’t know why that archaic usage has stuck, by the way— isn’t an inherent quality. It’s like a tree falling, in the forest.”
“It cannot hear,” declares Voytek, solemnly.
“What I mean is, no customers, no cool. It’s about a group behavior pattern around a particular class of object. What I do is pattern recognition. I try to recognize a pattern before anyone else does.”
“And then?”
“I point a commodifier at it.”
“And?”
“It gets productized. Turned into units. Marketed.”

-- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition.

There's part of your diffusion mechanism, isn't there? Some people set the cool, some people hunt the cool, some people react to the cool. Different personalities, different points on the diffusion cycle, different ways to self-define in relation to the cool.
posted by sobell at 5:36 PM on February 28, 2019 [9 favorites]

so a lot of NCs end up looking like maintenance workers, or Cowboys, or soldiers

Or in my case, lumberjacks. I must admit, lumbersexuals cracked me up when I first saw them - all these guys with their expensive mackinaws and neatly groomed & oiled beards. It was nice to be in style for like half hour.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:49 PM on February 28, 2019 [5 favorites]

It's a pity, I'd find the math here really interesting to discuss but the vintage culture war makes it hard to get that far.
posted by idiopath at 5:58 PM on February 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Look, assuming a spherical fixed-gear hipster...
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:37 PM on February 28, 2019 [9 favorites]

As a guy in his mid-40s that has had a very similar style for the past 30 years (comfortable and utilitarian), I've discovered that about every 10 years I'm considered hip for a short period of time! It feels like a sugar high on a Saturday morning. Of course, this fades fast and I'm seen as conforming to the current style like everyone else. Then I look forward for my next decennial holiday.
posted by Muncle at 6:44 PM on February 28, 2019 [6 favorites]

O to be on Sugar Mountain..
posted by ovvl at 6:53 PM on February 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

You can also apply this to anti-vaxxers, flat earth folks, Randites, etc. Many justify their positions to non-conformism as a policy as well.
posted by aurelian at 6:58 PM on February 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

are a pair of Kirkland 11's, which took streetwear by storm 2 years ago,

...because of John Mayer?

I'm sorry, I try to keep an open mind towards new cultural developments, but you hipsters need to develop some standards.
posted by praemunire at 7:22 PM on February 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

I skimmed the article to see if this was addressed, but didn't see it:

How, exactly, would they be able to find those who were non-conforming in an idiosyncratic way?
posted by amtho at 8:16 PM on February 28, 2019

The model has exactly two behaviors, agreeing with the majority and disagreeing with the majority. As a set of rules for a system, it's fascinating. As an insight about the behavior of hipsters, I guess that makes for a catchy headline.
posted by idiopath at 9:10 PM on February 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

As a guy in his mid-40s that has had a very similar style for the past 30 years (comfortable and utilitarian), I've discovered that about every 10 years I'm considered hip for a short period of time!

This happened to me during that period 5-8 years ago when desert boots became a fashion item for a season or so.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 9:40 PM on February 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

I scoffed at first, but I think the correct way to interpret the idea (as opposed to the article) is to map the dichotomy to personality types, nonconformity := disagreeble + openness, and take the negation for the other group. Then the simulation results makes some sense.

One interpretation of Big 5 as an empirically supported theory of individuals is that society needs variation in personality types because when those traits interact giving rise societal state spaces, thus the point about phase transitions, and then social change happens i.e. new values and customs are adopted or transmitted.

It's a toy model of cultural evolution, I don't see how the current science could prove or disprove that social phenomena truly work this way, but it is kind of interesting to wonder about.
posted by polymodus at 9:49 PM on February 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

1971. Still relevant.

I turned twelve in 1971 which was around the time my dad finally let me grow my hair at least halfway long. Which I did, because all the cool guys I looked up to were were doing it. I can't say I ever thought of it as being non-conformist. I was at least that savvy.

Later, age fourteen or fifteen, I started to get into music most other kids thought of as being weird. Not because I was trying to non-conform, but because I really, really liked it. And I still do. In fact, I've been on that tangent for over four decades now. I'm passionate for music (and related culture) that explores new and strange and astonishing realms. I wish everyone was.

Some people set the cool, some people hunt the cool, some people react to the cool. Different personalities, different points on the diffusion cycle, different ways to self-define in relation to the cool.

I suppose I've occasionally classified as someone who's set "the cool". But only occasionally and never really on purpose. As for hunting it -- no. I'm looking for way more than cool from the cultural stuff I go hunting for. As for reacting to it, as I learned from the Punk eruptions of the late 70s (which mostly just bemused me), the key is not to react, because then you're just getting caught up in unnecessary commotion, getting distracted from whatever strange and wonderful thing may be coming next.
posted by philip-random at 10:03 PM on February 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

Man, these hipster dudes, with their goatees or mustaches or muttonchops or neckbeards or stubble or single earrings or dangly earrings or necklaces or nose rings or eyebrow rings or tattoos or colored hair or shaved heads or partially shaved heads or visible makeup or tiny hats or big hats or obtrusive headphones or tiny headphones or thick glasses or tinted glasses or weird clothes or unusual bicycles or odd demeanors -- why do they all look so similar?
posted by chortly at 10:14 PM on February 28, 2019 [7 favorites]

The idea that being a hipster (or some other subculture) is about being anti-conformist, and that this anti-conformism naturally converges to a very “hipster” look is cute, but needlessly baroque*. Putting aside the rhetoric, hipsters and other subcultures aren't about rejecting the mindless sheeplike conformity of the mainstream and boldly setting out in one's own direction but about homing in on a specific, coded set of signifiers that say: I know something the normies don't. If that norm involves wearing a certain combination of clothing and accessories, styling one's hair in a certain way and professing a love of certain types of music (be it underground indie rock or very specific selections of things considered cheesy and dated), as long as it is mutually recognisable, it works.

Rejecting the mainstream without homing in on a hipster identity of some sort would either be subsumed into the mainstream anyway (it's a broad church and very welcoming), or else end up very lonely. Like Ted Kaczynski lonely, or Into The Wild lonely.

* a bit like a Wes Anderson set piece perhaps
posted by acb at 1:06 AM on March 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

I get kind of offended by the dismissiveness of the hipster label. Like people can't like these things because they like them, they're just trying to be cool. I mean come on, the mainstream has horrific taste. For example: stupid giant blockbuster movies, The Big Band Theory, fucking Nickleback. That's the kind of shit the mainstream pushes.

This is going to sound so hipster but I was hipster before it was cool. Why? Because I decided for myself what I like instead of just consuming whatever was fed to me. For a while I got pretty offended when people called me a hipster because it totally just flattens my taste into some new trend. Even though I myself totally make fun of some of these "hipster" trends (tiny hats? wtf? lol)

I guess I hate all the new hipsters who are just following a trend. How very hipster of me...
posted by LizBoBiz at 2:23 AM on March 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

Paging Hari Seldon, Hari Seldon to the white courtesy phone, please.
posted by TheHuntForBlueMonday at 4:45 AM on March 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

I think the main point is more along the lines of modeling group action where all actions are informed by the same stimuli, but some will act to adopt or embrace the introduced item or idea while others will react in an opposite manner. It isn't dealing with individual thought or taste as such in a manner which it could arise without group influence, but more of a simple binary some accept and some reject and how those decisions are determined and spread in regards to group identity.

The use of hipsters, I assume, comes from the alleged favoring of "ironic" adoption of values, where irony in that sense requires a stable conformity of values which can be chosen against or opposed directly rather than adopted piecemeal by individual preference absent larger social influence.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:14 AM on March 1, 2019

The article does note that the model shows adding more choices still sorts to a synchronized effect, and it wouldn't surprise me for the model to have some application to real life given how people do seem to behave, but the nature of the study, and likely of social life, holds choices as group related more than decided purely on an individual basis alone. Given the limits of choice people face, that might not be much of a problem since we choices aren't infinite in practical application, they usually are severely bounded by physical constraint and imaginative possibility.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:23 AM on March 1, 2019

Anyway, it's pretty interesting how the hipster aesthetic has largely disappeared.

Disappeared from where, exactly? I've found that this is something that's to some extent regional. When I was living in Maine, it was impossible to tell the difference between hipsters and people who had moved to Portland (the one in Maine) from rural areas and just brought rural fashion with them - serial killer beards, flannel, mullets, chunky glasses etc. I've also found over time that a substantial portion of gay and lesbian fashion develops similarly from rural queer folks moving to the cities.

To me a lot of what this is about is inseparable from another article posted a few days ago, The Binary Does Not Spark Joy and the struggles to deal with clothing and fashion as people whose assigned gender doesn't fit, and who are trying to live in a world that doesn't like to look at us. I felt at home with punk fashion in ways I've never felt so comfortable with clothing. Currently the design I'm most interested in is Sky Cubacub's project Rebirth Garments and some other independent queer designers who are using fashion politically.

All of this is to say that conformity to the mainstream vs hipsterism is a massive oversimplification that ignores huge numbers of people, and that's obvious in the article - talking about beards vs shaving facial hair ignores all of us who don't grow facial hair to start with.
posted by bile and syntax at 6:50 AM on March 1, 2019 [6 favorites]

This delay is important. People do not react instantly when a new, highly fashionable pair of shoes becomes available. Instead, the information spreads slowly via fashion websites, word of mouth, and so on.

Evidence please? The new music and movie cycle is totally driven by the first few months of sales - ie information spreads really fast. New consumer products too. We even have a name for it - Black Friday. The phenomenon is real.

I mean, I disagree with the conclusions as well on the face of it, but wish they had more detail on what 'synchronization' in this case means, because an in-depth discussion of what the model is showing there could be interesting.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:25 AM on March 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

This delay is important. People do not react instantly when a new, highly fashionable pair of shoes becomes available. Instead, the information spreads slowly via fashion websites, word of mouth, and so on.

Evidence please? The new music and movie cycle is totally driven by the first few months of sales - ie information spreads really fast.

Even faster the first day/weekends of sales for movies, but there is also a long build up before hand that helps set the reaction. Fast and slow are meant more relatively I take it, where it's less a specific outside time frame and more how information about the thing among group members can help determine the acceptance or rejection as opposed to "instant" individual reaction that might lack any social cues. The model is obviously limited, but without knowing more I can't entirely reject it having some utility in capturing basic transmission patterns in group dynamics.
posted by gusottertrout at 7:54 AM on March 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

I thought I would revisit one of the finale postings of Fecal February, about poop on Everest. I hadn't added it to activity, so I was scrolling the front page looking for it. This thread title struck me as a logical name for a thread about too much poop in one place, so I clicked in, and found myself surprised to be back in the hipster conversation. Hello again!
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:32 AM on March 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

Why does all of this apply only to hipsters? Shit, this is literally the business model of Harley-Davidson.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:45 PM on March 1, 2019 [6 favorites]

This delay is important.

Also known as the Anxious Interval.
posted by acb at 1:57 AM on March 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

it's pretty interesting how the hipster aesthetic has largely disappeared.

What baffling statement.

This article essentially a reductio ad absurdum.

"Hipster" is such a lazy descriptor. Around here it basically means "white boy under 40 whose clothes fit and aren't a suit or some variety of athleisure wear (including things originally intended for golfing/bowling/polo)."
posted by aspersioncast at 3:51 PM on March 4, 2019

Hipster whines at tech mag for using his pic to imply hipsters look the same, discovers pic was of an entirely different hipster
posted by bongo_x at 11:11 AM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

That's weird bongo_x because there's this whole thread saying hipsters aren't a thing. Maybe that guy doesn't exist at all. Or maybe that poster is in THIS VERY THREAD AS WE SPEAK.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 4:31 PM on March 6, 2019

> Can someone point me at the table in Costco which I can frequent to look hip

I have been informed by one of my local young people that Adidas is very in right now. My local Costco has tables of Adidas leggings and t-shirts. Off you go.
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:23 PM on March 6, 2019