Killing Hipsters

November 22, 2010 10:48 PM

Charles Bronson stars in Killing Hipsters, rated PG, an action-packed smorgasbord of revenge.
posted by battlebison (111 comments total)

And when you least expect it: Jeff Goldbloom.
posted by klausman at 10:58 PM on November 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

Is that a vintage post?
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:05 PM on November 22, 2010

No it's a right now post.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:05 PM on November 22, 2010 [5 favorites]

MoSS
posted by clavdivs at 11:12 PM on November 22, 2010

No one expects Jeff Goldbloom!

His main weapon is an oddly detached affect.

an oddly detatced affect, and idiosyncratic pacing in his delivery of lines.
posted by longsleeves at 11:19 PM on November 22, 2010 [8 favorites]

Goldblum.
posted by lumensimus at 11:21 PM on November 22, 2010

Single link youtube post. I remember when me-fi posts were creative and deep, now they have gotten popular and people just post crap and everyone loves it.

Did I do it right?
posted by psycho-alchemy at 11:24 PM on November 22, 2010 [6 favorites]

Charles Bronson never loses his shit.
posted by philip-random at 11:24 PM on November 22, 2010

Laurence Fishburne was in there as well.
posted by birdherder at 11:32 PM on November 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

Single link youtube post. I remember when me-fi posts were creative and deep, now they have gotten popular and people just post crap and everyone loves it.

Did I do it right?
posted by psycho-alchemy at 11:24 PM on November 22 [+] [!]

needs more cowbell
posted by From Bklyn at 11:46 PM on November 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is that a vintage Charles Bronson T-Shirt?
posted by benzenedream at 11:54 PM on November 22, 2010

Oh for God's sake. Can we all just act like grown ups and get over it? This is just ridiculous now, and I think we, as a culture, just need to get over it.

Honestly, at this point in time, if some nasally dude somewhere on the internet is STILL all worked up about hipsters and just frothing at the mouth about it, it says much, much, much more about him than it does about...I don't even know who anymore. People who pay attention to how they dress? Or take an interest in modern music? Young people who enjoy going out and having fun? Anybody, anywhere, who has a passion for something that the nasally dude doesn't share? Or, perhaps, maybe more likely: people with an active interest in life, experience, and happiness that, for some reason, makes other jealous, stick-in-the-mud types feel out of touch and insecure.

P.S. Just got back from an Afrobeat dance party and I had SO MUCH FUN and really enjoyed myself, enjoyed the company of my friends, and enjoyed the city I live in. It was a great night, and I'm glad I went. Oh, WHOOPS, unfortunately I'm a douchebag hipster now! Some self-righteous, self-conscious misfit better make a YouTube video to cut me down to size!
posted by Tiresias at 12:40 AM on November 23, 2010 [30 favorites]

For real. I don't even have to read this to know it's yet another flamebait post with "hipster" in the title for traffic. It's played out. Maybe somebody can follow up with some links to South Park clips.
posted by zvs at 1:03 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Goldblum: OK ... ow, that, that really hurt what you did, to my wrist, when I, came at you with the ... straight razor.
posted by bwg at 1:13 AM on November 23, 2010 [6 favorites]

I'd just like to say that I was making "I was doing X before it became fashionable" jokes before it became fashionable.
posted by Decani at 1:33 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I finally know what a hipster is! Hipsters are time traveling thugs from the past!
posted by Mizu at 1:38 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

I like the idea of using "right now" versus "vintage".

I am not bored with making fun of hipsters yet, both because we only got hipsters in Albuquerque in the past year or so (we had to get an Urban Outfitters for them to be able to get the uniform). Why don't the rest of y'all move along and I'll get out some vintage sweaters and PBR and the rest of us can have a party. Sound good?
posted by NoraReed at 1:41 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Honestly, at this point in time, if some nasally dude somewhere on the internet is STILL all worked up about hipsters and just frothing at the mouth about it, it says much, much, much more about him than it does about...I don't even know who anymore

I thought it was obvious that this video was hipster-made and that 95% of hipster-hate is just ironic self-deprecation.
posted by dgaicun at 2:08 AM on November 23, 2010 [9 favorites]

Tiresias, you sound agitated. Perhaps relaxing with a nice can of Pabst Blue Ribbon while listening to some Arcade Fire would be just the thing?
posted by Justinian at 3:09 AM on November 23, 2010 [10 favorites]

There's nothing wrong with hating hipsters, but it shows just how behind the times you are.
The real hipsters, the ones who were hating hipsters way ahead of anybody else, have moved on to new and unfathomable depths of irony.
posted by marakesh at 3:17 AM on November 23, 2010 [5 favorites]

Or, perhaps, maybe more likely: people with an active interest in life, experience, and happiness that, for some reason, makes other jealous, stick-in-the-mud types feel out of touch and insecure.

Please tell me you meant that whole comment hipster-ironically? That you don't really believe that Fun was invented in Williamsburg in 2004?
posted by a young man in spats at 4:31 AM on November 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

Is that Mandom you're wearing?
posted by Naberius at 4:41 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

If someone makes one more word implying they hate hipsters I will automatically assume they're just an angry jealous prick who never gets laid.
posted by windbox at 4:42 AM on November 23, 2010

Is that a vintage post?
posted by Senor Cardgage at 1:05 AM on November 23


No it's a right now post.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 1:05 AM on November 23



Pfft, more like a five minutes ago post.
posted by louche mustachio at 5:00 AM on November 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

I always thought the anti-hipster thing was a little bit about latent homophobia. You know it's not acceptable to say "art fags" any more, so "hipster" makes a nice, PC replacement that allows you to keep your prejudices without actually directly singling out any acceptable minorities. You know, a bit like the "Disco Sucks" movement.
posted by axon at 5:09 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

I think self-loathing is one of the defining characteristics of hipsterism. A hipster is someone who is obsessed with being both fashionable and unique at the same time and feels self-conscious and angry when confronted by seeing themselves in the mirror of another hipster. So the people who use "hipster" as an insult are often the biggest hipsters.
posted by mr.ersatz at 5:11 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Every time, without fail, that I find myself driving with my father north of Johnstown on Pennsylvania state route 219, he points out that Charles Bronson was born over there.
posted by namewithoutwords at 5:12 AM on November 23, 2010

I can't wait until hipsters get a sense of humor.
posted by Sailormom at 5:13 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is that a vintage Charles Bronson T-Shirt?

Either Charles Bronson or Wayne Newton, I'm not sure.
posted by Daddy-O at 5:20 AM on November 23, 2010

I'm giggling at the notion of an oppressed and hated hipster. They're about the most mainstream-friendly counterculture, ever - about as threatening or infuriating to the establishment as a barbershop quartet.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:21 AM on November 23, 2010 [6 favorites]

I'd complain about the gratuitous rape joke, except that it actually is the plot of Death Wish.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:22 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

The First Two Rules of Hipster Identification

1) If you think you are, or want to be, a hipster, you aren't.
2) If you think you aren't, or want to not be, a hipster, you are.
posted by DU at 5:28 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

So while the family was laid up over the weekend with a stomach bug, we watched a bit of Dimitri Martin's Important Things on Netflix. While the definition of what a hipster actually is seems to be pretty fluid, I think that Martin's deliberately awkward presentation, complete with a faux 70s science film opening, puts him up there on the scale.

I had seen and enjoyed Martin's stand up before, but I was really surprised by how cruel at times Important Things. For a show whose principal has cultivated such an awkward, nerdy, retro demeanor it was really weird to see him lash out at things like comic books or roller blades. It felt like he was dressing up as a nerd to bash nerds, at times seeming to carefully point out how his affectation is just that, that he's actually much cooler and could ditch all that whenever he wanted.

I suspect the intersection of the Venn Diagram of likes between hipsters (real or imagined) and their internet haters is pretty broad. The difference seems to be commitment - one is committed to the image, the other to the thing. This causes the later to loathe the former, who in turn seems to look down on their more earnest cousin.

Imagine you see someone wearing an old school Atari shirt featuring a game you really loved back in the day. You have fond memories of playing that game and are really happy that someone seems to share your interest. But when you speak to the person in the shirt, not only do they have no idea what you're talking about, but they seem put out that you bothered them with it. That's the frustration I think a lot of the haters are projecting on the hipster.

Well, that and some of them look damn goofy.

But even then, there's friction. Many of us feel that we fundamentally look goofy and it galls us to see non-goofs try to look that way intentionally.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:34 AM on November 23, 2010 [14 favorites]

Some people have such a bug up their ass about hipsters. I don't see what the fuss is. Most hipsters go home to exactly the same sort of thing you and I do: A shelf full of manga and the box set for Battlestar Galactica. So they dress a little funny. All nerds dress funny.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:41 AM on November 23, 2010 [5 favorites]

Is it me or are hipsters not cool anymore . All they do is have brunch at that cute vegan place that just opened down the street. They also go to bars and talk about the beer incessantly. They are like underpaid yuppies with weird clothes.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:52 AM on November 23, 2010 [7 favorites]

This is the best that I've come up with for the fashionable disdain of "hipsters". I believe that hipsters could only exist in a ubiquitous post-Internet world. See, it used to if you wanted if you wanted to be part of an underground scene, you had to go out and interact with people who were all color coded by what they liked. Punks and Goths and Ravers, oh my!
But, after everyone and their brother gets the Internet, all the kids find it's a lot easier to live vicariously through the Internet. And everything starts to blend together into a melange of subcultures.
You no longer have the individual tribes still lashing out at one another and all of the sudden everyone kind of looks the same, and there aren't any good reasons to dislike someone, but people are still people and well, disdain finds a way.
posted by khaibit at 6:10 AM on November 23, 2010

Most hipsters go home to exactly the same sort of thing you and I do: A shelf full of manga and the box set for Battlestar Galactica.

Speak for yourself, nerd. Me? I go home, hang out with the brothers at Alpha Beta, invite over the Tri-Delts, and then after some drinks we go beat up Lewis, Gilbert, and Poindexter.

Seriously, I think it's about the self-referentiality and unironic employment of irony. I find hipsters a bit grating because it's like they turned up the volume on their irony to 11 without having much context for that irony.
posted by Forktine at 6:29 AM on November 23, 2010

You no longer have the individual tribes still lashing out at one another and all of the sudden everyone kind of looks the same

Aye, ye think so?
posted by the cuban at 6:40 AM on November 23, 2010

Complaining about the kids on your lawn with the rap music and the baggy pants is so last year. The new hotness is complaining about the kids on your lawn with the electroclash and the tight pants.
posted by electroboy at 6:42 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I find hipsters a bit grating because it's like they turned up the volume on their irony to 11 without having much context for that irony.

Minnesota is full of hipsters. I've known maybe one who does anything for the purpose of irony, and everyone else sort of hates him for it. Most hipsters really do like the things they like.

That being said, I always wonder why MeFites have such a hatred for hipsters and their supposed irony. Irony is one of the favorite tools of humor -- and discussion -- here on MetaFilter. But I guess it's only contemptible when somebody who listens to Tapes 'n Tapes does it.

Whoops. I think I might have been a little sarcastic there, which is a form of irony. HIPSTER ALERT.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:44 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

I quite liked the voiceover guy's casual 70s-style delivery (even though his actual voice is too high to get the effect *just right*). How many trailers for crime films from that era had that sort of thing? Nice touch.
posted by grubi at 6:47 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

As a longtime supporter of the Anti-Hipster Backlash Backlash, I'm glad the tide has finally turned in our favor.

electroclash

Man, I haven't heard that word since like 2005. Brings me back, man.
posted by nasreddin at 6:47 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

You can't really expect old dudes to complain about the newest stuff, unless of course you're some sort of old man hipster.
posted by electroboy at 7:02 AM on November 23, 2010

DU: "The First Two Rules of Hipster Identification

1) If you think you are, or want to be, a hipster, you aren't.
2) If you think you aren't, or want to not be, a hipster, you are"

The first rule of Hipster Club is you do NOT talk about Hipster Club.
posted by bwg at 7:02 AM on November 23, 2010

"'Honestly, at this point in time, if some nasally dude somewhere on the internet is STILL all worked up about hipsters and just frothing at the mouth about it, it says much, much, much more about him than it does about...I don't even know who anymore'

I thought it was obvious that this video was hipster-made and that 95% of hipster-hate is just ironic self-deprecation."

Yeah, Tiresias! What, are you blind or something?
posted by Eideteker at 7:12 AM on November 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

(I been making Greek mythology jokes since before the references were obscure.)
posted by Eideteker at 7:15 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm giggling at the notion of an oppressed and hated hipster. They're about the most mainstream-friendly counterculture, ever - about as threatening or infuriating to the establishment as a barbershop quartet.

For the love of God, don't give them any ideas.
posted by Scoo at 7:22 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yeah, Irony.

There was recently an outdoor screening of point break in brooklyn and I couldn't figure out if it was supposed to be Ironic or not. I had to ask.

I didn't attend, but only in an Ironic way.

They really are pretty earnest about whatever they are into. At it's root hipsterism is really all about connoisseurship.

Also, "I was into something way before hipsters were into it but I was really into it not like those ironic hipsters" is kinda funny
posted by Ad hominem at 7:23 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah, Tiresias!

Was that a sex change joke?
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:30 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

My hipster friends in college were 2-level recursive hipsters: They self-identified as hipsters, but did so ironically. I once listened to one of them explain that Pabst Blue Ribbon was "the working man's beer" because hipsters drank it, thus proving its authenticity.
posted by Tubalcain at 7:36 AM on November 23, 2010

The saddest nerds are always those who are locked out of cool nerd things. It's one thing not to have a letterman jacket or date a cheerleader, because, heck, you were never into sports or those kind of girls anyway -- but this is worse.

Still, while this sadness makes sense if you, say, don't get invited to the right parties at a sci-fi convention, it really doesn't parse for hipster-hate, because by and large uber-hipsters were never nerds to begin with. Smart sure, maybe, but they always had lots of friends and dated good-looking girls -- and if they weren't on the football team, it was more likely because they were on the tennis team or running cross-country.
posted by MattD at 7:57 AM on November 23, 2010

It all depends on what you think makes you a nerd.

For some it is being into buffy.

For some it is living in your parents basement, playing wow 13 hours a day and being afraid to speak to any other living human being and fuck buffy because now all the cool people are into buffy.

I don't consider any of the hipsters I've ever met to be nerds, no matter how much they like buffy, just because I work with programmers.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:09 AM on November 23, 2010

The real hipsters, the ones who were hating hipsters way ahead of anybody else, have moved on to new and unfathomable depths of irony.

What? They joined the Tea Party?
posted by philip-random at 8:25 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I quite liked the voiceover guy's casual 70s-style delivery (even though his actual voice is too high to get the effect *just right*). How many trailers for crime films from that era had that sort of thing? Nice touch.

Yeah, there was a certain lovable earnestness in the way the awful truth about the depths of human waste, turmoil and depravity was doled out back in those heady days.
posted by philip-random at 8:35 AM on November 23, 2010

1) If you think you are, or want to be, a hipster, you aren't.
2) If you think you aren't, or want to not be, a hipster, you are"

Oh my God, that means I'm a hipster! Except wait, since I think I am a hipster, I'm not. Except now I am. And not. Arrrgh!
posted by happyroach at 8:41 AM on November 23, 2010

Who cuts the hair of the hipster barber who only cuts the hair of hipsters that don't cut their own hipster hair?
posted by kmz at 8:45 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

His mom.
posted by breath at 9:02 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Man, I was into hipster bashing before it was trendy! It's all too mainstream nowadays. I'll go on to find some other subculture to snub my nose at before the rest of you leeches catch on.
posted by I-baLL at 9:02 AM on November 23, 2010

I came in here ready to complain about hipster hate and how boring it is and how every "x crossed with/meets hipsters" thing is super lazy and not funny.

But then I watched the video and that was pretty good. "Your scene is dead." Awesome.
posted by neuromodulator at 9:02 AM on November 23, 2010

So, since I think of myself as a hipster, or at least hipster-ish, does that mean I'm not one? But I wear skinny jeans, shop at Urban Outfitters and listen to GTAIV's Radio Broker! I even used to live in Brooklyn.

Occasionally I like to make fun of hipsters (with affection). Excessive hipster hate is tedious... and sooo last year.
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 9:06 AM on November 23, 2010

Robocop Is Bleeding nails it, I think. At least, that description strikes a chord with me and finally puts a shape to the amorphous feelings of intense irritation and sadness I get whenever I encounter hipsters.

I guess it's territorial, in a way. Hipsters sport the signifiers of various outgroups with little knowledge of or emotional identification with those groups. Meanwhile, people in those groups feel that their outsider status confers upon them certain advantages, rewards, if you will, in compensation for being debarred from the mainstream. It makes me sad in my heart if I go up to someone and say, 'Hey, I just wanted to say your Fygar cross-stitch bag is awesome,' and they say, 'What's a "fire-guard"?'

And I realise this is kind of my problem, not theirs. In my skewed mind, the outer accoutrements of nerdiness are like gang tats. The worst infraction you can commit is to wear them without having earned them. Encountering hipsters feels like some nerd version of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. I think 'Oh, a ukulele - cool, I play uke,' or 'Hey, nice Pokémon T-shirt, I should ask if they've got a Lugia they want to swap,' then I have to stop, and remind myself that these are Not My People, and if I pull any of that shit I'm just going to get sneered at, or, at best, a blank look. I guess, to me, it's like someone buying a chef's hat and wearing it round town while conspicuously reading recipe books, then when you suggest getting together to do some cooking they frown like that would be the most gauche thing in the whole wide world.
posted by RokkitNite at 9:08 AM on November 23, 2010 [11 favorites]

And I realise this is kind of my problem, not theirs. In my skewed mind, the outer accoutrements of nerdiness are like gang tats. The worst infraction you can commit is to wear them without having earned them. Encountering hipsters feels like some nerd version of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. I think 'Oh, a ukulele - cool, I play uke,' or 'Hey, nice Pokémon T-shirt, I should ask if they've got a Lugia they want to swap,' then I have to stop, and remind myself that these are Not My People, and if I pull any of that shit I'm just going to get sneered at, or, at best, a blank look. I guess, to me, it's like someone buying a chef's hat and wearing it round town while conspicuously reading recipe books, then when you suggest getting together to do some cooking they frown like that would be the most gauche thing in the whole wide world.

How many times has this happened to you in real life? I assure you that many of the people that you could call hipsters are genuinely interested in things and are not just wearing the T-shirt. Maybe if you tried to have a conversation with them you could discover that you have more in common than you think. That's assuming, of course, that the nerd-in-group-maintaining function of obscure interests hasn't totally crowded out the actual interest part of it for you.
posted by nasreddin at 9:17 AM on November 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

I mean, it's kind of sad. First it was socially frowned-upon to be interested in things like '90s adventure games or whatever. Now, when it's not really frowned-upon at all anymore, nerds assume you can't be authentically interested in things unless you also look and act like a nerd. It's the same bullshit in-group policing, except imbued with a much greater degree of ressentiment.
posted by nasreddin at 9:23 AM on November 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

A defense of hipsters, eh? *cracks knuckles* Heeere we go!

People who pay attention to how they dress?

And focus that attention on dressing garishly in an deliberate effort to wallow in common disapproval and feel smugly superior.

Or take an interest in modern music?

Exactly to the point where that music can be treated as a totem for a lifestyle based on phony rebellion, discarding it just as soon as people with sincere interest show up.

Young people who enjoy going out and having fun?

Fun based on precious, cultivated exclusivity and affectation.

Anybody, anywhere, who has a passion for something that the nasally dude doesn't share?

Or just anybody whose passion is for practiced mockery of authentic passion.


Or, perhaps, maybe more likely: people with an active interest in life, experience, and happiness that, for some reason, makes other jealous, stick-in-the-mud types feel out of touch and insecure.

Even more likely: phony people with a superficial, callow, self-aggrandizing interest in commodifying the genuine lives, experiences, and happiness of others, which, for obvious reasons, makes those people contemptuous of having their lives turned into a burlesque.
posted by millions at 9:38 AM on November 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

Yeah, robocop's got at the heart of it, I think. For me, it's the big, ugly 'ironic' glasses that people-who-most-people-would-call-hipsters wear -- seeing those takes me right back to being called 'four-eyes' in third grade. I'm sure they don't intend it, but my subconscious reaction to seeing that is to feel like I'm being mocked.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 9:45 AM on November 23, 2010

people with an active interest in life, experience, and happiness that, for some reason, makes other jealous, stick-in-the-mud types feel out of touch and insecure

... or ...

phony people with a superficial, callow, self-aggrandizing interest in commodifying the genuine lives, experiences, and happiness of others

What Was the Hipster?
posted by mrgrimm at 9:46 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Now, when it's not really frowned-upon at all anymore, nerds assume you can't be authentically interested in things unless you also look and act like a nerd. It's the same bullshit in-group policing, except imbued with a much greater degree of ressentiment.

Well yes, to an extent that's what I was saying. Except that, actually, most hipsters dress as a kind of ersatz pastiche of a nerd, whereas most nerds learn early on to hide their nerdiness or face opprobrium. So most nerds, who have an 'authentic' interest (whatever that means) in things, look very mainstream and 'normal'. That's the sucker-punch, really.

Sure, there's an element of elitism in pointing the finger and crying 'Dilettante!' but I genuinely believe that hipsterism is about superficially appropriating culture with almost zero love. Then again, I am an awful pedant who is never satisfied. I grumbled about the Scott Pilgrim movie because they showed someone playing Zelda on the DS but used sound effects from the SNES version. That, to me, was evidence of a lack of authentic love, when maybe it's just evidence I should lighten the fuck up.
posted by RokkitNite at 9:46 AM on November 23, 2010

A defense of hipsters, eh? *cracks knuckles* Heeere we go!

There's nothing about what you've written here that suggests you've ever met a real-life hipster as opposed to having seen one on TV.
posted by nasreddin at 9:47 AM on November 23, 2010 [5 favorites]

How many times has this happened to you in real life?

While I don't consider any of the students who work for me hipsters, many do have vintage-but-not-vintage movie T shirts of 80s movies. Around the start of the semester this year, a new student employee came in with a Princess Bride t-shirt. "Oh, hey, my wife and I named our son Westley," I told her when I saw it, indicating her shirt. She had no idea who I was talking about. I recall mentioning on Mefi another student, years ago, who said that she was really in to steampunk, but when I asked her about Tim Powers, she didn't know who I was talking about.*

Now in these cases, the peer dynamic was totally different and I could then go on and pontificate about R.O.U.S. or The Anubis Gates and there was little they could do because if I'm paying you 8 bucks an hour I'll decide if your time is better spent shelving books or listening to me rank about kids these days, thankyouverymuch. But out in the world, that would have left the asker hanging, a sort of refused high-five.

I've seen the same recognition rejection occur while traveling. A friend seeing a person wearing a Red Sox hat in a London pub was eager to talk about baseball, but to the wearer, the hat was just an accessory, not the tribal marker my friend thought it was.

* And I freely acknowledge that my "I liked this before you knew what it is, kid!" stance advances me up the hipster leveling chart. I only need a bit more xp until I get a curly mustache, a keep, and the services of a 4th level fighter.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:51 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

1) If you think you are, or want to be, a hipster, you aren't.
2) If you think you aren't, or want to not be, a hipster, you are.

Shrodinger's Hipster?
posted by hellojed at 9:54 AM on November 23, 2010

I don't know, folks, but maybe the video isn't actually hate for hipsters. Seems to me someone saw the trailer for Deathwish and thought, "Hey, those guys look like hipsters, with their mish-mash of retro fashion and accoutrements."
posted by Anephim at 9:59 AM on November 23, 2010

Aside from homophobia and a misguided (imo) faith in "authenticity" and "passion," I think some of the irrational hipster hate also comes from anti-dilettantism, which, although related to authenticity, is probably more tied into class resentment and/or the standard Protestant work ethic (i.e. only rich people have the time or resources to be dilettantes.) See the "underpaid yuppies" comment (which I agree with.)
posted by mrgrimm at 9:59 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Don't worry if people accuse you of hipsterphobia. No one hates hipsters more than hipsters.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 10:05 AM on November 23, 2010

I take it that's the L train?

Seems kinda empty. Empty of hipsters. I assume Bronson's killed them all.
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:09 AM on November 23, 2010

I'm a hipster

*strokes his moustache*
posted by tehloki at 10:16 AM on November 23, 2010

When you came pulling in here, did you notice a sign in front of my house that said "dead hipster storage?"
posted by entropicamericana at 10:19 AM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

I think 'Oh, a ukulele - cool, I play uke,' .. then I have to stop, and remind myself that these are Not My People, and if I pull any of that shit I'm just going to get sneered at, or, at best, a blank look.

Doesn't it take time and practice to learn the ukulele? I would think the person up on stage with one actually just likes playing it.
posted by naju at 10:54 AM on November 23, 2010

I think 'Oh, a ukulele - cool, I play uke,' .. then I have to stop, and remind myself that these are Not My People, and if I pull any of that shit I'm just going to get sneered at, or, at best, a blank look.

Honestly, I know you're presenting yourself as a nerd here, but this is exactly the same "I have insular knowledge of awesome stuff that those losers don't share" that hipsters are often accused of.

And I say this as someone who has played the ukulele for 20 years.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:04 AM on November 23, 2010

Teens and young adults appropriating/mocking stuff from 20 years ago, without knowing what it is, has gone on forever. Mocking the sacred cows of the last generation is normal - the only difference is that now the mockery is mass produced and wearable, and gets mistaken for a signifier of interest or in-group status.
posted by benzenedream at 11:33 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm doing everything I can to hasten The Fall of Civilization just so I can become like Lord Humongous or Aunty Entity in the Mad Max movies and stage Bros VS Hipsters Thunderdome deathcage matches, while I dine on the entrails of the media and bloggers who perpetuate the Hipster & Bro stereotypes.

"Nobody has to die. Just give the PBR back to the old men and walk away."
posted by KingEdRa at 12:31 PM on November 23, 2010

bwg: "Goldblum: OK ... ow, that, that really hurt what you did, to my wrist, when I, came at you with the ... straight razor"

That was Walken, not Goldblum.
posted by Splunge at 12:40 PM on November 23, 2010

And I say this as someone who has played the ukulele for 20 years.

...so, you were doing it before it was cool?
posted by electroboy at 1:01 PM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

The ukelele is just a four-stringed guitar, no?
posted by mrgrimm at 1:07 PM on November 23, 2010

Adapted from What Was the Hipster? A Sociological Investigation, by the editors of n+1, published this month.

After reading the New York piece, I read this and had a brief cynical moment, thinking "Gee, it's like the punchline to a really long joke."

On reflection though, I just think it's appropriate.
posted by no mind at 1:17 PM on November 23, 2010

What Was the Hipster?

tl;dr all of the New York mag piece but from the first couple of pages it seems like a pretty good depiction of what a hipster is and was. I guess I would have been described as one, being that I lived near and was involved with the Wicker Park "scene" in Chicago of the early 2000's and all that that entailed. To me, one of the largest common threads amongst these people was an anti-consumerist one; although, that did mutate over time.

Aside from homophobia and a misguided (imo) faith in "authenticity" and "passion," I think some of the irrational hipster hate also comes from anti-dilettantism, which, although related to authenticity, is probably more tied into class resentment and/or the standard Protestant work ethic (i.e. only rich people have the time or resources to be dilettantes.) See the "underpaid yuppies" comment (which I agree with.)

I think this was definitely true of hipster-hate at one point. Since hipsters made an effort not to be constant consumers (i.e. living in low rent "alternative" spaces, dumpster diving, wearing second hand clothing, drinking cheap alcohol) they did have more free time and disposable income with which to be dillettantish. I think that maybe understanding that lifestyle difference would have to have taken a certain paradigm shift in the minds of the working class. I will say that there do seem to be a lot more hipsters from wealthier backgrounds these days, so it's not that far off of an accusation.

I don't know if this helps the discussion at all as I have never self identified as a hipster and would currently consider myself a nerd (does that mean that I'm not one?).
posted by coolxcool=rad at 1:49 PM on November 23, 2010

oh, and that video is pretty funny at any rate
posted by coolxcool=rad at 1:51 PM on November 23, 2010

So this annoying behavior has been around forever and is normal we should accept it, but the reaction against it is futile and misguided? I've not been around forever, but I've noticed that damn near every decade in the 20th century in America had a fairly heartfelt style, from the flappers, to be-boppers, to greasers, to hippies, to beatniks, to punks, to hip-hoppers etc. Even the poseurs of previous generation had more substance than contemporary hipsters, who seem to think that their garish consumerism is somehow consummate and superior to any culture which bothers to create and enjoy a unique identity.

A Pulp lyric would seem to apply:

Everybody hates a tourist, especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh.

The hell people aren't supposed to notice when pretend-culture rolls its clever eyes at them for enjoying the world without irony.
posted by millions at 1:53 PM on November 23, 2010

I think this was definitely true of hipster-hate at one point. Since hipsters made an effort not to be constant consumers (i.e. living in low rent "alternative" spaces, dumpster diving, wearing second hand clothing, drinking cheap alcohol) they did have more free time and disposable income with which to be dillettantish.

I think that fine line between anti-materialism and conspicuous consumerism is what galls people the most, as in "these hippies think they can buy it."

It's the guy with scruffy beard and the "Riunite" T-shirt he scored at Savers for $1 getting mad at the guy with the scruffy beard and the "ironic" T-shirt he "scored" at Urban Outfitters for $25. Authenticity (however oddly defined).

from the nymag piece:

It has long been noticed that the majority of people who frequent any traditional bohemia are hangers-on. Somewhere, at the center, will be a very small number of hardworking writers, artists, or politicos, from whom the hangers-on draw their feelings of authenticity. Hipsterdom at its darkest, however, is something like bohemia without the revolutionary core. Among hipsters, the skills of hanging-on—trend-spotting, cool-hunting, plus handicraft skills—become the heroic practice. The most active participants sell something—customized brand-name jeans, airbrushed skateboards, the most special whiskey, the most retro sunglasses—and the more passive just buy it.

posted by mrgrimm at 2:20 PM on November 23, 2010

That video was bad, and I have already made my feelings clear regarding the cultural construction called "The Hipster".
posted by Greg Nog at 2:21 PM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Doesn't it take time and practice to learn the ukulele?

Absolutely, but not to adopt one as an affectation, like a fake monocle. And Astro Zombie is right, I think. Some of the fiercest hipster-hate comes from people who often appear, in the manner that they protest, to be almost indistinguishable from that which they decry. And I include myself in that. As I said above, maybe it's less about: 'God, I hate everything these people stand for,' and more: 'Hey, quit cutting in on my turf.'
posted by RokkitNite at 3:09 PM on November 23, 2010

I love hipsters that don't suck and don't love hipsters that do suck.

Really you could replace the word hipsters in that sentence with anything because hipsters are really nothing.

robocop is bleeding:

I normally love your posts, but the one up-thread amounted to I have problems with some hipster-y looking people I see out there and I saw Demetri Martin's show where he tried to stretch his act into a sustained series and came up somewhat short and it made him seem shallow so I think that'll serve as good reinforcement of my views of those shitty hipster people I meet when out and about on the scene.

Let's think about this. In this scenario, you're the OG that has the knowledge and they're the imagined new kid who doesn't know jack shit. That makes you sound like a "bad" hipster.

Also, you've lumped together a group of people based on their outward appearances, and perceived taste, then you've judged them based on media personalities that reflect a similar style or sensibility. This makes you sound like a "bad" hipster.

Then the people who agreed in thread reinforced either that OG status—(I'm assuming) they didn't earn those stripes (or plaids) and do their research, so fuck em!—or a projection of judgement due to insecurity. My thoughts on that matter: those cool kids that were mean to you? They weren't very cool.


Too bad I can't see what all of you are wearing; I'm having difficulty making a sound judgement.


Also, Demetri Martin's ...If I... was much better. Everyone knows that!
posted by defenestration at 3:19 PM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

At the videotape lab a few decades ago, the Bronson film 'Messenger of Death' was logged as: "Mess O' Death".

Bonus Bronson trivia: many years ago he was briefly the highest paid actor in Hollywood, commanding a cool 1 million dollars per project. (source: old National Enquirer).
posted by ovvl at 4:03 PM on November 23, 2010

Who cares if someone wears a shirt of a movie they have never seen? Maybe they just thought the shirt looked cool? That is a perfectly valid reason to wear a t-shirt.
posted by dsa at 5:43 PM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Teens and young adults appropriating/mocking stuff from 20 years ago, without knowing what it is, has gone on forever.

Can't speak for all generations but this is pretty much flat WRONG for mine. I would've been a teen/young adult in the late 1970s, which means my crowd should've been all over the 1950s (Elvis, early rock'n'roll, James Dean etc). This was not the case at all. Punk was big, and so-called New Wave ... but short of the odd rockabilly haircut the only even remotely 1950s retro-shit I was aware of would've been Happy Days on TV, but that was being rammed down our throats, not appropriated and/or mocked.
posted by philip-random at 5:47 PM on November 23, 2010

I don't think it always has to be a specific timeframe that is appropriated, just appropriation of another era in general.

What about the Mod revival in the 70s? That was an appropriation of a style from the 50s-60s.
posted by dsa at 5:57 PM on November 23, 2010

Who cares if someone wears a shirt of a movie they have never seen?


No, no...what's really important is we stop to look at this strawman we've been stuffing over the last 95 comments and feel superior.

Cliques...they bring us together...except that guy.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 6:35 PM on November 23, 2010

I thought this was making fun of people who hate hipsters who hate people who make fun of hipsters.
posted by Football Bat at 6:53 PM on November 23, 2010

RCIB is, in my opinion, dead on. It's interesting that Think Geek is releasing T-shirts that absolutely require the wearer to know what the hell they're getting into... shirt.w00t.com as well. I have a shirt from them with a huge Hells-Angel type biker on a Schwin Sting-Ray bicycle that gets oodles of attention from "my people" and others who remember and love those bikes. It makes me happy that I can shoot the shit with them on retro "muscle-bikes" and modern mini-velos. I can totally see how it would be a downer for them if I bought it for the aesthetics instead of the cultural signifier.

On the other hand, no-one is going to mistake a hipster for a goth (yes, they still exist), a rivet-head, a stoner, a psychobilly (still around, too - see "Billy the Exterminator"), a metalhead, a folk-metalhead, a furry, cosplayer, stormtrooper or pirate (dude, check the renfaire. All the '90s nerd goths? Pirates. Greybeards, indeed!)
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:09 PM on November 23, 2010

But who cares if it's a downer for some group they don't care about? They're free to wear whatever shirt they want if they think it's cool. It doesn't make them shallow or pretentious or unintelligent.
posted by dsa at 10:25 PM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I thought this was making fun of people who hate hipsters who hate people who make fun of hipsters.

man, that's a load of hipster bullshit
posted by philip-random at 10:34 PM on November 23, 2010

Not worried about hipster hate save for fake glasses. You want to look cool and smart, you suffer the myopia and paying £250 to get your lenses thinned down to fit those vintage frames.
posted by mippy at 4:25 AM on November 24, 2010

Who cares if someone wears a shirt of a movie they have never seen? Maybe they just thought the shirt looked cool? That is a perfectly valid reason to wear a t-shirt.

There's no rules to t-shirt wearing, per se, but the usual progression goes, "like something, buy the shirt." The only usual exceptions are promotional t-shirts which come to you for free. Otherwise, you've usually paid a premium to have the design on your shirt.

It's perfectly reasonable to assume that someone with a "Princess Bride" t-shirt likes the movie, and you'd think if someone went the reverse direction ("Hey, this is a cool shirt!"), that they might have watched the movie after the fact.

These aren't the hard-and-fast rules of t-shirt wearing, but the outside observer should hardly be at fault for being a bit agog when someone bucks the pattern that fits 99+% of the time.
posted by explosion at 6:03 AM on November 24, 2010

Also, you've lumped together a group of people based on their outward appearances, and perceived taste, then you've judged them based on media personalities that reflect a similar style or sensibility. This makes you sound like a "bad" hipster.

Oh, I freely admit to my own hipsterish proclivities. I'm currently wearing a Dublin GAA jersey. I've never been to a hurling game, nor have I ever played Irish football. I've seen all of two games in my life, yet I own about a half dozen county jerseys. I just started collecting them while on vacation in Ireland because I thought they looked cool.

Living in Boston, I've had many Irish ex-pats use them as an opportunity to start a conversation. It doesn't take much for me to out myself as someone that's completely clueless about the GAA. I do note a bit of disappointment in their eyes when it comes out that I'm a clueless American, but I'm also happy to talk about the team, explain why I have the shirt, and listen to them talk about the sport or where they grew up. They may not have got the interaction they were hoping for based on my outward experience, but they get a (hopefully positive) interaction.

What I don't do is shut down the attempt at connection. I'm aware that if I wear my Kilkenny jersey, someone might shout "Up the Cats!" at me. I don't ignore it and I don't look down on the person for trying to interact with me as a member of their tribe.

In the Dimitri Martin example I gave, I saw someone who had the markers of what I guess I consider my tribe (awkward nerd) suddenly look down on that same group (comic books = no sex loser). I think it's that sort of implied rejection that makes people react poorly to whatever a hipster is.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:10 AM on November 24, 2010

It's always made me sad that almost nobody gets the reference when I wear my Inigo Montoya nametag shirt to work. Princess Bride should be made a part of the standard educational canon.
posted by kmz at 7:34 AM on November 24, 2010

robocop:

So you've asked someone about a shirt and they've gotten snippy and condescending? That's really happened?

If so, that person isn't a hipster, they're an asshole.

You know how I know? You admittedly do the same thing you're critizing "hipsters" for—creating an image that you don't fully understand—but they're shitty when they do it because of their negative reaction to your casual social interaction/prodding.

Scenario 1: Someone sees you wearing a shirt that represents something they find interesting. They want to start a conversation and ask you about it. You don't know much about that thing, but you respond respectfully and maybe even learn something.

Scenario 2: Someone sees you wearing a shirt that represents something they find interesting. They want to start a conversation and ask you about it. You don't know much about that thing, and you react snarkily and dismiss them.

The difference in those two scenarios has nothing to do with what you're wearing, where you live, who you hang out with, or what you listen to — it has to do with your personality. Specifically, it has to do with you being an asshole.

RE: D Martin:

You're taking his jokes too seriously. More than anything, he wants to make people laugh for money. I'm reminded of David Cross's response to an offended person in the crowd. She said something like that's horrible! and that's not true! Then he responds (paraphrasing):

Let me fill you in on a secret. I don't actually believe what I just said to be true. It's what's referred to as a joke. I'll be doing a lot of them tonight.

But the Martin stuff is really a distraction anyway. He doesn't represent anyone. Most "hipsters" I know didn't like Important Things either.
posted by defenestration at 9:01 AM on November 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

For the Martin stuff, I just found that sudden turning on comics jarring. I agree it's a distraction - I was just trying to use how I felt in that particular situation as an example of how people might feel about real or imagined hipsters. I think the follow up comments by other in this thread shed some more light on that feeling.

I don't feel that I took his jokes too seriously. I did not spend the rest of my evening wailing and gnashing my teeth over a joke he made on a pad of paper. I watched the rest of the series and on the whole enjoyed it.

As for assholes, yeah, I think we can all agree that nobody likes them. I wonder, then, how the "hipster" image got associated with being assholes in many peoples' minds to have them react in the ways that they react in these threads?

For example, that Superturducken thread way above. Someone called the people in the linked video hipsters, but I really didn't see it. I saw a bunch of people who enjoyed putting together gastronomic travesties doing so. While I might shake my fist for them being young enough that they could actually eat something like that without being on the pot for the next week, I certainly wouldn't do so for them being inauthentic. But a lot of other people picked up the hipster torch and ran with it.

Why?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 10:31 AM on November 24, 2010

Defenestration, asshole hipsters exist, there are just probably not many of them on metafilter. There really are people who look down on others based on their choice of clothing and music and are obsessed with always being on the cutting edge of everything. There are people who have no identity, adopting motifs and then abandoning them for something else as soon as they achieve trend status. People who seem to live for novelty and appearing countercultural. Let's stop pretending these people don't exist.
posted by tehloki at 10:47 AM on November 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

tehloki:

I('ve) know(n) people like that. They definitely exist. It's just that "hipster-haters" lump people who are stylin' and whatnot in good faith with those jerks, without delving deeper — a snap judgement, really. Since some people who look just like those jerks are, in fact, not jerks, what separates the two is assholishness, not style or obsession with being cutting edge.

Poser would be a better word, because it has nothing to do with a specific aesthetic or shared sensibility, but rather that those attributes are phony, calculated and ephemeral.

robocop: People associate the general hipster aesthetic with "some asshole I met that looked like a hipster" because we naturally want to lump people together and suss out the unstated intentions that we feel must be behind their outward appearance and/or behavior.

Also, it's now a "thing" that that's what "hipsters" are like, and people easily fall into the trap of relating the people they meet to some sort of solid, fixed ideal.
posted by defenestration at 11:17 AM on November 24, 2010

"There are people who have no identity, adopting motifs and then abandoning them for something else as soon as they achieve trend status. People who seem to live for novelty and appearing countercultural. Let's stop pretending these people don't exist."

Well yes, they do exist. The hop trends because to be trendy means you get to go to all the right parties and meet all the right people and get drunk and have sex and have fun.

I don't see why that's a bad thing? Sounds fun to me. Meaningless, shallow fun is kind of awesome.
posted by dsa at 11:36 AM on November 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

There was a good piece in the Awl about this a month back.

It's easy to tell the difference between a hipster and a poseur, because while the former are mainly enjoying, the latter are mainly judging. The poseur is an aesthetic snob without aesthetic discernment; he sneers but has no understanding of standards. So instead of having fun sharing their arcane things together, the poseurs are having zero fun pretending to not like anything. As Nietzsche put it most memorably: The man who despises himself nevertheless esteems himself as one who despises. These two kinds of people really are just worlds apart, even though they may find themselves living in the same neighborhood and going to the same rock show.

The widespread vilification of hipsters has entirely failed to distinguish between the hipster and the poseur. Maybe that is the very reason why people never seem to tire of the constant ragging, even though it's all been done to death; the irresistible "Being a Dickhead's Cool" had millions of YouTube views only a matter of weeks ago. But please note that what is being mocked in every case, from "Dickhead" to "Hipster Olympics," is not really hipsters! It is poseurs. Nobody is ever mocking anyone who is having fun. The mockery is reserved for those scowling, affected types who are in such a hurry to be the first to know the New New Thing before anyone else does, not out of real curiosity or scholarship, but just out of anxiety and a cold, sterile competitiveness, a kind of pushing other people out of the way. It's the ignorance and fakery that are being mocked, not the actual hipster culture: "We're puttin' on this rave, and there's a band in the mosque? And all the proceeds are going to that thing that happened in the Middle East or Africa or whatever?"
posted by naju at 12:22 PM on November 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

I don't see why that's a bad thing?

I'm not trying to make an argument that it's objectively bad, only that it's something I don't see any problem with making fun of. Because it exists.
posted by tehloki at 9:22 AM on November 25, 2010 [1 favorite]