Post- Hipster or Anti-Hipster: What comes next? (a conversation)
All photos from Vice Magazine
I’ll admit it, I am an avid Facebook user. Some even may call it chronic. This morning I boldly added a pop cultural question to my current status. Basically I was thinking about “Hipsters” and how mainstream the whole idea of anti-mainstream has become. What will be the next big cultural fashion overhaul in the dawning age of Obamaism?
I left it open for debate thinking “ah no one will reply it’s not really that important…” and moved on with my day. A little while later I received a few comments, I wrote back and then the conversation just blew up.
Acknowledged that OPPOSITE and ANTI are not the same. If you are looking for the POST HIPSTER (ha ha this sounds sooo banal, sorry), then I daresay you’d be looking for someone who’s beliefs and vision significantly outweigh their vanity, even to the point of naivetee. Think Che Guevara, Frida Kahlo, Trotsky. Visionaries. Socialists. Lovers marching….
I think Jonathan explained it really well by incorporating my actual question. What happens AFTER the hipster? I mean it seems like the end all and be all of existence no??
behind every trend there is another one lurking. The lurking trend is first seen on street kids or artists and after about 10 years Walmart … Read Moresells it in the 2 dollar bin.
I had my first experiences near Bedford Ave. In Williamsburg, Brooklyn. All these beautiful rich kids would go thrift shopping for avocado cardigans and 80′s band t-shirts. All the boyfriends drove shit brown chevy’s and all their girls wore fake eye glasses. It was all about embracing the feeling you got in school when everyone hated you because your locker smelled like bananas and couldn’t afford new Nike Jordans so you wore the ones from your dad’s 78′ graduation year. I think hipsters are nerds that never got to experience being a true nerd or they were nerds that found other like nerds and they banked on it
while these kinds of tool options are still viewed as “sides”, there will continue to be trends of choice between them.
anti-hipster would avoid the ipod on purpose in favor of something more “out there” , probably visually representing their otherness, to illustrate their clear distinction from … hipsters.
(when we self-identify as “anti-something” we generally try to brand ourselves in opposition to it…)
apres-hipster, if considered to be intelligent and authentic in character, would identify the dichotomy as an economic (marketing) construct and ignore it, choosing their own equipment based on their individual needs and wants. (they may very well have an ipod! or both a mac and a pc; or a little unknown-make laptop filled with open-source software.)
But is it the other way around? More individual less original? Or can you truly be an individualist and not be original? Brook points out that true individualists don’t care if they are being original or trendy they just be (themselves) and take what they want from this world and use it how they need to use it. I think we can look at like people who try and people who don’t. I bet I can find a lot of people who don’t try that are not that original but then you find that one individual who doesn’t care at all about anything and therefore is the ultimate trend setter. so maybe you are right Jonathan maybe we have gone as far as we can go with the whole “I don’t care” routine. Is it now the time for the intellectuals out there? the ones that care about deeper issues. Maybe it is anti-I don’t care.
Incorrect source, offensive, or found a typo? Or do you want to write for Elephant?
i was in montreal this summer and it was like 25 degrees out and all these girls are in leggings and tams!!!! it was july for petes sake!!!i was sweating bullets and they were all bundled to be fashionable it was horrific!!!!sometimes i myself am the ultimate anti hipster i dont give a shit if i still wear flared jeans and skate shoes and belts where they belong!!! some trends are cute but people need to wear them with more caution thats what i hate about NSCAD i waer normal shit and people dont want to talk to me but when i dress up in costume as a joke evryones like have i met you before????? WHAT THE *_$@&*
from Adbuster..
“These hipster zombies… are the idols of the style pages, the darlings of viral marketers and the marks of predatory real-estate agents,” wrote Christian Lorentzen in a Time Out New York article entitled ‘Why the Hipster Must Die.’ “And they must be buried for cool to be reborn.”
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html
http://www.zoobird.com/photo/hipster-killer“>”Hipster killer” spotted in Portland, OR:
Hipsters are just a part of New York (and other cities I know) culture, and I love ‘em, and miss ‘em since moving away. Seriously folks.
Hipsters are just a part of current New York (and other cities I know too) culture. And I love ‘em, and miss ‘em since I moved away. Seriously folks!
Gotta say this. To analyze what’s a hipster and anti-hipster, what’s hip and what’s not…is and has always been disturbing to me. Yes, you take from your environment, otherwise you might take the risk of looking like an outdated clown. Besides, it is the celebration of life to evolve and experiment with new things. However, to strategically think about whether or not you’re hip is like second-guessing your individuality.
On the other hand, I have admittedly always taken the approach to get disgusted with trends. To the point of doing the opposite…or maybe looking conservative just to stand out. Maybe that’s my weakness, I don’t know, but I certainly admire the geniuses of the past who sort of just wore what they wanted. Like Einstein wearing a plaid jacket with striped pants.
In this Boulder community, for example, when I first moved here, you either wore Carhardt clothes, fleece, or really loose linen clothing…very dressed down, but in “style”. I came from the East Coast. I was like, screw that, I’m going to dress nice. It’s ME. I hated the influence of all that around me and how everyone literally bought into what it looks like to live here. I’ll wear skull and crossbone socks with business attire, or just whatever I want to do. I don’t own fashion magazines…and that’s why I would say I’m hip.
So, my definition of hip is to just be yourself.
Mark made a comment about your posted item:
“Hmmm. I’ve never worried about this and you see how cool I am.
”
The original meaning of hip: back in the jazz days, the Beat days, hip meant you’re “hip to something,” as in awake or alive to something. I love that. Hipster implied someone who was very much of the present moment, the modern age, the cutting edge. Codifying what is hip and not hip, as does VICE and American Apparel—and then making money of it—ain’t hip. – Waylon Lewis
well put Waylon
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My ipod does not have all of the things on the menu and it will not connect to the internet… PLEASE HELP!!
Hipsters worship themselves. They make themselves into a God. That is scary. They aren't being individual at all , nor orginial. They just conform to the hipsterdom they worship. That is sad. And then they listen to the worst music, buy the ugliest clothing, and do all this just to appear 'different" so they can all be identified with each other. So sad. They are blindly liberal (another conformity) and they don't have anything to offer the world. Look at all the wonderful non-hipsters that did so much for this world. Patsy Cline, Elvis Presley, Jesus Christ. None of them were hipsters.