Gothamist: Deconstructing Hipsters

joebrilliant

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:31:19 -0500

Wow it only took 2 comments to get to unprompted SF hating. Impressive.

spiritross

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:55:50 -0500

Flappers Greasers Beats Hippies Slackers and now Hipsters They are all the same they arent "the end of civilization!" they are just the counter culture that ends up becoming mainstream this guy needs a reality check everything is the same over time just the details are different Deconstructionism is the philosophy for the scared and confused It serves no purpose and makes people miss the big picture of the human narrative

salad

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:57:09 -0500

i want to step on that guys face.

plk779

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:01:58 -0500

must... label... self!!

rdsizzle

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:58:07 -0500

Wow – what a bunch of losers on this board dissecting the characteristics of a hipster…The beauty of a metropolitan/cosmopolitan areas is that you have a mélange of many cultures, styles and financial status…Yes many of the wannabes and “hipsters” end up in large cities but ultimately contributes in part, to what the city is…If all of you haters don’t like it then you should move to Boise, Idahoe; where I’m pretty sure that there is no “hipsters” there. Live and let live… BTW – I don’t consider myself a “hipster”, whatever the fuck that is…

cncrocket

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:25:54 -0500

theres no such thing as a hipster.

BrooklynBredTom

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:29:28 -0500

Hipsters, to me, are a failed hippies. Hippies were failed Beats. Beats were failed Bohemians. Bohemians were the only revolution, but the Beats did a good job themselves. The Hippies still had an ounce of genuine thought. But hipsters are the result of a consumer culture exploiting the previous efforts (Bohemians, Beats, Hippies), they're just oblivious to this.

NannyState

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:08:55 -0500

#23, you get a pass, but here's hoping you score that luxe condo anyway.

bornbrednewyorker

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:35:44 -0500

Hipsters are just nerds playing dress up.

Amanda Harlech

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:28:04 -0500

"They are listening to fall out boy and miley cyrus" Those are the hicks! not the hipsters...get your hipster parameters right!

Amanda Harlech

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:25:33 -0500

really? Like totally self absorved individualism based on anything that might seem cool has not been the staple of consumerism? Don't blame hipsters,look at the system first, man!

TSOL

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:54:30 -0500

Wiggers are the real sign of the decline of Western Civ.

hungryghoast

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:34:26 -0500

i think i got a bit dizzy reading all these comments.... my guess: things will continue to be ridiculous and we will continue to have these frivolous debates about hipsters and yuppies until things are so bad that they have to change drastically and these distinctions of cool and uncool and hip and blah blah blah don't really matter anymore. Until then, we'll all keep blathering on... (i don't exclude myself, don't worry).

LetsGetUgly

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:17:36 -0500

But is it the "hipsters" (such an overused word that it really doesn't even mean anything anymore) who have Disneyfied the whole city? Have they put Will Smith in all their films? Made us listen to American Idol singers on our radio? Hell, have they ruined radio for that matter? Have they given us the Jonas Brothers, and Miley Cirus? I didn't think so. Say what you will about the skinny jean set, but they are not the ones destroying our culture... and certainly not Western Civilization. Superficial articles like this are certainly not helping the cause.

WorksInDUMBO

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:52:28 -0500

Here's the confounding thing about hipsters: No one will EVER admit to being one, and every one you ask will claim to hate them. Ever met anyone who LIKES hipsters? Ever met anyone who would proudly say, "Yes! I am a hipster"? Even the hippies would say they were hippies and be proud of it. So maybe you are a hipster and you don't even know it. Maybe I'm a hipster, and blissfully unaware! Maybe we are ALL HIPSTERS and it's true, it's the END OF THE FUCKING WORLD!

chris

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:37:36 -0500

I still can't believe someone wrote rise of the idiots in earnest. Doesn't adbusters have better things to do than level accusations at their target market? I seem to recall we're being shafted by large corporations and stuff more than usual... I'm glad pointing fingers to sell issues has taken precedence over a meaningful agenda.

starrygordon

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:53:00 -0500

"The ones that do their grocery shopping pulling a Radio Flyer cart" I did that during one of the gas droughts in the late '70s when I was stuck out in the 'burbs. I had no idea it was hip. There was a gas station between me and the stupidmarket, and drivers gazed astounded at me while they waited on line, their fat, slack jaws hanging open. They're probably still there. So where's my glitzy condo in Williamsburg?

shamanovsky

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:36:51 -0500

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTmGMkZ0vbo&fmt=18 here you go :)

NannyState

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:46:06 -0500

The ones that do their grocery shopping pulling a Radio Flyer cart; the ones with exaggerated facial coifs that pretend they're in a band; the ones who compare ringtones at parties. Need I go further? They exist in a bubble created by parental wealth and a society that no longer openly challenges these douchebags at every turn. We created these monsters by not testing them to the limit and forcing them to stare long and hard at their own abyss. And with the economy in shreds, they won't all become yuppies, many will be like their counterparts in Italy that live with Mama until they marry at forty.

Shinobi Shaw

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:54:07 -0500

But this is not about whether Hipsters are 'good' or 'bad.' Rather it's about how HIpsters are now the new square/lemming/whatever you want to call it and how they are no longer hip and original. How can you be hip and original when everybody is a copy of a copy? I go to some of the 'hippest' neighborhoods in the city and everybody overall seems to have this self-delusional POV (and the irony!!) of SEEMING to be hip when they actually are not (how can you when everybody and their mother is 'hip'). Hipster is mainstream, to be a Hipster is now to be Mainstream. Even your average little worker bees want to get on the action! It has now transformed into this plastic and superficial lifestyle. I know a few groups out there that would be considered 'edgy' and yet they don't consider themselves hip in the slightest (as it's not about that at all). Rather they probably be called 'crazies' 'anarchists' or 'constitutionalists.'

JacqueMehoff

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:50:38 -0500

the guy from Middle Village who chopped up the guys in a bad drug deal, Not a Hipster. Wall streeters could be weekend hipsters until they get spawn and then it's entitled tough talking yunnies.

REALITY CHECK

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:29:07 -0500

Hipsters are harmless. Some are even nice people. Wall Street yuppies are far more destructive, as they use their obscene (and arguably undeserved) capital to plow over neighborhoods and destroy culture. And as we're now discovering on the news, they even screwed the entirety of America with their unscrupulous means of making that very same money they use to build luxury condos on top of former art spaces. So what's this about hipsters again?

flexxy

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:57:10 -0500

babyhitler you are 100% right Roquentin, you are a hipster. jenspellnogood check out Williamsburg NOW, and Ft. Greene & Clinton Hill too

starrygordon

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:55:10 -0500

Hip has been dead for the better part of a generation. Hip meant knowing stuff the squares didn't know. But today, everything is everywhere all the time, and everyone knows about it, at least if you have DSL. No one is square; therefore, no one is hip. Today's hipsters, insofar as they are "hip", are actually square, because they are unaware that everyone and everything is hip. If you doubt this go look at the condo ads. They tell you you can have a hip, boho lifestyle even though you're filthy rich and own a glossy condo. One thing -- the hipster cannot die because he is already a zombie. I suggest sending them to Staten Island -- or Belmar, New Jersey.

talos

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:30:06 -0500

why does this keep getting posted on various sites? it's a poorly-conceived and badly written apocalyptic puff piece. does anybody actually take this shit seriously?

Jen S

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:12:54 -0500

VOM!

Kevin Bracken

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 20:33:51 -0500

In parts of Brooklyn, hipster is not a subculture, it is popular culture. Isn't that better than popular culture everywhere else?

JacqueMehoff

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 20:14:22 -0500

Hipsters turn to yuppies then yunnies but never Guidos.

Shinobi Shaw

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:56:14 -0500

Hilarious Yakitori! And ever so true! The sad thing is, it's going to be worse! A time will come when the Hipsters today will be middle age yuppies and the newer generations becoming hipsters themselves. Unless there is some sort of revolution, I don't see this trend dying out anytime soon (quite the opposite!).

jenspellnogood

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:39:24 -0500

kudos yakatori! hipsters eventually grow into yuppies once they start spawning, they will be the whining entitled residents of all those condos they abhor now. need proof; visit the UWS.

the_lexiphane

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:37:25 -0500

Hiptsters=Hippies, a small sub-segment of the social scene that gathers outsized attention for their efforts that will persist for decades and eventually bleed into the historical context of an entire generation, despite their absolute irrelevance in the greater scheme of things.

Splicer

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:58:55 -0500

Hipsters and those who notice them live in their own sad worlds. The rest of us who work for a living in jobs where you actually work have little time to worry about the comings and goings of idiotic trends and the shallow quasi-humans that embody them.

bagelman

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:24:50 -0500

it must be pretty expensive printing high resolution on all that glossy paper, and without taking ad money. alas, there's a brilliant marketing solution: write about hipsters!

Roquentin

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:09:43 -0500

Isn't this just a tad too melodramatic?

babyhitler

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:04:59 -0500

As much as I hate the Hipster I'm dreading their replacement. Can you imagine the kids that have been brought up watching Barney, Teletubbies, Pokemon in the 90's and have now graduated to watching the hills, laguna beach and my sweet sixteen and all that reality crap? They are listening to fall out boy and miley cyrus. They have another 5 years before they get to prominence and it's really gonna be bad.

xenop

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:39:44 -0500

Mad props Yakitori. Funny and biting.

r_friend

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:19:22 -0500

I'm not defending hipsters or anything, but the ones in San Francisco are considerably more annoying. And abundant.

yakatori

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 16:59:57 -0500

Jen, nothing like reading your own obituary, huh?