Related Fields

 We’ll be dissecting the concept of hipsters in tandem with interdisciplinary perspectives and concepts that compete with subculture today – namely that of “participatory” or “fan” cultures and “new social movements” which are the two most important cousins of subcultures. In doing so, I will be picking one of the interdisciplinary ideas mentioned to deconstruct the notion of hipsters to look at hipsters from an alternate point of view.

To summarize the concepts briefly, social movements may be seen as “groups that act with political solutions toward social problems separately from groups within subcultures, which are identified with cultural issues.” (Williams) The influence of a social movement is immense and may influence state-level decisions as well. Social movements require a collective identity as well as lifestyle politics, both of which are politically intentional. A commonality that one may draw between social movements and hipster subculture is that both feature disenfranchised groups who react with a certain extent of resistance to the dominant “system” – this is salient here as hipster consumption is intentional and goes against the mainstream grain, but is not enough to justify hipster culture as a social movement.

In contrast, the other concept of participatory culture paints a different picture which takes on an informal slant. Participatory cultures are characterized by “social networks of people with relatively low barriers to artistic expression where one finds strong support for creating culture and for sharing those creations with others, and where cultural knowledge is passed informally among members of a social network.” (Williams) In not championing a political slant, the hipster subculture fits in well here with the idea of a participatory culture. Hipster subculture as mentioned in our previous entries consist of an informal approach where the latest trends or cultural markers which denote a hipster’s cultural capital (Bourdieu) are transmitted via social networks. In short, the main intent of hipster culture is style for style’s sake which is hardly political. The main signals through which hipster culture creates meaning are through intentional stylistic features and consumption in the creation of cultural objects – a form of symbolic interactionism and pastiche.

In addition, it is mentioned that “cultural creation is not a requisite for participation, but belief in the value of amateur cultural production is.” (Williams) As such, one can theorize that the barriers to entry to participation in the hipster subculture is low, which is indeed true.  Participation in the hipster subculture requires the adornment and usage of various cultural objects such as the hipster specs, fixie bike, messenger bag or oxford shoes. As long as one possesses the means for purchasing hipster cultural objects, participation is more or less guaranteed. In addition, hipster subcultural participants do not have to create their own meanings or practices, evident in the fact that they mostly follow trends and engage practices and utilize symbolic objects as touched on in our entry about hipster homology. However, ‘amateur cultural production’ is practiced which may refer to the hipster homology in which hipsters innovate on an individual level based on the homology framework given to create their own unique style that expresses their “true self” using varied commodities, or the latest ‘cultural objects’ to achieve the hipster status that they desire. One salient example of this is embodied in the image below.

In this example,  the tee-shirt pokes fun at how hipsters more often than not strive within the recognized framework of musical habit to listen to the most obscure bands possible which makes them the ‘merchants of cool’ in cultivating musical tastes – linking back to ‘amateur culture production.’

In participatory movements, fans experience the same dichotomies as youth in the hipster subculture. The parallels of “consumption versus resistance” or “striving for collective difference from the mainstream while simultaneously struggling for status in a subcultural hierarchy that mimics mainstream culture” are all too familiar, in addition to tensions present.

A lack of credit for members of the participatory cultures for being active, self-reflexive consumers and the heavy investment (emotionally, culturally and economically) into a culture has challenged what the bourgeois have institutionalized as natural and universal standards of good taste, further validated in “cool hunting” by marketers who seek to commoditize trends for profit. Though regularly mocked in popular culture, stylized hipster objects have been commodified by mainstream stores – to a certain extent,  one can surmise that due credit is not given to hipsters though their style has been widely perpetuated.

In evaluating the last characteristic that ties in the Hipster Subculture as a participatory culture, one should note that both hipster subculture and participatory culture carry negative connotations of the “fanatic”, where actors “act irrationally toward the object of their fandom, either as mindless consumers who will buy anything” and also “social misfits who forego the larger social world”.  (Williams) Hipster subculture has more often than not been described as a ‘mindless’ pastiche of ongoing trends where hipsters who consume give little thought to the reappropriated objects that they adopt as part of their style. Also, in a show of rebellion against the mainstream, one is able to identify the hipster on the street, alluded to being the “social misfits” who “forego the larger social world” by intentionally differentiating themselves.

Lastly, I’d like to conclude this blog post with an interesting anecdotes and visual treats that I found online.

According to BubbleEWS, there exists the “hipster blogger” and “fandom blogger” on the popular site blogging Tumblr – there is an interesting dichotomy there with varying tastes but one can surmise that in essence, both hipsters and fandom-ers utilize online blogging tools as a platform to reach out to other subculturalists  which further perpetuates their similarity and pervasiveness.

The Hipster Blogger

“The hipster side of this site generally consists o the people who go to coffee shops and instagram everything they do. They will generally post pictures of flowers, the sky, things that look pretty at the time or of themselves. The hipsters of Tumblr very much loathe the fandom bloggers of tumblr, but I believe it because they don’t really understand us. However, we the fandom bloggers are also to blame for this as we will never fully understand the hipsters. They post things that we as cave trolls generally don’t understand. The bright colors confuse us and we haven’t been outside in a while so we forget what flowers and trees are.”

The Fandom Blogger

“As a fandom blogger I can only really explain to you what my fandom is to the best of my abilities. Now, to start us off you have to chose and anime, tv show, movie or book that you are obsessed with. I don’t mean something that you like or something that intrigued you, I mean something that keeps you awake at night because you can’t stop thinking about the characters, plot points or the actors in these things.

For this example I will use ‘Teen Wolf’ as it is something that I blog about often. Teen Wolf, if you haven’t seen it, is a show about Werewolves…obviously. Now, the main character of Teen Wolf is Scott and he is a potato, his best friend Stiles is played by the wonderful Dylan O’Brien whom most of the fans of Teen Wolf are obsessed with. Now, I will continue this by obsessing about Stiles, because that is what i am obsessed with in Teen Wolf.”

The concluding sentence of this post is a poignant “The hipsters on the other hand, from what I understand, are obsessed with…themselves, or their image. .” which reinforces the nature of hipster subculture as discussed earlier.

And voila, we hence solemnly conclude this post with a touch of satire – a mishmash of hipster and fandom elements of blogging, combined.

(Fandom reference : Better Off Ted)

(Fandom reference : 30 Rock)

(Fandom reference : Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

(Fandom reference : How I Met Your Mother)

References

BubbleEWS. News. 2013. Retrieved 3rd November 2013 (http://www.bubblews.com/news/715392-tumblr-the-fandom-blogger-vs-the-hipster-blogger)

Tumblr. Hipster Fandom. 2013. Retrieved 3rd November 2013. (http://hipsterfandom.tumblr.com)

Williams, Patrick J. 2011. Subculture Theory. Traditions and Concepts. Polity.

Bourdieu, P. 198.  The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York, Greenwood. 241-258.

Hipsters and Authenticity

While attempting the classify the people around us into the category of hipsters, we found ourselves filtering them internally through another category of “indie” before we come to the conclusion on whether one is hipster or not. Categorizing people neatly into the “hipster” category without considering the option of “indie” has become increasing more. The two are highly similar, but with a very palpable, nuanced distinction.

Deconstructing “Hipster” and “Indie”

It is difficult to define the difference between “hipster” and “indie. The two groups share many preferences and activities, and to a great extent, even style.

While both groups are similar in their goals in differentiating themselves from the mainstream, one group successfully achieves social recognition of different and “original”, or simply just “cool”, while the other attracts disdain for “doing things to appear subcultural in hopes of evoking a desired social response” (Williams, 2011). The former describes “indie”, and the latter “hipsters”. While gathering feedback on the perceived difference between “hipster” and “indie”, many have mentioned that the label “hipster” has a negative connotation, while “indie” has a more positive or neutral connotation. To quote one of our friends:

“Hipster is like… trying to be indie”. (Justin, aged 25. Italics author’s own)

Could the difference between “hipster” and “indie” be a matter of authenticity? We have established that hipster style is mostly pastiche – of appropriating aspects of other cultures that they deemed as desirable as part of their practice, we now see the inauthenticity of hipsters in appropriating “hipness” from the more generic and fluid “indie” subculture. To define what is indie, we need to define what is authenticity. Authenticity refers to the “inherent quality of some object, person or process.” As such, “Indie”, an abbreviation of Independent, which represents a myriad of small-budget media (music, magazines etc.) that is created at the meso-level, independent of major institutions. “Indie-ness” celebrates the spirit of making and creating, instead of merely consuming.

The Hipster/Indie subculture can be now easily bought into – the sale of independent publications such as Kinfolk makes the hipster/Indie lifestyle of neat Scandinavian fashion, minimalist design and clean food accessible. The process of experimenting and creating one’s own style is eliminated. This diffusion of the style has lead of a proliferation of “hipsters”, people who practice (or tries to) maintain a lifestyle as presented in the pages in Kinfolk as a form of identity they’d like to adopt, and not consciously making the effort to create a unique self-identity by what they do. In short, “hipsters” copy, “indie” people create.

With reference to Fox’s objectivist model of status hierarchy, we see “indie” at the core of the model, with the greatest concentration of  “social honor” for “successfully expressing a certain lifestyle” rooted in authenticity. Hipsters would then occupy the periphery surrounding the core for attempting to emulate such a lifestyle, but rather unsuccessfully as it does not have authenticity as it’s core.

  Fig 1. Objective model of authenticity in Indie/Hipsters

Back to the dilemma of categorizing real people into “indie” and “hipsters”,we realized that “indie”, much like authenticity, exists as “some sort of ideal, highly valued and sought by individuals and groups as part of the process of becoming. In reality, only a small minority of people can call themselves truly indie and authentic, as our image and the identity we choose to adopt is mostly influenced by other images in the society (Bovane). Instead, we would like to argue that between indie and hipster lays a continuum, where the degree of authenticity would differentiate whether someone is more indie than hipster, or vice versa.

Fig 2. The Indie/Hipster Continuum

Such a continuum has not been fully explored, but is similar examples can be seen in the hipster quiz on inSing.com, that categorizes people with varying degrees of hipster behavior into an informal scale to show how committed they are to the hipster identity.

Fig. 3 Hipster Test on insing.com

“Indie-ness” as capital

Using Bourdieu’s concept of capital, Thornton argues that subcultural capital “confers status on it’s owner in the eyes of the relevant beholder” and “affects the standing of the young”. Thornton terms subcultural capital as “hipness” –  subcultural knowledge that is embodied and objectified, and that what “ultimately defines cultural capital as capital is it’s convertibility into economic capital”. This convertibility, in which economic capital can often be converted into culture knowledge (specifically objectified) explains the ways in which “hipster/indie” culture can be bought into. In an inspiring documentary on Singapore’s leading independent bookstore/publication house BooksActually. the humble beginnings of  the bookstore is contrasted with accounts of young entrepreneurs who depend on “daddy’s bank account” to start their own businesses. In the latter, we see the rich using their economic capital in gaining access into the subculture of young business owners in indie/hipster’s niche (such as cafés). Their subsequent identity as a hipster/indie business owner then becomes embodied, as they are now key players in the indie/hipster scene with cultural knowledge (and even power) on trends.

The convertibility of capital can also be seen from the recent emergence of “indie” music festivals such as Laneway and most recently, Camp Symmetry. At the peak of “hipsterdom”, Laneway, an Australian music festival that features many indie bands held it’s first Singapore tour in 2010. Organizers of the festival was able to capitalize on the burgeoning popularity of indie bands and indie/hipster tastes, hence converting this knowledge of hipster/indie music into economic capital as they were “in the know”.

References:

J. Patrick Williams : Subculture Theory : Traditions and Concepts 2011

Bovone, Laura. 2003. “Clothing: The Authentic Image? The Point of View of Young People.” International Journal of Contemporary Sociology 40(2):205-218

Thornton, Sarah. 2005. “The logic of subcultural capital.” Pp. 184-192 in Ken Gelder (Ed.), The Subcultures Reader. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Hipsters & Labels

 

Without examining the context in the detail, the first few thoughts that come to our mind when we see someone typing away furiously on a heavy vintage typewriter out in a park might be: “dude, attention-seeking much?” and “oh, since he’s wearing hipster specs, looking poor, and being oh so ironic by using a typewriter in a park, he must be the struggling creative hipster type.” The internet agrees, and hence our hipster in context has been inducted into internet meme-dom.

 

In our previous entries, we have explored the ambivalence surrounding the label – wherein in hipsters are more likely to vehemently deny the label than to embrace it as an identity – even when their lifestyle choices corresponds fittingly to the archetype hipster. It’s not difficult to understand why “hipsters” avoid the label. Like Becker’s theory of labels – labels are not created by the members of the deviant group (in our case, subculture) to define themselves in contrast to mainstream society but are instead, created by “moral entrepreneurs” who   “ construct subcultural participants as in need of intervention from outside”.  The greater society labels a group as others from their deviant acts.  From this angle, we analyzed the label of “hipsters” used by hipster-hate blogs and found certain common assumption of what “hipsters” symbolized, and why intervention is needed. First, they have rich parents but take pains to appear poor. Their deliberate act depravation mocks the reality of those struggling economically.  Second, they subvert the dominant discourse of masculinity and femininity by wearing skinny jeans. Third, and most importantly – they are, above-all, “attention seekers”, and hence invite hipster hate…

 

Stuart Hall sees subcultures as “new… developments which are both dramatic and ‘meaningless’ within the consensually validated norms, pose a challenge to the normative world” and “breaches our expectancies” of how the world ought to be. We see the ways in which hipsters offend (or perhaps, just annoy) the general consensus with their supposed attention-seeking acts. Back to dude-with-typewriter-in-a-park, he gave an illuminating personal account of this episode of hipster-hate, of which he reasoned:

 

 

“The reaction, then, had nothing to do with hipsters. It was a hatred of people that need to stand out for standing-out’s sake. That realization was at once positive and negative—people didn’t hate me because I was a hipster, they hated me because I looked like I was nakedly desperate for attention, and had gone about that attention-grabbing by glomming on to marginalized trends.”

 

 

We can thus see hipster’s ways of “attention-seeking” as constant acts that challenges what normal behavior is in the world. The genuine intention behind a hipster’s action is not of importance so long as it “breaches our expectancies”. (Dude-with-typewriter didn’t lug his typewriter out to the park for an overt display of his hipsterness, but was just trying to earn some cash creatively). Drawing on Hebdige’s two forms of incorporation, we see the espousing of the hipster-hate and labeling as a reaction towards the Otherness of hipsters, where “to deal with the threat of the Other,” the other is “transformed into meaningless exotica… a spectacle, a clown” (Hebdige, 1979). Hipster-bashing then becomes entertainment, in the form of never-ending lists and videos of ‘How-to-spot-a-hipster”.

 

Interestingly, ‘threat’ posed by hipsters exists on a very material level, as opposed to just symbolic acts that buffers the general public. While reading two of the most vocal hipster hate blogs (ihatehipsters and DIEHIPSTER), it is apparent that both of the authors habour hipster-hate due to gentrification that has come about from the conglomeration of hipsters in Brooklyn (specifically Williamsburg), hence driving up property prices and “invading” into the local demography. To quote ihatehipsters: “Hipsters are nothing but clones, cheap imitations who have come here and purchased a facimile of a lifestyle which myself and others hold dearly in our memories and of which in todays New York there is simply no way to re-create.” We see this lashing out on hipsters (through new media) as a way in which dominant culture tries to defuse hipsters and their efforts at being different.

Sources:

Hebdige, D. (1980). Subculture: The Meaning of Style (New Accents) . Methuen & Co.

 

 

Resistance – Haji Lane & Hipster Diets

   In today’s blog post, we will be exploring the notion of resistance in hipster culture.  This is important because resistance may be seen as a reaction to the dominant culture. It is also important to remember that there are multiple dimensions of resistance which are constantly being negotiated in the sphere of the subculturalists. Following this, we will proceed to dissect how aspects of the hipster subculture are rooted in the various types of resistance touched on in the “Subculture Theory : Traditions and Concepts” book. To avoid glossing over certain aspects and generalizing, the various aspects of hipster culture will be analyzed and deconstructed individually.

    Hipster style, which we have already discussed previously is one of the most identifiable forms of resistance for the subculture itself and cannot be ignored. On one end of the scale, we may see it as a passive resistance because it is resistance through consumption – be it through objects, clothing or music. This is “symbolic” resistance, framed as “nothing more than appropriations of dominant cultural forms, where subculturalists reassembled mainstream cultural objects with subversive meanings.” It is here that we deviate slightly – as touched on previously, hipster is more ‘pastiche’ (Jameson) than ‘bricolage’ (Levi-Strauss) and involves the adoption of various meanings, not necessarily reappropriation. However, notion of the coagulation of various meanings in ‘reappropriation’ still ties in with ‘pastiche’ because it involves a change in the original meaning of the object – be it a reappropriation or a loss of meaning. On the other end, it may be active in a sense that there is “intentionality” (Patrick) in hipster subculture – there is an intentional choice in the types of consumption chosen which may lead to the production of “a new kind of cultural production” which is hipster culture. The target of resistance of hipster culture is mainstream culture and this concept of the hipster self or consumption  reinforced by other participants as well.

 In the Singaporean context, the creation of hipster spaces in the urban context may be seen as a overt form of resistance. One example would be locale called “Haji Lane”, located in a quiet street a stone’s throw away from bustling Bugis. Haji Lane is known for it’s independent culture and designers – sometimes termed as the ultimate “hipster hangout”. A fine example of bricolage, colonial shophouses along this lanes have been reappropriated to become shop spaces for designers and have been re-decorated with fresh aesthetics to give it a modern vibe.

This behaviour is visible and recognized by both targets and observers of resistance. In a sense, this is an ‘exclusive space’ (Simmel) created by independent culture. One should also note that the creation of this space was intentional – the lane started off with only a few shops a few years back and has attracted a huge increase in tenants after being labelled as the hipster “to-go” hangout. Referencing Simmel, “space may be subdivided for social purposes and framed in boundaries. In contrast to natural boundaries, the social boundary is “not a spatial fact with sociological consequences, but a sociological fact that is formed spatially.” Adopting a covert approach in this context, a yuppie hipster crowd is more often than not perpetually milling about at Haji Lane – identified by their dressing as well as habits. From an insider’s point of view, this is seen as resistant against dominant culture as they are adopting hipster dressing in a hipster space but this may not necessarily be taken in by the target of resistance, dominant culture because Haji Lane is generally known but not a popular hang-out of choice for non-hipsters. Hence, this concept of space may also be seen as covert as well.

Using the concept of hegemony, we see the practice of veganism amongst hipsters as both a passive and active form of resistance against mainstream suppliers of food, such as produce sold in mainstream markets and unhealthy fast food, who are wholly responsible for mainstream diet. Hipster diet consists of organic food and fresh produce directly from farmers. The availability of these ingredients are limited to special sections in up-scale supermarkets and farmer’s markets. Hegemony is defined as “a more subtle form of control in which subordinate groups accept the ideas and values of a dominant group… because they choose to.” (Patrick) We see the greater society subscribing to the hegemony of these dominant food producer as a form of “common sense” as most (non-organic) food produces are far more economical and accessible than the organic ingredients of hipster diets.  Hipster diets becomes “illogical” from society’s point of view due to their high prices, despite the greater health benefits that organic food and vegan diet offers.

A vegan hipster’s diet consists of farmer’s produce and organic food – indicators of their eco-friendly and health sensibilities, which sets them apart from the greater society. The conscious effort in maintaining such expensive diet is both passive and active as it involves a specific consumption pattern and deliberate intent of being healthier and more environmentally conscious than the rest of the society. While this lifestyle choice can remain as largely covert, the conglomeration of vegan hipsters online has created a different kind of space in which veganism can be seen active resistance. Hipsterfood, a popular tumblr site is a valuable example of such resistance. Interestingly, the creators of the tumblr describes the blog as their way “to show people how fulfilling veganism is, a stark contrast from what it’s normally painted as” and that they “ took the name ‘hipsterfood’ from a conversation we heard an asshole having in a bar about ”‘stupid rich vegans”. Such a description is representative of the resistant nature of this avenue and the apparent popularity of the blog (a massive 225,000 followers) shows how relevant hipster veganism as a recognizable hipster behavior. While it can be argued that hipsters might have become vegans first for personal benefit and not purely to actively resist dominant food culture, this alternative diet is emblematic of hipster’s image – of which veganism is symbolic of their hyper (body)self-consciousness of themselves, and make pains to establish themselves as different.

 

References:

J. Patrick Williams : Subculture Theory : Traditions and Concepts 2011
George Simmel : The Sociology of Space. CSISS. Retrieved 26th Sept 2013 (http://csiss.ncgia.ucsb.edu/classics/content/75)

Homology, diffusion and Hipster Styles

Homology may be seen as ‘structural resonances’ between the elements making up a ‘socio-cultural whole’.  (Middleton 1990, p. 9) Today, we’ll be examining the elements that make up the coherent hipster homology as a whole – namely the elements of ideology, objects and practices.

    

At the crux of hipster ideology lies conspicuous consumption (Veblen, 1899), thoughtless ‘pastiche’ and an interesting paradox of hipster identification – the lack of internal self-identification in the cultural group itself, while seen as obvious to outsiders from the group.

Overall, the hipster worldview may be seen to be one that desires an authentic experience in terms of self-identity, style and habit.

The consumption pattern of a hipster may not necessarily reflect the actual needs of a consumer per se, but the intentional consumption of certain goods or practices to achieve a desired image to project a certain ‘status’. One might extrapolate that these patterns of consumption, as well as the ability to continually consume hipster trends are a decidedly middle class phenomena. However, hipsters do seek to establish their own status out of the class system through their consumption as mentioned in the first entry – creating their own status of ‘cool’.

Pastiche (Jameson) also actively defines what hipsters practice as well. Hipsters have re-appropriated objects from other cultures – ‘shopping’ for certain cultural aspects that they deem desirable. The problem lies herein that they do not fully understand the pieces of the culture that they have adopted, adopting them perhaps as a statement or merely an aesthetic, desensitizing a culture and making it meaningless. According to Jameson, “”Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. But it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without any of parody’s ulterior motives, amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter”. This can be seen in the adoption of aesthetics such as the Fixie (one-gear) bike, Vespa scooters, oversized grandpa spectacles and vintage photography without any salient purpose. Supporting this with Haddow’s idea of hipsters as being completely pastiche, he says that “We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves.  We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us  The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.” (Haddow, 2008) In addition to this, there has be a ‘novel’ element to the pastiche where the hipster is the ‘first’ to consume the said practice. Hence, we feel that hipster style is more pastiche than bricolage, as the symbols and object they appropriate are not assigned new meanings.

“Objects” play the most important role in hipster culture as the visibility of the objects itself reaffirms the presence of hipsters. Hipsters demonstrate their cultural capital (Bourdieu) in their style – though markedly ‘different’ from the mainstream on their own terms, hipsters generally adopt a similar style of dress or consumption of objects.

And one wonders, what consumption?

 

Men are more often than not donned in skinny jeans, band tee shirts, plaid shirts in materials such as flannel or denim. There is a variety of choice in shoes for males from a plethora of styles and can be narrowed down to slip-on Vans, plain Converse sneakers, Keds, Clarks, leather loafers, Toms slip-ons, “Jesus” sandals or Doc Martens.  One of the most defining style items for a hipster male is the hipster spectacles, which we will discuss in greater detail later on in this entry.

Women’s dress is more loosely defined and more difficult to identify – generally ‘unconventional’ pieces are coveted. Hipster taste in shoes may be slightly androgynous to a large extent, with women wearing shoes that have masculine features. Hipster females also embrace either a slightly bohemian or edgy look to accompany their quirky wardrobes.

In addition to styles of dress, other objects include items such as the Fixie Bike, the Vespa, the Macbook, vintage camera and DSLR. The visibility of the hipster style is legitimized by global platforms such as Lookbook and Pinterest which have categories specifically dedicated for ‘hipsters’.

Last but not least, hipster practices include habits such as photography which was touched on earlier, refined tastes in indie music, cafe-hopping and the famed hipster everyday consumption – Starbucks.

Tying all three aspects together, we can spot a coherent narrative in that the objects and practices of hipster culture are rooted in it’s ideology of conspicuous consumption. There is a consistent intent throughout, which makes for a continuous production of hipster culture which is adopted by hipsters all around the world. Though not self-identified, the group is strongly identifiable and share a almost homogenous appearance and worldview globally. We would attribute this to the rise of social-media sharing as well as global platforms which provide a ‘space’ for the hipster voice on the internet.

While it is difficult to pinpoint a signature hipster look, but we can all agree that the revival of black, thick rimmed glasses (better known as Ben Folds glasses, named after the indie singer Ben Folds) is the most distinctive hipster signifier. Common assumptions behind why hipsters wear these glasses are that glasses used to be “uncool”, and hence by adopting these glasses into their style, hipsters are using the glasses as a kind of counter-culture reaction to mainstream’s perspective on beauty. As Clark mentioned, “style objectifies the group’s self-image”, these glasses also conform to the focal principle of “irony” that defines what hipsterdom is about – to consciously portray an image incongruent to what is desirable to the mainstream. The significance of these glasses has now been appropriated into the media, where self-deprecating characters such as “Hipster Ariel” has brought more attention to hipsters and their ironic ways – wherein which, the glasses (and why hipsters wear them) has now “lose their first integral relation to a specific life-context.”, which is to go against mainstream’s ideal of beauty. Instead, it is now used as a form of self-deprecating humour in relation to the greater society.

Likewise, we can also see the infiltration of such hipster styles into mainstream society. Kurutz, a home reporter for The New York Times recently mused that “there’s almost nothing I can wear that won’t make me look like a hipster…the pervasiveness of hipster culture that virtually every aspect of male fashion and grooming has been colonized.” We see hipsters glasses being marketed as a form of fashion accessory and the original intent of being ironic is being stripped away. Capitalizing on hipster’s support for their products, we can argue that Apple has carefully chosen a “cultural savvy”, not necessarily chic persona who “better at lifestyle like music, pictures, movies” as the embodiment of  their brand identity in the “I’m a PC and I’m a Mac” campaign to appeal to hipsters, or from another perspective, as a reflection of their consumer base, who are mostly to be hipsters, or share similar taste and consumption patterns as hipsters. We see the diffusion of hipster style, which consists of argot (language), demeanor (behaviors) and image(clothing) through the commodification of thick-rimmed glasses for the mass market and hipster consumption pattern of being Apple product users being exploited for greater commercial gains.

With recognizable styles comes visibility and opposition from the mainstream society. Much like how the Ted were banned from youth clubs due to the visibility brought their Edwardian suits, hipsters are picked-out by the mainstream society by the clothes and accessories they adopt. Going back to the antagonism that mainstream society has with hipsters we explored in our first entry, we see a display of “hipster-bashing” in the market as well. In a recent HTC commercial featuring Robert Downey Jr., the brand comes up with various possibilities for what the acronym HTC could represent. One of which stands for “Hipster Troll Carwash”, and it was accompanied with images of  trolls in plaid flannel shirts (a supposed hipster uniform) and glasses washing a car. Such images are representative of the greater society’s disdain for hipsterdom and ways in which hipster style is being ridiculed.

Sources

Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Kinzey, Jake. (2012) The Sacred and The Profane – An Investigation of Hipsters. Zero Books.

Haddow, Douglas. (2008) Hipster : The Dead End of Western Civilization.Retrieved 19th September, 2013. (https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html)

Greif, Mark. (2010) The Hipster in the Mirror. Retrieved 18th September, 2013. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/books/review/Greif-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&)

Mullins, Paul (2013) The Death of Authenticity and the Outsider. Retrieved 16th September, 2013.

(http://paulmullins.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/the-death-of-authenticity-and-the-outsider-consumption-and-hipsters/)

Hipster Sexism & Hipster Racism

Hipster sexism, also known as liberal sexism and ironic sexism as defined by Alissa Quart, is defined as “the objectification of women but in a manner that uses mockery, quotation marks, and paradox”, involving a form of sexism that is satirical and ironic. Perpetrators of this form of self-aware sexism deem it acceptable, given that they are conscious of the inherent sexism and objectification carried out by them. It is rooted in the idea that sexism is an outdated institution in which people do not engage in anymore, making the demonstration of sexism seem satirical and ironic. It may be differentiated from classic sexism but is ultimately ironic as it is still a deviant form of sexism. One might wonder about how hipster sexism functions. With this, I quote a blog from Yale College - ““For the media savvy [generation], irony means that you can look as if you are not seduced by the mass media, while being seduced by [it] ... [and] wearing a knowing smirk,” writes Douglas. In this sense, the pleasure of ‘admiring’ someone like Richardson (who incidentally directed the latest Miley Cyrus video which caused a global uproar two days ago) actually comes from “the feeling that you are reading against the grain.” This can be seen as a form of structural oppression (Marx & Engels) which lead to oppression and a “heterogenous commonality” in which females are continually objectified through the shared perspective of actors in groups. Reflecting on Rose’s reading, this is essentially is “developing a style nobody can deal with” which would essentially “fortify communities of resistance” in the form of females since mainstream hegemonic masculinity does support hipster sexism to a certain extent, which would essentially reduce rejection rates. I will proceed to quote some examples to support my stand with regards to sexism in hipster images and art. In the global context, we have prime examples such as this one from American Apparel - a clothing brand commonly endorsed by hipsters. The images that I have curated for this blog post are a characteristic of hipster-dom photography - consisting of random themes, images which serve no purpose and border on hedonism with also the standard hipster photography style that resembles old school film photography.     *Note that the same shirt is modelled very differently on both genders.   In global media, we also have the works of hipster-style photographer Terry Richardson who has shot the likes of Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and Amy Winehouse, bringing the sexualization in hipster photography to mainstream media.   Robin Thicke’s Video, “Blurred Lines” also stirred up reactions after it was released - mainly because it featured stark naked models. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwT6DZCQi9k

I quote Thicke on why his video was stylized as such - “"We tried to do everything that was taboo ... everything that is completely derogatory towards women. Because all three of us are happily married with children, we were like, 'We're the perfect guys to make fun of this.”

    In the local context, renown photographers with a hipster edge such as Alvelyn Alko also demonstrate this satirical characteristic in their works. Alko is a particularly interesting choice as she belongs to a young breed of Singaporeans who have been pushing the boundaries of photographers and art - in 2012, she was one of the co-organizers for The Chiobu Movement, an open call for art centred on the female.

 

 It is interesting to note that the “male gaze” (Mulvey) is still prevalent - and may even be amplified in the hipster subculture as compared to mainstream culture.  The male gaze refers to the “frequent framing of objects of visual art so that the viewer is situated in a 'masculine' position of appreciation." The hipster subculture does this more so than the mainstream culture in a blatant, in-your-face style. Overall, sexism against females more often than not characterizes the arena of hipster images and art.

Similarly, a blurred line is being drawn for the observable practice of “hipster racism”, wherein which irony and satire are used to masked racism. Central to the understanding of a hipster is the ideology of irony, of which hipsters actively employ and perform through their actions, dressing and in their opinions. “Hipster Irony” is performed when one acts intentionally in ways incongruent to their self-image. Hipster racism happens when one intentionally adopts and trivializes aspects of a race different from her/his own in the name of harmless fun, or to If American Apparel is guilty of nefarious hipster sexism, then it’s counterpart in hipster fashion is equally guilty in hipster racism. By adding “Navajo” to the name of the items, Urban Outfitters has trivialized one of the biggest Native American tribes and has reduced the entire culture into a vague reference of aboriginal exoticness just so make their products more appealing. Similarly, when Gidley describes how “urban culture” is used as a euphemism black culture to increase it’s appeal to the wider non-black audience. The word euphemism implies the underlying hegemonic discourse surround race – particularly between the black immigrant population and the white indigenous British (Gidley 2007:146). While Gidley argues that this intermeshing of cultures can lead to a eventually leads to a “two-tone sensibility” that “stands in opposition from common-sense racism”, (Gridley 2007:143), hipster racism exists as an overt form of racism where there is no interaction between two cultures, only appropriation from the dominant race. This casual appropriation of significant cultural motif is deemed as racist as it reduces complex culture to suit the convenience for the mass market and inevitably “erases the [black] identity” of the culture and allows “non-[black] people to enter it’s identity casually”. (Gidley 2007:146) While it is understood that hipsters actively seek to present themselves in ways different from mainstream society, the self-consciousness need to be different seems does not penetrate through existing categories of thought. Through hipster sexism and racism - and examining how the most recognizable hipster brands are the most unapologetic reproducer of hegemonic images of power between gender and race, it makes us feel that hipsters are no different from the rest of the society, and that their attempts to be different can be futile and superficial if one only actively tries to establish one's uniqueness in aesthetics and not in thought.

Why Hipsters?

“I think what people hate is the vanity,” agrees Stuart Berman, music reviewer for Pitchfork and the author of This Book Is Broken, a volume about the Toronto indie-rock band (and hipster deities) Broken Social Scene. “It’s not so much that hipsters are on the lookout for new things and new experiences [that’s irksome],” he says. “It’s the fact that they’re celebrating themselves for doing so.”

 

 

The proliferation of hipster-hate sites and “are-you-a-hipster” tests on the internet signals a kind of obsession that the mainstream society seem to have on hipsters – targeting hipsters for their supposed snobbish attitudes and pretentious “taste” (in accordance to Bourdieu’s definition of taste as related to class positions). The ways in which “hipsters” is used as a disparaging term is baffling as, for someone who is guilty of relying on Pitchfork for music and reading obscure magazines on a regular basis – it’s confusing why being “hipster”, or having interests that aligns with “hipster” culture, can feel like a bad thing. What markers do hipsters use to identify themselves,  and how do mainstream society identify one, or even a group, when the first rule of all rules of being a hipster is that one do not admit to being a hipster?

We were enamoured with exploring the subculture hipsters particularly because it is more often than not seen an anti-thesis of mainstream culture. One may argue that the subculture of the hipster is gaining common ground to the extent of being considered ‘mainstream’’ because it is widely practiced, but one must note that ultimately, a dichotomous relationship exists between the mainstream and the hipsters. Hipsters may be seen as rebels under Merton’s Social Strain Theory as they do display a tendency to outwardly reject cultural goals as well as institutionalized means, displayed in their debonair pursuits of an ideal lifestyle which seemingly demonstrates no purpose or goals whatsoever other than the revel in their chosen activities – almost decadent ala. narcissistic ancient Greek hedonism.

 

Conventionally seen as a white, middle-class culture typical of liberal-arts graduates, hipsters relies on cultural capital as a source of their perceived superiority over mainstream society. Here, cultural capital becomes a new form of wealth which allows hipsters to renegotiate their positions in society. Cohen defines the emergence of  subculture as “groups that are somehow limited in their dominant cultural resources [that] try to collectively solve their problems by alternative methods,” (Williams 2011:7) “hipster” culture can be seen as ways in which hipsters subverts society’s notions of success – of excessive material wealth and expensive lifestyle that are relatively inaccessible with liberal arts degrees with a new kind of wealth – of good taste, greater sense of social awareness and sensitivities (strict vegan lifestyle & progressive world views) than the average and innovating new markers of cool that are to be later  adapted by mainstream society.

One example of this would be Instagram – a photo-sharing app that first appeared on Apple’s app sharing platform. (And of course, it has to be a Mac. Hipsters love Steve Jobs.) Hipsters essentially reject society’s notions of ‘cool’, reinventing their own standards with regards to taste, life goals and activities and create their own standards.

 

 

We could also observe that ‘hipster’ is a reaction to the capitalist condition as well – portraying some similarities to the hippie subculture of the 60s. Though still rooted in consumption, hipsters often support consumption of goods, services or habits that are not categorized as mass-market. Pride is often found in indulging in consumption that is highly unique to an individual – from obscure tee shirts at flea markets to supporting unknown underground bands. Herein is the attempt to destroy the monopoly of the consumption of popular goods and to break the hegemony of mass-market consumption – a rebellion of conforming to society’s expectations of desired goods.

Another reason why studying hipsters is intruiging to us is clearly demonstrated in the videos here.  Youtuber iamOTHER takes to the streets in this video, conducting a survey of whether passers by were hipsters or not.

Video – Are you a Hipster

The video shows that the notion of a hipster is simply a grey area – there is no clear definition which provides for more interpretation on our part. Localising it in our country’s context, the term ‘hipster’ is used commonly nowadays without further investigation. Chua Beng Huat previously investigated the notion of ‘Ah Bengs’ in their heyday in the local context since they embodied a common identity and we should continue to do so with hipsters as well since they are a highly visible group which can be easily identified, through internal self-identification as well as by other members of society who classify them as a group.

 

Not convinced? Let’s hear the “Shit that Hipsters Say”.

 

Video – Shit Hipsters Says

Clearly, there are numerous identifiers which make up the hipster. We hope to discuss this further in the course of this blog and explore in-depth issues with regards to hipsters as well.

 

 

We would also like to investigate the sources of the growing antagonism between mainstream society and hipsters, the implications of various class factors that impedes/encourage an individual in participating in “hipster” culture and how locality – also known as “sites of resistance” allows hipsterism to be expressed. We would also like to investigate the importance of commodities and cultural goods and their role in hipsterism – which objects are distinctively hipster (a thousand dollar bicycle maybe?) and the meanings assigned to these objects.