The club is dim and I conspicuously scan the bleak, wall-to-wall assembly of sub-par, generic male filler, seeking something to catch my eye. Sure, there’s the contingent of cute but slack-jawed shoegazers posting up near the rear. But that’s last-resortsville if the going gets too lean. I imagine this must be how my grandfather felt during the Great Depression. Tragically deprived after so many years of plentitude; my personal Black Tuesday being my 30th birthday. I snicker at the group beside me as they bust into a haphazard, off-beat Souljah Boy. I rub my arms to warm the sudden douche-chill when a dude saunters by in a full plaid vintage suit, channeling Buddy Holly above the neck. And then I see him; tall, dark, and handsome. Nice vest, OK hair, it’s on. But as I stretch my neck to get a glimpse of the shoes I notice a gleam by his belt line and become horrifically appraised of a chain wallet. Nevermind.
I never used to find this sort of hyper-critical assessment of others bothersome. In fact, it seemed a perfectly plausible and efficient way to rule out anyone who would otherwise soon reveal themselves to be completely bland. Many of my friends would denigrate my seemingly vapid categorization of things. But in my mind, this was not a shallow form of sifting through stimuli, but a very calculated and accurate way to identify the real deal. In other words, all I wanted was some demonstration of authenticity or originality. And then, some time ago, I was labeled a “hipster,” which I initially dismissed as being preposterous, as I am by no means, “hip.” However, the more I took note of my reliance on irony, and my alienating M.O., I realized I had to do a little soul-searching. Perhaps my definition was in error. So I asked: What exactly is a “hipster”?
Believe it or not, hipsterdom has a history. In fact, some presumably unhip folks have written theses on the characteristics of being “hip.” As far as I can tell, the emergence of hipness dates back to the industrial revolution and the dawn of mass culture. Industrialism led to the creation of factories; which meant objects that had previously been hand-whittled by a skilled tradesman, who might produce one exquisite object in his lifetime, started rolling off factory lines and being labeled as “kitsch.” With the creation of objects en masse came a presupposed, implicit idea that supply was meeting demand. When in actuality, this illusion was created to encourage rabid consumerism. And as the powers that be tried to ram fads down the public’s collective throat, select groups started gagging; and those groups were labeled subversive, aka hip.
For over a hundred years, subculture groups labeled punks, beatniks, or hippies have actively riled against mass commercial culture. These groups can also be defined as movements, meant to preserve authenticity and prove that we are not sheep and will not (!) be pandered to by “the man.” Unfortunately, if you open just one eye today, you see that these movements have been ineffective at squashing mass consumerism. In fact, they have been systematically oiled and integrated into the machine that is mass culture. One need only see “On the Road” on an 11th grade English syllabus, or hear “Hey, ho, let’s go” at Hot Topic to be reminded of how these revolutions have fallen short.
The death and dismemberment of these movements thus spawned what is the modern-day hipster, otherwise known as “that eccentric dude at the farmer’s market.” He drives a used Mercedes fueled by vegetable oil, and any chance he gets, he refuses to buy into the capitalist system. He’s super smart and sometimes interesting, but at times exhausting in his constant railing against the mainstream. He listens to vinyl you haven’t heard (yet) on his vintage phonograph, and watches movies from Yugoslavia—with no subtitles—while flipping through Kant. This guy is no revolutionary. In fact, the only people he preaches to are his bleeding-eared buddies, and his three rescued feral cats. Postmodern hipsters have slowed the movement against the mainstream to sluggish ooze and as such, a new group has taken hold; a group of which I may be a reluctant member. A group that subsists on irony: the Ironic Hipsters.
Ironic hipsters are in some ways, anti-hip. They have formed their identity upon embracing that which is mainstream in a manner of irony. Although the ironic hipster will undoubtedly retain some vestiges of hip-movements-past for street cred, (e.g. a couple of post-punk playlists), he will also embrace Justin Timberlake and shows like, “The O.C.” with outright vigor. The idea is that although an ironic hipster may openly admit to enjoying Starbucks and Jerry Bruckheimer movies, they actually “know” that those things are unhip, as opposed to the rest of the sheep who walk around in a high-fructose syrup-induced trance. Another commonality that ironic hipsters share is that they gravitate toward objects of kitsch and pop-culture from previous decades. However, an arbitrary number of years must pass before certain adopted objects become acceptable. For example, while a Ghostbuster’s T-shirt might be admissible, a chain wallet is not. You see, we are not yet removed enough from the chain wallet to attain a level of irony.
The irony serves a few functions. First off, the attitude serves to distance oneself, as well as shield the ironic hipster from any accountability for his taste. Secondly, the ironic stance attempts to defy categorization—and obviously fails miserably. Ultimately however, the irony preserves your image. A few weeks ago, I went to an Ugly Sweater party. I took relish in combing the thrift shops for the most heinous sweater imaginable. Finally I found a neon-colored relic of a cardigan, complete with shoulder-pads, and embroidered with enormous, wooly Life-Savers. My friend wore an inauspicious beige number; while ugly no doubt, it was not ironically ugly. We went out to pre-game and I received no shortage of bemused looks. I realized that the ironic hipsters thought I was one of them. A girl in an ironic t-shirt drinking a Pabst confided in me, she “knew the Cosby sweater would be back around.” Hence, I was smothered within the second fold of irony—ironic about being ironic. My friend, on the other hand, was completely unnoticed and I commented that people probably didn’t know he was kidding. They probably thought he just wore bad sweaters. Of which he seemed blissfully unaware.
Which brings me to the true essence of being a hipster: It seems to me that the one shared characteristic spanning the length of hipster history is that of awareness. Although different movements sought to achieve different gains, (disassociation through peace, revolt, art or distance), they all felt themselves to be apart from the norm. Set aside from the dead-eyed, enlivened by the secret that “we’re hip to all that mind-control bullshit.” But not the modern Ironic Hipster—he has embraced the norm; in fact, he splashes in gleeful abandonment in the common, dull-eyed mainstream. Does that mean that with the birth of ironic hipsters we have admitted defeat? We know that the world is going to one big pile of homogenized, globalized, euthanized shit, so let’s embrace it while we can? It seems like the attitude is “If you can’t beat them, join ‘em.” But like the homeboys at the Gas ‘n Sip, it’s by choice man, by choice. I don’t want to think of it that way.
Sometimes I watch an indie flick that’s been purported to be “true genius” and all I can see is a derivative amalgamation of all the “groundbreaking” carriages it’s rode in on. So I grudgingly turn on the latest thrill-a-minute summer blockbuster, because at least those movies know they’re garbage. Times like these, when I’m dead-eyed, watching Hitch, I think I’d be better off dead than living in this world of Wonder Bread. Then, I hate that I feel that way. I wish I could just stroll around in the quasi-ugly sweater, and hum Nickelback tunes without awareness. But that would personally signify the true demise of the authentic, wouldn’t it? I’d like to think that although I may not be actively contributing to the creation of the new, my discerning attitude begs for it and when I see it, the world lights up for a little while.
In his 1843 report to Congress, the then-commissioner of the Patent Office, Henry L. Ellsworth, predicted the imminent “arrival of that period when human improvement must end.” No doubt that in 165 years we have seen inventions and feats that have made living a human life unimaginably different. However, why does it seem that as the decades and centuries pass it becomes increasingly difficult to impress the world with new ideas? How come now, almost two centuries later, I feel the same way as Ellsworth? As fashions cycle and retro trends loop in accelerating spins, why do I wonder if there’s anything truly new and fresh to anticipate? Is mocking the recent past with a knowing wink really all I can hope for? There is a huge disparity between inventing the telephone, and improving upon technology that already in some form exists. Once again, it all somehow feels derivative. And while living a life that demands ingenuity but rarely feels like there’s a payoff can be disappointing, it seems virtually unavoidable; as inconceivable as a world of mass culture sans hipsters…as improbable as a cute guy without a chain wallet.
