Am I a Hipster? What is a Hipster anyway?
Nobody likes the “you are a bloody hipster” tag.
But, if you find yourself getting mad when people share or post articles, memes or videos about the most played-out trends on your Facebook timeline… just because people might think you still regard things like the Harlem Shake as cool…
Or, if you still find yourself resisting an overwhelming temptation run for the hills when people ask you if you’ve heard a certain cool new song?
I’m afraid, you might be a hipster.
But what exactly does “hipster” mean in layman’s terms?
Hatred of Coldplay, Katy Perry, and any other ‘not so cool music’ signed by a major record in the last 40 years? Well, maybe.
But, if you thought a hipster is your all good-looking, talented, stylish, lazy, party-addled, snobbish multi-sexual artists… think again.
The challenge is, there still seems to be some ambiguity when it comes to defining who a real hipster is. While a lot of people often use the word like it’s something so recognizable, there is a stark difference between the way we see hipsters today and the way hipsters have always been known.
In fact, it looks like there has been a sort of role reversal.
The term hipster depicts a notion of a “non-conformist”. History tells us that the original hipsters deviated from the mainstream, and their personas today are not rooted at their appearance but much in their mentality.
Qualities that make today’s hipster
An accurate description of a hipster today cannot simply be based on a person’s fashion choices or other exterior characteristics. Hipsterdom seems to emerge out of the external desire to be different for no other reason than just to be different.
Apart from their allure to be anti-conventional, there are some other qualities that many people associate with this disturbingly surreal social phenomena.
The contemporary hipster
To be classified as hipster with today’s term is to be tied to trend. More specifically, a hipster’s likes seem to be bordering on whether a certain item is within the mainstream or not.
If it is in the mainstream, it’s simply not cool to wear, read or ride. It’s all about exclusivity. But given how the “hipster” culture is projected in everyday life, one can only conclude that hipsterism is becoming, ironically, the new the mainstream.
So, if you are a supporter of progressive politics, live in an urban, gentrifying area, you are vegan that prefers lean meat, and have ‘weird’ sense of art( well, only a hipster would regard graffiti as just cool), you make a cool hipster.
But the bottom line is, hipsters of today employ thrift, creative and radical new ways of thinking and coming up with their unique social codes. They are autonomous, anti establishment and progressive. So, anyone who mistakenly refers themselves as hipsters in the modern context might not be a true hipster.
So next time you come across that not so mainstream album, faux vintage furniture and a not-so-bad-supply of BBR, go ahead and enjoy. But, not unless you are speaking of it pejoratively, do not refer to it as hipster because that’s not a hipster code.
Now you know!