Hipsters: Sadly, There Are More Questions Than Answers - by The Frenchman
NOTE: Article #2 from the Frenchman, verbalizing what we're all thinking.
Why won't the hipster go away? When will the tight-jean wearing, obnoxiously sanctimonious, faux-vintage, dirty-looking masses realize that Converse All-Stars no longer make you seem unique when 90% of your brethren at the TV on the Radio concert are wearing them? Does it really add to one's mystique and appeal if every day they dress like a yard sale? And seriously, are you really a praxis-governed disciple of Hegel because you read a Wikipedia entry on the master-slave dialectic one night when you were stoned and out of clove cigarettes?
Importantly, when will the music industry stop playing into and perpetuating this shamelessly scene-for-the-sake-of-being-a-scene? How many more talentless two-piece acts featuring a black Jew on electric neon green sitar and an impossibly pale chick wearing black-rimmed glasses and a tutu on air-powered synth do we really need? Who put the idea in these peoples' heads that irreverence in all forms - no matter how disjointed and cheap - is cool and enthralling behavior?
Granted, there have been popular "scenes" throughout the past century whose existence often baffled many an inquisitive eye. From the beats to the hippies to the gen-xers, every group is guilty to some amount of narcissism and unfounded aloofness. What sets the hipster "movement" apart, however, is its utter lack of explainable origin, other than for the sake of attracting attention and providing the otherwise-outcast with an identifiable base. If the beats and hippies grew out of the rejection of the post-WWII culture of perceived American idealism, then what are the hipsters a reaction to? Is it a kind of ironic rejection of the prosperity and excessive lifestyles of the 90s, or perhaps simply the frenetic and incoherent maturation of the "ADD generation?" Regardless of how I look at it, the causal explanation for the emergence of hipsterism is about as logical and explicable to me as the emergence of a giant pink bunny as the embodiment of a middle-age Jewish prophet's coming back from the dead; their existence seems to be nothing more than a perpetual bluff waiting to be called.
For lack of any clear explanation of this ironically packaged front of fake authenticity, I'm just going to have to resort to the great American pastime of blaming the media. Any new theories are more than welcome.
Typical hipster exchange:
"Does this orange fedora make me look post-modern enough for our trip to American Apparel?"
"What? Sorry, couldn't hear you. This new Broken Social Scene album is so affirming my actualization, man!"
The Frenchman Archive: http://shatterfaced.com/categories/Frenchman.aspx
Why won't the hipster go away? When will the tight-jean wearing, obnoxiously sanctimonious, faux-vintage, dirty-looking masses realize that Converse All-Stars no longer make you seem unique when 90% of your brethren at the TV on the Radio concert are wearing them? Does it really add to one's mystique and appeal if every day they dress like a yard sale? And seriously, are you really a praxis-governed disciple of Hegel because you read a Wikipedia entry on the master-slave dialectic one night when you were stoned and out of clove cigarettes?
Importantly, when will the music industry stop playing into and perpetuating this shamelessly scene-for-the-sake-of-being-a-scene? How many more talentless two-piece acts featuring a black Jew on electric neon green sitar and an impossibly pale chick wearing black-rimmed glasses and a tutu on air-powered synth do we really need? Who put the idea in these peoples' heads that irreverence in all forms - no matter how disjointed and cheap - is cool and enthralling behavior?
Granted, there have been popular "scenes" throughout the past century whose existence often baffled many an inquisitive eye. From the beats to the hippies to the gen-xers, every group is guilty to some amount of narcissism and unfounded aloofness. What sets the hipster "movement" apart, however, is its utter lack of explainable origin, other than for the sake of attracting attention and providing the otherwise-outcast with an identifiable base. If the beats and hippies grew out of the rejection of the post-WWII culture of perceived American idealism, then what are the hipsters a reaction to? Is it a kind of ironic rejection of the prosperity and excessive lifestyles of the 90s, or perhaps simply the frenetic and incoherent maturation of the "ADD generation?" Regardless of how I look at it, the causal explanation for the emergence of hipsterism is about as logical and explicable to me as the emergence of a giant pink bunny as the embodiment of a middle-age Jewish prophet's coming back from the dead; their existence seems to be nothing more than a perpetual bluff waiting to be called.
For lack of any clear explanation of this ironically packaged front of fake authenticity, I'm just going to have to resort to the great American pastime of blaming the media. Any new theories are more than welcome.
Typical hipster exchange:
"Does this orange fedora make me look post-modern enough for our trip to American Apparel?"
"What? Sorry, couldn't hear you. This new Broken Social Scene album is so affirming my actualization, man!"
The Frenchman Archive: http://shatterfaced.com/categories/Frenchman.aspx
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