"Hipster" as pejorative.

don't remember what it was called, and i might have drunk-posted or image-bombed it. search fails me, but it was something in the neighborhood of 'would you date somebody with opposite music tastes as you?'

Historical note from an old person. In the early to mid 1990s we used the word "hipsters" or "scenesters" in something close to its current use (people who went to indie rock shows a lot and wore vintage clothes or gas station uniforms with someone else's name stitched on.) The word "hipster" was definitely meant to sound a bit jokey and '50s antique (it went with the clothes, if you like.) I don't recall it having a pejorative sense unless you were accusing someone of overdoing it.

i've discussed the hipster scale with quite a few IRL friends. i'm thinking it would be fun to do a book/web project about it structured like Paul Fussell's book on Class, and like that book it would have a quiz that would perform the all important function of telling the reader where he/she falls on the scale.

eephus OTM this term dates back to the early 90s

I don't give a shit if anyone calls me a hipster. to some people I am, to others maybe I'm not - who cares?

well Shakey, obv me & Whiney care!

need to grow some thicker skins then, kids

caring does not necessarily equal emotionally affected. i just think it's interesting from a cultural/sociological standpoint.

I don't like repeating myself but can I just say again:

the only really good use I've found for "hipster" is as a lighthearted inoffensive substitute for the n-word when rapping along with music

― LRN, which helps companies build ethical cultures (bernard snowy), Monday, February 1, 2010 2:39 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's good cuz it doesn't mess up rhyme or meter, plus what kind of grinch wouldn't crack a smile at a line like "phony hipsters are outlined in chalk"???

― LRN, which helps companies build ethical cultures (bernard snowy), Monday, February 1, 2010 2:41 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark

whiney is saying ilxors are basically hipsters -- take the compliment imo.

I got forty hipsters up in here now who kill hipsters' fathers

Is it possible to be a poor hipster? It seems like hipster is synonymous with having more earning power than the lifestyle you are affecting would want to signal, but does so anyway by its very affectation. no checklist needed.

oh god, it's extremely possible to be a poor hipster - like plenty of the lifestyle accessories are chosen because they are cheap or readily available in poor neighborhoods where a lot of hipsters live.

yeah some of my friends are definitely poor hipsters (altho I could be wrong, depending on where u draw the line between 'poor hipster' and 'anarchist/crusty/bike-punk kid' or w/e)

lol why on earth do i have this inane thread bookmarked

uh anarchist/crusty/bike-punk kids are part of the hipster spectrum

kind of depends what u mean by poor

there's a difference between a 'poor' 24 y.o. hipster and an actual poor person

i mean real poor like i don't feel homeless people could be hipsters, no matter how accidentally outre their outfits are.

caring does not necessarily equal emotionally affected. i just think it's interesting from a cultural/sociological standpoint.

― nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn - Bernard (sarahel), Tuesday, August 3, 2010 5:13 PM (11 minutes ago)

i would be flayed for posting this sentiment elsewhere.....

there are homeless hipsters

are they homeless by choice or by circumstances largely beyond their control?

but the corollary is rephrasing history mayne's statement - "there's a difference between a 'homeless' 24 y.o. hipster and a real homeless person"

hipsterhobos.tumblr.com

e.g. dumpster diving for fun vs. dumpster diving for survival

i think that's a bit of an oversimplification - the homeless hipster could also be dumpster diving for survival, but ostensibly because of an earlier choice of that lifestyle

nnnnnn e way, no, there are no poor/homeless/________ hipsters

why arent they allowed to be cool

because they smell like listerine, desperation, and rotting bananas.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7897072/Chinese-tramp-Brother-Sharp-shoots-to-movie-fame.html

"He is a very different person now to how he was before [...] He has not yet passed out of the shadows that accumulated in the years he spent in Ningbo," he added.

"When he returned home in March, however, he found that his father and his wife had been killed in a car accident last year."

personal tragedy and genuine poverty is absolution from hipsterdom?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vbrQrBP0ixY/TAO9DuN3X3I/AAAAAAAAAQk/u_d_Mh1OkYE/s1600/kramerPimp.jpg

whiney & people agreeing w him itt otm. a couple years of painstaking inner turmoil and shame growing up as a hipstrous 16 & 17 y/o concluded in a p enlightening disassociation and feeling of freedom for me, and i feel like wgw's explanation is pretty much the simplest and most true way of putting it. anyone who, like, cares about and makes value judgments based on if they think someone is a hipster can seriously eat a fucking dick. and embracing that you are a culturally aware young person who likes cool shit and is not some working class bub or careerist is really healthy, surely moreso than the dudes making & promoting the views extolled in these youtube videos

I dunno, I feel a certain amount of guilt/circumspection is totally appropriate about being a hipster or more broadly, having disposable income (or the power to get it). Not for the purposes of feeling bad, but maybe pruning away at the sense of entitlement that comes from basically winning the lottery in life.

I won the lottery and all I got was this shitty Arcade Fire album

uh, i don't hipsters = winning the lottery in life as compared to actual rich people

i realize a lot of people think hipsters are exclusively trust fund babies & stuff, but what about someone who works a job that he may or may not care about but isn't, like, life-consuming, and has some disposable income, and spends it on shit?

most hipsters i know have jobs and are not trust fund babies

I sometimes think that reactionary outbursts against hipsters are actually manifestations of "Rent"-induced post-traumatic stress

someone who works a job that he may or may not care about but isn't, like, life-consuming, and has some disposable income, and spends it on shit

disgusting savages, obvy

sort of figure that if you're born not-dirt-shack-poor in america, and are appreciably smart, well-educated, social & attractive, then you've basically won the lottery in life. includes a lotta hipsters.

course, people free to squander they lottery winnings however they want. like doobies and gandalf records, if that floats yr boat. conceptual art, etc.

quiddities of the middle class

yeah, but that's like winning a couple hundred bucks off a scratcher rather than winning a $24 mil powerball

if i won a couple hundered off a scratcher, i'd be all "WOOOOOOOOOOOH! I'm gettin a double double! and not just a regular animal style with cheese I smuggled from home and will insert between the burger when no one's looking."

(I've never done this BTW, but thought about it.)

no serious, i can't shrug off the massive gift i was given by the accidents of fate. like being born with gold card in my ass. and my folks weren't rich by any stretch of the imagination.

is it something you want to shrug off, though?

The term dates back at least as far as the 50s. Sometimes used to imply somebody who understood the subtext/con artistry of The System, and who might be a con artist himself, re "Madison Avenue hipsters." But yeah, usually a fan of hip/bohemian artists, who might also be an artist. Not implicitly a put-down, man, though critique of what we might call a geek was never far away. "There's nothing sadder than an old hipster"--Lenny Bruce. In 50s-early 60s, "hippie" was what later 60s meant by "teeny-bopper" excitable leaping-to-conclusions noob(though teeny-bopper more about younger kids, esp female, while earlier use of hippie include neophytes/tourists/perhaps poseurs of all ages, genders etc)

is it something you want to shrug off, though?

not at all! give thanks every day. for that reason, i won't pretend i didn't win the lottery.