"Hipster" as pejorative.

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only one of ned's eyes is ever open tho ;-)

And it's the third one at that.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 10 February 2003 23:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

Actually, Palmer is not the worst offender in that regard (tracing all black slang/culture back to Africa), amateurist. Sam Charters maybe?

So--who out there can get to the bottom of the etymology of "hip"? The "hip-hip-hooray" hypothesis doesn't strike me as very convincing. Surely someone out there knows the answer. Actually, looking back up the thread, the explanation of its origin in the name of the Chicago saloonkeeper strikes me as plausible.

― Edd Hurt (delta ed), Monday, 10 February 2003 23:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

Hey Jess - I just googled that quote and came up with this article from Stylus Magazine. Apparently he said it to his bandmates after they were sneering at.. Donna Summer.

I haven't read the piece yet, but he quotes Foreigner's 'I Want To Know What Love Is' as one of the ten worst songs of all time, so I'm suspicious.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 10 February 2003 23:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

I reall don't think that was Ned's rationale for liking Rush, Amateurist. With other people, maybe. Ned is so not a hipster.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 10 February 2003 23:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

at least six of those songs are good-great

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 10 February 2003 23:31 (twenty-one years ago) link

paul oliver does it more than charters and palmer i think

i think the wolof "hipicat" deal is a gazillion times more plausible than the chicago barman one!!

ps the word "dude" was reintroduced to america by p.g.wodehouse

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 10 February 2003 23:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

He also quotes Embrace and is the ex-minister of culture. Please don't read that article after all.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 10 February 2003 23:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

(Yea, the Chicago barman thing sounded ludicrous to me. Don't we have a fmr Chicago bartender on ILX?)

I don't think Paul Oliver is that bad, he always carefully qualifies the connections he draws b/t Africa and the blues even if it is a more central part of his writing than of Charters's, Lomax's, etc. Anyways, I should add that Palmer had the benefit of a few decades' more ethnomusicological analysis than Charters (who *ahem* chartered blues studies to some extent).

― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 10 February 2003 23:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

I was called before a high school English department tribunal for using this word in a newspaper article my freshman year. They wanted to know where I had stolen it from.

I had this problem with "ululating"

― Matt (Matt), Monday, 10 February 2003 23:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

Oh, it's the other Embrace.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 10 February 2003 23:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yeah, but the Chicago saloonkeeper hypothesis...I mean, "23
Skidoo" comes from 23rd St. in NYC near the Flatiron Bldg. It sounds more plausible than the other two in that post.

I myself believe (off-topic here) that 99% of all blues writing is worthless--I've read just about every book on the topic.

― Edd Hurt (delta ed), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 00:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

Jeff Todd Titon is only about 20% worthless. (See Early Downhome Blues.)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 00:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

(I thought 23 Skidoo was a Burroughs reference)

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 00:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

Autist with finger accidentally on the pulse.

― Dan I., Tuesday, 11 February 2003 06:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

Autists, dahling? Autists are such dreadful folk.

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 06:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

http://psy-138-006.bsd.uchicago.edu/~autpics/artists.html

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 07:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

http://psy-138-006.bsd.uchicago.edu/~autpics/dses04.gif

clearly, the boy is a hipster.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 07:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

Will Hart!

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 07:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

why would you name your child "F12"??

― ron (ron), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 07:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

or "Daniël" for that matter. I'm going to add a superfluous umlaut to my name from now on.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 07:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

I love these kids! This guy's my favorite: http://psy-138-006.bsd.uchicago.edu/~autpics/dses06.jpg

He's so dangerous!

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 07:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

Dude is not quite as hip, though:
http://psy-138-006.bsd.uchicago.edu/~autpics/swguitar.jpg

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 07:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

Please do not hijack my thread by holding up autistic children to ridicule.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 07:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

Seconded.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 07:57 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ridicule!? I am not ridiculing anyone (except maybe that last guy, but only mildly, and certainly NOT because he's autistic)!
I should have made my point much less obliquely. I was thinking about myself (as I'm inclined to do) or other ILX people, and how a person with no real sense of style can accidentally (ie: by falling in w/you lot) develop a taste for music (for instance) that is, um, informed in some way, or something, without having the set of attributes one normally would need (like knowing a whole bunch of Cool People That Are Into Cool Things).

― Dan I., Tuesday, 11 February 2003 09:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

And then I found those first two kids, who I earnestly feel are incredibly cool (or at least those pics are cool).

I'm sorry I hijacked your thread! I didn't mean any harm to you or them or anyone, it was just a really bad combination of my eye happening to fall on something I thought was cool and me failing to realize that presenting it in a certain way could be construed in a way other than I intended.

again, I'm sorry, but also: look at those first two kids, is there any way I (or anyone) could have possibly have even suggested that they were anything other than very, very cool?

― Dan I., Tuesday, 11 February 2003 09:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

fuck, I'm such a dork. I'm going to go into lurk mode for penance for awhile.

― Dan I., Tuesday, 11 February 2003 09:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

'Hipster' is like 'cool': it's not something you can say of yourself for any reason, and its application to you by others always says more about them than you. But that's where the similarity stops. I wouldn't use the word 'hipster' to describe someone with an idiosyncratic/early adapter personal aesthetic, but I would say 'cool'.

TRENDY, by the way, is a bit of an insult in my books. But I prefer leading to following in terms of my aesthetic choices. I also do not abandon my aesthetic choices according to the whims of fashion (which is not the same as getting sick of a record or a skirt; my aesthetic will merely inform my next choice).

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 09:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think it's quite a mild, friendly perjorative - more of "oh, those hipsters" than "those fucking hipsters".

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 10:20 (twenty-one years ago) link

perhaps more accurately it is seen as 'working at cool', where cool is seen as something supposedly effortless. if hipster is 'working towards' then it is intentional and conscious, thereby negating any cool that is accrued.

i suppose cool is like eccentric or diva. it cannot be self-bestowed.

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 10:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

i tend to sort of agree with gareth except for one thing... surely, some of being cool or hip depends on knowledge of obscure things, which takes work. i mean, nobody was born with the future discographies of german dub-house labels etched into their brains?
hipsterism = enlightened consumerism, and no creation. i would say that a hipster band is, instead of being a creative group, is one that is wholly dependent on the record collections of the players. this is not always a bad thing, mind.
lastly, everyone should just go and figure it out for themselves.

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 19:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

My total: 17/30 (57%)

(See Nabisco!)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 19:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

I got the same but it defined Nathan Barley as being the archetypal hipster, which is wrong.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 19:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

I agree w/ Sonic Youth - "Hip Not Cool"

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 19:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

I am 77% hipster but I think I should get extra points for concluding that whoever wrote that test is not really so hip. (I mean, Sarah Vowell? Dave Eggers? "Deck" over "cool boots?")

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 19:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

14/30 47%. this was very americentric. i have never heard the word 'deck' used this way. but i shall be sure to use it from now on!

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 20:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

ouch, 73% - I place the blame on the red-with-white-stripes sneakers that I'm wearing.

― lyra (lyra), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 20:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

I can't even find an answer for some of the questions, which as a middle-aged English guy is probably all the information needed.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 12:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

20/30(67%)...but that's got to be astonishingly hip for a Washingtonian, as we are supposedly the antithesis of hip.

― j.lu (j.lu), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 13:12 (twenty-one years ago) link

"awesome" 4ever, dude.

― g.cannon (gcannon), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 14:18 (twenty-one years ago) link

Nathan Barley=Jamie Oliver=current definition of hipster, no? Why so wrong, N.?

― SittingPretty (sittingpretty), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 14:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

63%, and I am a Washingtonian.

― Chris H. (chrisherbert), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 15:14 (twenty-one years ago) link

Nathan Barley is hardly the same as Jamie Oliver. Jamie Oliver is a cook who worked his way up from kitchen staff and had a TV friendly manner. Nathan Barley is a trustafarian who never does anything much. Neither are hipsters. As I and other people said, hipsters know a lot stuff about music and whatever, and are concerned with having old records that no one else has etc. It's not about being invited to the right parties and having a mullet (*surely* people in Hoxton don't still have mullets - that started like 3 years ago or something?)

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 19:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

There needs to be much less use of this term in journalism. Especially in publications that consider themselves hip.

― Mary (Mary), Sunday, 16 February 2003 05:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think it should be used only in reference to apparel.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 16 February 2003 06:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

40%, because I love Redbook.

― rosemary (rosemary), Sunday, 16 February 2003 18:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

Good point, Tom -- it seems like only hipsters say "those fucking hipsters!" whereas someone like my mom or my more conservative friends would use it to mock gently or to tease.

― Clarke B., Sunday, 16 February 2003 19:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

two years pass...

http://www.hipp-shop.de/hippCYshop/produkte/info/images/9765.jpg

― fe zaffe (fezaffe), Saturday, 23 July 2005 16:49 (eighteen years ago) link

one year passes...

Half of the threads on old-old-ILX were about hipsters and trucker hats. What happened? Have they disappeared? Have we stopped caring?

― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 09:24 (seventeen years ago) link

hipsters = the yuppies of the 00's

― m coleman, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 10:27 (seventeen years ago) link

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