What is a hipster?

[Traitorfish]

Not saying it does, but I don't follow why some people find the hipster label somehow one with less of a clear meaning than any of those others. As you say, obviously all of the labels are imprecise and really don't speak to the character of the individual on anything more than a superficial basis, but as easily as one can put that label on any of those, one can easily attach the hipster label as well.

Everyone in this thread besides yourself actually has pointed out what they label a hipster and they all correlate, just as if everyone was talking about what a goth was. The hipster label has as clear a meaning as those others and frankly I don't see how one can't see that.

The thing is, I don't think that this actually proves anything. People are using a shared set of criteria, and as you might expect that produces certain overlaps, but so what? That's not how sociological categories are constructed. The criteria are constructed in a largely arbitrarily fashion, with no reference to any of the shared genealogy or sense of collective identity that are entirely crucial to determining how we identify "punks", "goths" or even "geeks", and imposed upon a wholly incoherent selection of unrelated individuals to meet some predetermined conclusion. Put quite simply, it's sociological illiteracy.

All it tells us what people think a "hipster" is, not whether the term actually denotes a meaningful category of individuals, and while that can be interesting in and of itself, it's not what you're suggesting.

 

[JonBonham]

The thing is, I don't think that this actually proves anything. People are using a shared set of criteria, and as you might expect that produces certain overlaps, but so what? That's not how sociological categories are constructed. That's exactly how they are constructed. The criteria are constructed in a largely arbitrarily fashion, with no reference to any of the shared genealogy or sense of collective identity that are entirely crucial to determining how we identify "punks", "goths" or even "geeks", and imposed upon a wholly incoherent selection of unrelated individuals to meet some predetermined conclusion. Put quite simply, it's sociological illiteracy. And how are punks, goths and geeks related? How do they fit in this shared collective identity in a way that hipsters don't? Punks like punk music and dress in punk fashion, hipsters like indie music and dress in the ways described above, hipster fashion, geeks, gee, now, how can you even say that 'hipster' is even more vague than geek? Before it was recently made cool and even still for the most part no one actually calls themself a 'geek' in the sense of the label, so there's as much authority on what a geek is as what a hipster is, and all the other labels. No one calls themselves a Yuppie, and even though it might stand for 'young urban professional' the label obviously isn't going to apply to a young person who lives in the city and manages a salon but embraces the goth subculture.
All it tells us what people think a "hipster" is, not whether the term actually denotes a meaningful category of individuals, and while that can be interesting in and of itself, it's not what you're suggesting.

None of the terms mentioned above denote anything more meaningful than the hipster term. What people think a hipster/goth/hippie/yuppie/geek/whatever is what it is.

 

[Winston Hughes]

'Hipster' is a broad term, covering a whole load of interrelated styles/groups. For a more particular and closely-defined style/group, we might look at 'Shoreditch Tw*ts', for example. These people unquestionably fall into the broader 'Hipster' genre, but the distinction between them and other Hipsters makes necessary the use of more specific terminology when precision is required.

 

[Ergo Sum]

None of the terms mentioned above denote anything more meaningful than the hipster term. What people think a hipster/goth/hippie/yuppie/geek/whatever is what it is.

Hippies had a lot more to say about themselves than hipsters do. Same with punks, and, I imagine, goths, although I admittedly have read little about goth's philosophy. Hipster can at best be called a fashion, because that's what it is: a style. Not like beatniks, punks, skinheads, or hippies, which had things to say about the world.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

Hippies had a lot more to say about themselves than hipsters do. Same with punks, and, I imagine, goths, although I admittedly have read little about goth's philosophy. Hipster can at best be called a fashion, because that's what it is: a style. Not like beatniks, punks, skinheads, or hippies, which had things to say about the world.

And really, most of those had/have things to repeat for themselves. They were really all mostly fashions.

 

[Traitorfish]

None of the terms mentioned above denote anything more meaningful than the hipster term. What people think a hipster/goth/hippie/yuppie/geek/whatever is what it is.

Then why aren't there any five-page threads trying to figure out what they actually mean?

As I said, the key points here are genealogy and identity. Punks are hugely varied, but they can all point to shared aesthetic and ethical roots- the Ramones, The Clash, Dead Kennedys, etc.- and a shared identification as, if not necessarily being "punks", then being involved in punkdom. Even labels like "hippy", which lack the same sort of self-identification, still reflect a common genealogy and certain shared points of aesthetics and ethics. There is no equivalent with "hipster"- and you're very welcome to try and demonstrate that either is the case, but I don't think you'll get very far.

 

[azzaman333]

Then why aren't there any five-page threads trying to figure out what they actually mean?

No one's started a thread on it yet.

 

[JonBonham]

Then why aren't there any five-page threads trying to figure out what they actually mean? Because it's a relatively new label (the current hipster one not the one from the '40's')

As I said, the key points here are genealogy and identity. Punks are hugely varied, but they can all point to shared aesthetic and ethical roots- the Ramones, The Clash, Dead Kennedys, etc.- and a shared identification as, if not necessarily being "punks", then being involved in punkdom. Even labels like "hippy", which lack the same sort of self-identification, still reflect a common genealogy and certain shared points of aesthetics and ethics. And what about all those other labels we can clearly associate that don't have such a clear self-identification? So some have more coherence than others, but they are easily applied to their specific groups/fashions. Aesthetics is the main thing that denotes any of these groups, and yes, hipsters share in their aesthetic with the fashion and indie music and pabst and general attitude against the mainstream, regardless of how different shoreditch tw*ts may be from your soho or main st vancouver hipsters.There is no equivalent with "hipster"- and you're very welcome to try and demonstrate that either is the case, but I don't think you'll get very far.

It's already demonstrated and that's why it's used by everyone to describe the same, however broad, general fashion/sytle sense. So hipsters don't have anything to say about anything like hippies and punks, doesn't make the label any less workable.

 

[Traitorfish]

I think you're confusing "demonstration" with "repeated insistence", and until you can clear that up I don't think that we're going to get much further with this discussion.

 

[JonBonham]

I'm not talking about what hipsters are being demonstrated just here. The label itself is clearly used to demonstrate the same fashion/sytle/idea all over the place.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm not talking about what hipsters are being demonstrated just here. The label itself is clearly used to demonstrate the same fashion/sytle/idea all over the place.

That doesn't make sense. I think that you may be using the word "demonstrate" incorrectly.