Editorials > Miscellaneous
How Do I Know If I’m A Hipster?
By Jeremy Azevedo
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
You may have noticed, while perusing the interwebs of late, that much is being made of this whole “hipster” fad that is sweeping the nation.
To some, this is a shocking revelation. To others, it’s old news. But for young people on either side of that fence, one glaring question rears it’s stylishly keffiyah’d head: Am I a hipster?
Fact: To a hipster, the actual word “hipster” is as offensive as the “N-word” is to a black person (though like black people, they are allowed to use the word as a reference to one another). This makes it difficult to identify hipsters, as they are about as likely to self-identify as they are to wear a Members Only jacket without the requisite irony that comes along with it. So in order to know whether or not you are a hipster, you must first try and understand what a hipster actually is.
Are any of these guys hipsters? Not if you ask them they’re not. And yet…
In a recent article in AdBusters, Douglas Haddow (who I suspect is himself a closet hipster; he writes on anti-consumerist blog after all. Hipsters love to pretend to hate corporations!) described hipsters as:
“An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.”
Essentially, what Doug is saying is that hipsters are the cancer that is killing “Cool”… That they are cannibals of fashion and culture with no discernible socio-political agenda, and that they are incapable or giving birth to anything new or original. But how did they get this way, and how does this help us to identify them?
Hipster fashion is quite broad, and yet you still know one when you see one.
Haddow goes on to say:
“Hipsterdom is the first “counterculture” to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.”
Ok. So basically, a hipster is an agent of the man, an unwitting accomplice of a runaway capitalist system that sells them the very things that they believe make them a part of the “counterculture”, an enemy of the “faceless corporate empires” that are enslaving the rest of humanity (Like Apple, a hipster favorite). This would explain how they are duped into buying Pabst Blue Ribbon and V-neck shirts, longtime symbols of the working class. The working class enjoys these things because a 6-pack of Pabst generally costs around five dollars, and V-neck shirts, the less popular cousin to the crew-neck shirt, are sold in packs of 4 or 5 for around 13-25 dollars. This fact will be used for our first litmus test:
True or False:
“I would pay around 5-7 dollars for a Pabst at a purposefully shitty bar in a trendy neighborhood.”
“I am willing to spend 30-40 dollars for a single V-neck shirt at American Apparel or some more boutiquey (but still identical) shop, especially if it comes in neon.”
If you answered “False” to both of these questions, then congratulations! You are not a hipster. If you answered yes to one or both, I have unfortunate new for you: You might be a hipster.
Your typical hipster female, enjoying free bottom shelf vodka from 10-11PM.
This raises a very important question, and one that we should most definitely explore. Is the whole hipster thing merely a fashion deal and nothing more? The answer is yes and no. I think we can all agree that the fashion staples of the hipster community, tight jeans, neon, V-neck shirts, fedora hats, fake eyeglasses, converse, keffiyahs, ironic mustaches and/or beards and Venetian blind shades are pretty much omnipresent. The strange thing about this is that most people who adopt a “uniform” style of dress in this manner tend to have a unifying force that brings them together to drink, do drugs, listen to music and have sex with each other. For the hipster, this unifying force is not required, as the sex and drugs is a means to it’s own end. Now you might well ask: “How is this different than it was with kids in the 80s?”
If your answer to this question was, “It’s not”, then you are a hipster.
The answer to this is actually quite simple. In the 1980s, kids were rebelling against Reaganomics, the Cold War, corporate rock, the war on drugs, and their hippy-turn-yuppie parents. The hipster has nothing to rebel against. Most hipsters have parents or boyfriends/girlfriends with real jobs or trust funds that are more than willing to pay their rent because they are “artists” (meaning they project weird jpegs that they found online on the wall while a “DJ” plays songs off his MacBook at some warehouse party once a week). They are happy to settle for creating “awareness” or wearing an Obama T-shirt (printed by Shepard Fairey, of course). Their adoption of 80s fashion and drug culture is a result of watching 90210 reruns in college and maybe reading Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero on the crapper.
While this may appear to be a gang of homosexual street toughs, they are actually hipsters that pay $1500 a month to live in this crappy neighborhood.
Take a look at the clothes you are wearing right now. How tight are your pants? Can you fit your hand into your pocket without a great deal of struggle? If not, you may be either a woman or a hipster or both. Are you wearing a scarf in the summer? Do the glasses you are wearing have clear plastic lenses or no lenses at all? Do you even need those glasses to read the latest Chuck Palahniuk novel you’ve got there? Are you reading a Chuck Palahniuk novel? Have you ever stopped to wonder when it stopped being funny and/or gross to have a mustache and show off your chest hair? If you are exhibiting any of the symptoms that I have just described, than you, my friend, are a hipster.
If one were to look past the unmotivated fashion and cultural vacancy of the hipster, there are a few key identifiers that may exist beside the obvious. Lets try a few multiple-choice questions:
Question 1: How often do you have your picture taken?
A.) I dunno, every once in awhile, I guess.
B.) Enough to fill up 20 different albums on MySpace.
C.) Enough to fill up 20 different albums on FaceBook (MySpace is so last year).
D.) Enough that if placed end to end, they would make a stop motion movie of my life that lasts several hours.
Fact: Hipsters like having their picture taken. More like they fucking love it. Award yourself zero hipster points for choosing A, one for B, two for C, and three for D.
OMG we love having our picture taken so fucking much! Wheee!
Question 2: A song by some band no one has ever heard of comes on the radio. Do you:
A.) Give it a listen and decide for yourself whether or not you like it.
B.) Look it up on Pitchfork to see if you are allowed to like it or not.
C.) Turn to your friend and exclaim: “I was really into this band before they got big. They’re so played out now.”
D.) Trick question: You haven’t listened to the radio in years since you got your iPod.
Fact: Your music tastes as a hipster are like an arms race to always be into a band before they become popular so that you can act “over it” when they do. The only exceptions to this rule are Radiohead, Arcade Fire and possibly the Beatles. Award yourself zero hipster points for choosing A, one for B, two for C, and three for D.
Question 3: Complete the following sentence: I am thinking of joining a co-ed _______ team this summer.
A.) Wrestling
B.) Softball
C.) Kickball
D.) Badminton (kickball is so last year)
Fact: Hipsters love playing team sports ironically. It gives them an excuse to drink Pabst Blue Ribbons during the day. If you chose A, you are probably a manbot, not a hipster. Award yourself one hipster point for choosing B, two for C, and three for D.
Dov Charney, hipster Jesus and founder of American Apparel.
Question 4: Who do you think would make the best President?
A.) John McCain
B.) Barack Obama
C.) Steve Jobs
D.) Dov Charney
Fact: If there are three things hipsters cannot live without, it’s Obama, Apple products, and American Apparel, in that order. If you chose John McCain, you are definitely not a hipster in any way, shape or form, as it would go against party lines. Award yourself one hipster point for choosing B, two for C, and three for D.
Question 5: After the party, I am going:
A.) To bed. I have shit to do tomorrow.
B.) To IHOP, where I will ironically eat food that would make a billy goat puke and generally make an ass of myself.
C.) To the after party of course.
D.) To a late night café with Wi-Fi so I can be the first to upload my pictures and blog about it.
Fact: The more committed you are to being a hipster, the more being “scene” will outweigh “having gainful employment”. (Special circumstances exist in which advanced hipsters are employed in the creative class as designers, record company talent agents, web journalists and marketers. This does not in any way change the order of priority for the above question.) Award yourself zero hipster points for choosing A, one for B, two for C, and three for D.
Tally up your points!
If you answered mostly A: Rest easy, you are not a hipster. But be on your guard, because as we have discussed previously, hipsterism is a cancerous and amorphous thing that may change its appearance at any time. You may not even know that it has its hooks in you until it’s too late.
If you answered mostly B: You are on a very slippery slope, my friend. However, with therapy and loosened pants, you may yet have a chance at a normal life.
If you answered mostly C: You are a hipster. This may come as a surprise to you, but not to anyone that has ever met you, talked to you, or even just seen you in passing. You are probably beyond help at this point, and will probably die at a young age in a fixed-gear bicycle accident in Silverlake or Williamsburg.
Almost certainly rode his “fixie” to the park that day, while drinking a sparks.
If you answered mostly D: Holy crap, you are a super hipster through and through. You probably have a secret knowledge of this already, though you most likely haven’t come out to your parents about it yet. Your record collection (you have a record collection) is positively dripping with irony, as is your carefully collected wardrobe of vintage scene wear. Your hair hangs limply over your eyes, threatening to catch fire in the embers of your Parliament cigarette. You are sexually ambiguous, yet probably not bisexual. You have hundreds of acquaintances but no actual friends, as your personality is an ever-changing Frankenstein’s monster made of Vice ads, NPR quotes and indie music blog reviews. Dov Charney is your JFK. Right now, you are reading this on your iPhone while drinking vodka from a clear plastic water bottle at a Justice concert.
What do I do if I am a hipster?
If you discover that you are, in fact, afflicted with the Hipster Immunodeficiency Virus, the first thing to remember is not to panic. You may feel tempted to tell your parents right away, but if you are the recipient of a monthly trust fund stipend (there is a 50% chance of this if you are a hipster) then it is probably in your best interest not to until you first receive treatment.
Hipsters on a safari or undercover social anthropologists?
Some popular methods of deprogramming hipsters range from listening to classic rock without a sense of irony, pants stretching, drinking whiskey instead of Sparks and watching television (hipsters all claim to not own a television, which we all know is a lie because they all own a Wii). Also recommended is shaving your beard/mustache/vagina and getting a job.
How do I avoid becoming a victim of the hipster apocalypse in the future?
Reading this article is a good first step. Also, you should avoid any place of business in which there are ten or more visible fedora caps or any other strange type of hat (bowler, newsie, top hat, etc). Free vodka bars should also be avoided (it’s bottom shelf anyway, you’re not missing anything). Definitely stay away from any gathering of people that is wearing enough neon to be visible from space, as well as any concert in Silverlake or Echo Park that involves “old school hip-hop” where there is not a single ethnic minority within a ten block radius.
If all else fails, move to the midwest.
this is the worst blog ever.
Seriously. Talk about some long-winded mindless bullshit.
Are you butt-hurt by the truth?
fuck… i forgot. all our readers are hipsters.
“fuck… i forgot. all our readers are hipsters.”
Hahahaha. Yeah, nicely put :D .
I’ve been pondering for so long what are does kind(s) of kids called. Thanks for clearing that one. This article is one of the main reasons i’ve been visiting this space for so long.
cheers.
I fucking hate hipsters, I really like Antiquiet, but this article sucks. A lot. It’s not funny at all.
HAHAHAHA!!
Anyone that thought this article wasn’t funny is either humorless or indeed, a hipster. While I thank the good Lord that I’m not one of these fuckin’ LOSERS, (Yes! You are!), I felt the need to read the full breakdown about this group of wannabe everything.
I really despise these kids. I want to taunt them at every chance because they have no identity of their own. In fact, I want to do that to any group that is fuckin’ fake. Why trudge through your life being something that you aren’t? Is it because your real life is total shit, so it’s better to become something else?!?
The white-boy & girl “thugs” from the rich suburbs that bitch about having to drive the BMW, the other white-boy & girl “thugs” that are closer to the actual shit hole ghetto but, are still from a good neighborhood and family and try act tough.
Then there’s the goths, especially the girls, that go out of their way to act weird and make themselves look unattractive and be moody for the sake of your costume.
I can’t stand most of the “Gen Y” generation, so forget the fuckin’ “Millennials.” Those kids are truly fucked.
The have shittiest parents that are too concerned about trying to be their best friend, buying their love with anything/everything and be cool, with the moms doing their damnedest to still look 25 and be considered a “milf.” An entire generation being raised by narcissists, with morals and values in the toilet and materialism at it’s apex.
It’s no wonder our country is on the way out. None of these fuckin’ kids would know hard work (let alone do it) if their lives depended on it. Try working 12-14 hours a day for 6 days a week!! Have you ever heard of the phrase “Ya gotta do, what ya gotta do”???? And not from a fuckin’ movie or some dumbass rapper. I HATE YOU FUCKS!
Instead of actually living your own life, you choose to live through the lives of celebrities and faux celebs that YOU have helped create. All of the whores from “The Hills” and Paris and that dirty Kardashian shank. The lame-ass boy bands, reality “stars”, the increasingly annoying emo “rock stars”, the pretty-boy actors that won’t last the end of this decade!!!
I mean, THOSE are the people that are your fuckin’ role models?!?
Couple that with the fact that all of you have NO BALLS. You don’t fight it out in school, you bottle it up like a pussy and then go in and break out the Uzi. And if you decide to put ‘em up, it’s a gang-like barrage, not one on one, because you’re afraid of losing. You have NO IDEA of what that means. And that terrifies the shit out of you.
And that’s what it comes down to…..A GENERATION OF LOSERS. Not having the love at home, feeling isolated and unwanted, can’t talk to your parents because they actually don’t really care (too self-involved and pondering what to buy next), don’t know the value of a dollar, lazy and apathetic about LIFE – shrugging everything off with “whatevs”, dumbing down yourself and your peers by constantly texting each other – as a result, now you can’t spell or structure a coherent sentence to save your life, being so phony to one another and creating a new term “frienemies”, trying so damn hard to get people to like you because you have the newest everything, giving yourself sexually to get someone to like you while feeling empty and jaded at an unbelievably young age, the people that you idolize…..all of that adds up to a sad state of affairs. And I’ve barely scraped the surface.
While I get pissed at the thought of all of that, as you can see from the above rant, I genuinely feel sorry for you. Probably because I grew up the complete opposite. It wasn’t “Leave it to Beaver” (God help you if you don’t know to what I’m referring) but, it certainly wasn’t the shit that you call a family, a life, love and happiness.
If you are unhappy, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!! Be who you really are and discover what makes you special. Grow the fuck up and go grab life by the throat!!
I can only promise that someday my kids will be closer to my upbringing, than yours. And if yours wasn’t so great, deal with it. Learn from your parents’ mistakes and your own and actively work to change for your kids’ sake in the future. Why put them through the same nonsense???
Anyway, it was a good article Jeremy. I felt the need to vent here, I guess. Nah, not really. This crap is all around us and I won’t be happy until we enter a Depression and it becomes “survival of the fittest”, because then it’s really on. These kids won’t make it, so we can hit the reset button and take society to a better level.
Take care,
Matt
Nice!!!!
I’m not a hipster. I actually found this trying to show my friend that she was one and she should shut the fuck up with her “I’m just artistic.” shit. Anyways I completely agree with everything stated. I cannot stand my own generation they all complain about the dumbest of things and I swear if I see another male in jeans that my skinny ass couldn’t get an ankle into I am jumping off of a bridge XD I am sick of all the trends and “bisexual” celebs with their eating disorders. Yeah we all have problems but seriously how are you complaining with your brand new car and iPhone? I’ll admit I am a “rich kid”. I’m more fortunate than most kids given the economy and yes my parents try to buy my love. But hey, at least I am not ignorant and can admit to being fortunate and not bitch when mommy and daddy got me a red mini Cooper instead of the black. A car’s a car. Adolescents should stop complaining. Complain to me when you’re starving in North Korea…
I’m done ranting. XD
Matt,
I really agree with you. Whole-heartedly. Especially about the reset button. Let’s hope it comes to that.
I actually am a Y Gen. kid and it really scares me when i look around and see people my age completely forsaking themselves for the sake of an image.
I also believe, however, that some, and i mean some, of the music from my generation is very good and even important, even if the people that listen to it are misled about much.
Sometimes I really try hard to hope for some authenticity. It is very discouraging though.
It’s like it’s been a long journey to the middle and we are very very close.
Where everything sounds and looks like everything else. We’ve varied and diversified and become so eclectic that there will soon be kids who will like everything, and have taste for really nothing.
How bleak.
Coolest article I’ve read all day, thank you sir. I live in Santa Cruz, CA which is INFESTED with these retards. TO ALL THE GUYS- Lowrise jeans look bad enough on a GIRL with no ass, so PLEASE pull up your pants. Too many girls here trying to look like a B grade Pat Benatar because they’re too young to remember how LAME the eighties actually were. Not to knock Pat, she was fine back in the day, I’m just sayin. Oh! and the SUPER hipsters are EVERYWHERE!! You know, the ones that find jocking the eighties to be “too played out” so they’ve regressed all the way back to early 20th century Hillbilly? That “O’ Brother Where Art Thou” shit needs to DIE, seriously. Yeah FUCK The Devil Makes Three and The Hackensaw Boys and any of the other bands that play that kinda shit. Oh well, at least the dumbass hipster girls are hotter than the late eighties/early nineties butt rock chicks with the acid wash mom jeans. Remember when Poison and Winger and Warrant and Cinderella were blowin up on MTV? Dudes looking like chicks because they SERIOUSLY thought it was cool? Yeah THAT shit sucked. I got a theory about these guys. See in the eighties the girly guys tried to look like post-op tranny versions of popular female porn stars cause that’s what the girls were into. Now all these hipster fucks remind me of she-male Wynona Riders. After Beetlejuice though, maybe the Girl Interrupted era Wynona when she went super emo. Hopefully they’ll all destroy themselves soon…
but don’t they dress so cool?
Now that was a good article.
Funny, informative and a great perspective.
Good work.
Barack Obama the ‘ultimate’ hipster?
I am certainly excited about what an Obama presidency will bring to our beleaguered nation. He is very articulate to be sure, and seemingly has the intellect and composure to be successful in the highest office of the most powerful nation on earth. However, I am a little skeptical about his level of experience, alleged ties to unsavory organizations and religious affiliations. I voted for him, primarily because of bitterness at the incompetence of the Bush administration. I remain disenfranchised with America so far in the 21st Century, and came across a political graphic that does a fairly good job in capturing this sentiment.
http://www.cafepress.com/usa21stcentury
I’m still waiting for some hipster to provide a compelling counterpoint to all this…
I really liked this article….it was so funny. But I also liked Matt’s comment, you are so right about some things, but some other things were a bit too extreme for me. Anyway, I am a Gen Y and I really makes me feel sad to see the way most of my generation turned out to be. Seriously, most of these people have no idea of what live is really about. They only care about new things and everybody liking them…pretty sad if you ask me.
I really think these people should put more effort in actually finding themselves and not the newest gadget…maybe that way they will stop being superficial and maybe, they become happier people.
wow, creepy.
you guys are in the states, i’m in australia, we have the same fucktards infesting our chunks of earth.
i kinda feel good yet sad at the same time.
good because i know i’m not alone in the world, we share the same hate.
sad, because i’m starting to think there is no where to run.
i’m up for starting an underground cult.
literally underground.
where jeans must not strangle balls, hair straighteners are banned and glasses are only for the visually disabled.
… yes.
Good article, dude. After living in Hipster ground Zero (Williamsburg, Brooklyn)) for 3 years, I can attest to these claims being universally true – just seems like Hipster culture has been on the radad in NYC for about 5 years now. Maybe it’s just coming around to LA… Not sure. Great article though!
That article was fucking awesome.
I just realized!! From what I’ve seen (while pushing my way through PILES of these fucks in downtown Santa Cruz) one thing they definitely LOVE doing? TALKING SHIT ON OTHER HIPSTERS. So please take the “irony” of this article and go FUCK yourself, you hipster pile of SHIT. All you retards should move out of your “trendy” neighborhoods (Echo Park, various parts of Brooklyn/Manhattan etc…) and bring back the brown/black people who USED to live there, before greedy slumlords pushed them out after realizing YOU dipshits would pay exhorbitant rents just to say you lived in a shitty neighborhood. Seriously, Fuck You All. And I reiterate: Lowrise jeans look bad enough on a GIRL with no ass, so please, GUYS, for the love of God, Pull your pants up…
I happen to live in Poland, where this whole ‘hipster’ thing mentioned above hasn’t developed yet. Though, I’m afraid that it will soon come out in Poland as well, I hope we will be able to find a cure for it as fast as possible, considering the experience we already have with the matter.
Great article! That’s the way to deal with this shit, we ought to laugh at it! I know it’s not a laughing matter that they’re pollutting our world with their fake individualism. Every one of them tries to be cool, thinking how great they are for they are opposing mainstream. I don’t expect them to see through this paradox, but they ARE MAINSTREAM, there’s psychically abused child in everyone of them. We can’t blame them for trying to make themselves the shit, their parents should’ve prevented it, and now it’s too late to do anything about it. What awaits them is mass suicide, when they notice that they’re not cool individuals, but shitstream puppets on the contrary.
The thing that caught my attention the most was ‘Question 2′ and the second answer B:
‘Look it up on Pitchfork to see if you are allowed to like it or not.’
How pitiful it is that we’re afraid of having our OWN opinions, making our OWN decisions, and instead of showing our true selves, we try to blend in with the crowd.
Matt, you could make a whole article with that comment alone :P I agree with the most, but there’s one misunderstanding. The goths, I mean the true ones, are not putting on sad faces and shit, I think that being a goth means not going out of your apartament in broad daylight, being nocturnal. It’s about black clothes and heavy make-up, but instead of pretending to be sad all the time, you are having fun with your friends and smile, I think that’s the cool thing about goths, they’re fun to be friends with not to mention girls, who dress elegantly, and scare people in public places.
Isn’t this somewhat ridiculous to write, though? Isn’t one of the main curses of a hipster the fact that he/she might not want to admit they are a hipster? Also, who would be on a website like this if they weren’t a hipster? This kind of cynical, preachy blog post has potential as a hipster haven.
writing an anti-hipster article is pretty hip.
pretty funny. but more than hipsters, I dislike stereotypes…
I have a small record collection because I enjoy the sound of vinyls.
I roll my own cigarrettes because I hate the smell of regular cigs but enjoy smoking from time to time.
I’m thinking of getting a cheap fixed gear bike and put it together and paint it myself (work. something that hipsters are afraid of) for driving in the city because I don’t want to pay for a bus (expensive, stuffed with old people. better buy some beer instead) and have a mountain-bike for riding in the countryside.
I buy the cheapest clothes I can get and I hate it when people buy them in bulks, label “authentic vintage” and sell for big money. And old cheap clothes look better than ridicoluous fashion trend clothing.
I actually read books and don’t listen to radio or watch tv not because it’s so rebeliously “cool” but just because of loads of everyday average shit you get there.
I don’t follow politics.
My idea of work is like, making a table or a chair with my own hands. Really creating something, not pseudo-artistic bullshit.
I enjoy existentialist and absurdist literature, history of rock music.
so, I’m a hipster then., eh?
those hipsters just care more about image than really doing their own thing. and what if “my thing” is the same in parts as their thing?
hipster attitude = oh, no someone else is doing it. must. stop. must. be. original.
normal attitude = fuck that, I’m doing my thing because I’m doing my thing and enjoying it.
as long as you don’t like passion pit, we’re cool. ;)
what is passion pit?
seems like a nice cat to get a cup of coffee and have a conversation with.
[...] How Do I Know If I’m A Hipster? [...]
I just spent the weekend in Williamsburg and I can’t stop laughing.
My grandpa gave me his fedora when I was five years old. And I like it dammit. And I wipe my ass with Arcade Fire CDs.
Funny article, but I gotta say almost NONE of those pictures are hipsters (as I know them) ..well maybe the d-bag with the stache in the first picture.. but thats about it
Question: I have a couple of friends who fit a few “hipster” traits, such as taking a hell of a lot of pictures and drinking cheap vodka [though being students none of us can genuinely afford the expensive stuff, does that cancel it out?], as well as liking parties… quite a lot. However, they aren’t trying to “rebel” against anything, and I’ve persuaded them into listening to/liking some excellent non-hipster music such as Nine Inch Nails and Celldweller. Do I need to consider investing in deprogammisation therapy, or are they probably alright?
Yawn