Thursday, December 1, 2011

What's a hipster?

Nobody is a hipster because hipsters don't really exist.

A market myth has sprung up around the term, as well as a cultural bogeyman consisting of elusive white 20-somethings who wear certain clothes (but nobody will agree on what), listen to certain music (no one can agree on this) and act a certain way (no one can agree on this either).

No one self-identifies as a hipster, the term is always applied to an other, to separate the Us, who ever you may be, from the inauthentic Them.

You can't define what that kind of behavior or fashion or lifestyle actually is, nor will you ever be able to. That's because you don't use hipster to describe an actual group of people, but to describe a fictional stereotype that is an outlet for literally anything that winds you up.