Image source: lunchstudio

Where to begin, let’s just clarify, that I’m a hipster. Just look at the picture of me above the text (perhaps the first one of me on this blog.) Shaved head + cardigan sweater + having lunch with friends at their Soho architecture studio + said friends whose lunch blog I appear in and just got linked to from Andrew Sullivan and Kottke = hipster. Identifying with this label may or may not actually be the sort of thing a hipster would do, although I may be getting ahead myself.

So, in order to reinstill my hipster cred, I’ll state that I don’t actively identify myself as hipsters to others (particularly strangers) unless I’m trying to demonstrate a point, as I am here. It should come to no surprise then, to hear me say that I’ve been thinking a lot about hipsters recently, maybe too much. I’ve be delaying the writing of this post, because I want to get it just right. However, I realized that it would take too long, so I decided to write it up in chunks, give up on getting it just right, and fix and adjust any conceptual mistakes as I go, (the typos are a given.)

A few weeks ago, I attended the PFSK NY conference and the “Does New York Matter” got fascinating when it reached the topic of the Hipster. The room got a little fidgety because, well, the room was full of hipsters. The discomfort was palpable, which made the situation highly amusing. The concept of the hipster and the whole conversation around it was great, because it combined identity, culture and taste. All the subjects I am going to try to write about in more depth here. I’m not going to dedicate a whole new blog to the idea, like Stuff White People Like, but I will go a little Jeff Foxworthy on you.

Posit #1: “If you say ‘I am not a hipster,’ you probably are.” (See reference to “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”)

Basically, denying that you are a hipster outs yourself as being one. In its most basic definition, a hipster is someone who consciously curates his cultural identity, from the media he consumes to how he outwardly presents himself, with an crucial notion of being outside (read: above) the mainstream.

Hipster and being “hip” is a relative designation. There will always been someone more or less interested in trendy fashion. This “hipster continuum” allows for the never failing escape of self denial of the hipster label. Someone will always be more trendy, more obsessed with a certain length and cut of denim jeans, wears a peculiar hat, and lives in the current trendy neighborhood of Brooklyn. These people are the Hipsters. “Me? I just wear what I like,” which more often than not, align with what my friends like to wear.

The need to rationalize not being a hipster is rooted in the notion that being cool needs to be effortless (or at least appear that way.) Saying that you are a hipster is being earnest, and is not effortless nor cool. The hipster ratifies her belief of being outside the mainstream, in most likelihood is true. However she, all to often, fails to recognize that she is merely rejecting one set of social and cultural (and mainstream) norms with other set of hipster norms, wherever those norms may fall on the continuum.

For all you hipster deniers that don’t believe me, go to any suburb and visit an average shopping mall or big box retailer, and who will see how much of a hipster you really are.