Hipster Culture at a Glance
In 2017, hipster culture is an all-too-familiar – and pervasive – facet of metropolitan America: long beards, ironic tattoos, and unconventional haircuts adorn city dwellers across the nation, seemingly propagating from artisanal coffeehouses that crowd trendy neighborhoods such as Silver Lake in Los Angeles or Williamsburg in Brooklyn – arguably the epicenter of this current movement. Still, the ideological hipster is nothing new. Though hip culture historian Philip Ford marks Anatole Broyard's “Portrait of the Hipster,” published in 1948, as the intellectual origination of the term, he credits Norman Mailer’s 1957 essay “The White Negro” for providing the more crucial analysis and definition of the hipster “as a new kind of revolutionary man” marked by “his refusal to conform, [and] his rejection of every tradition and obligation” (Ford 50). In other words, the phenomenon of ‘hipness’ and its physical embodiment in the hipster is as old as – or even older than, probably – the thrift shop cardigans that the modern incarnation of this American cultural stereotype chooses to wear.
In its recent iteration, however, the term ‘hipster’ encapsulates more than just a non-conformist sensibility, complicated by an internal contradiction by adhering to traditional American capitalism. A particularly succinct though surprisingly in-depth Wikipedia article describes the current hipster subculture as “stereotypically composed of affluent or middle class youth who reside primarily in gentrifying [urban] neighborhoods” (“Hipster”), highlighting the importance of the capitalist system in this new era of the hipster with multiple references to class in the first sentence of the article. Hipsters certainly still champion the anti-mainstream, fervently prioritizing genuineness and artistry over popularity, but at the same time, they rely upon conventional consumerist definitions of success by monetizing quality. (After all, those specialty micro-brewed lattes are not cheap.) But, the question remains, what prompted the recent resurgence of the hipster subculture since the new millennium, and more fundamentally, how can hipster culture survive much less expand the way it has despite this glaring definitional contradiction regarding conformity?
In its recent iteration, however, the term ‘hipster’ encapsulates more than just a non-conformist sensibility, complicated by an internal contradiction by adhering to traditional American capitalism. A particularly succinct though surprisingly in-depth Wikipedia article describes the current hipster subculture as “stereotypically composed of affluent or middle class youth who reside primarily in gentrifying [urban] neighborhoods” (“Hipster”), highlighting the importance of the capitalist system in this new era of the hipster with multiple references to class in the first sentence of the article. Hipsters certainly still champion the anti-mainstream, fervently prioritizing genuineness and artistry over popularity, but at the same time, they rely upon conventional consumerist definitions of success by monetizing quality. (After all, those specialty micro-brewed lattes are not cheap.) But, the question remains, what prompted the recent resurgence of the hipster subculture since the new millennium, and more fundamentally, how can hipster culture survive much less expand the way it has despite this glaring definitional contradiction regarding conformity?
