Somehow OU has gone nearly a decade without a hipsters thread.  I noticed this oversight when I saw this:

 

http://www.city-data.com/forum/cincinnati/1619145-hipsters-cincinnati-area.html

 

"The hipsters live all over the place, and they roam in packs. Their home base is usually around Northside, OTR, or Clifton, but they can be seen regularly at locations such as Animations in Oakley, Muz's in Mt. Lookout, various record stores, and even Montgomery Tavern. In small numbers they are merely a nuisance, but when events such as scooter rallies, music festivals, or modern art openings come to town, they threaten to make you throw up in your mouth."

 

Nice!

 

I'd add that you can frequently spot hipsters on the Thursday Night ride, at Mayday, Northside Tavern, MOTR, Reser, Campus Cycles, Comet, that new taco place in Northside...

LOL! 

I don't understand the hatred of hipsters, as long as they aren't snobby.

I don't understand the hatred of hipsters, as long as they aren't snobby.

 

Grand & Mercer Sts

I too can think of more annoying "personality types" other than hipsters. But they are fun to make jokes about.

I think the term 'hipster' is so poorly defined that a lot of people take a bunch of attributes they don't like, put them together, and use that as their definition of hipsters.

 

In that thread on city-data, people were alternately describing hipsters as the essence of mainstream and a subculture outside the mainstream. The contradiction shows how people talking about hipsters are often talking past each other. It also cuts to the core of what hipsters are (to me): postmodern and contradictory. Simultaneously absorbed in the mainstream and its diametric opposite. Self-aware of their own absurdity, laughing at people trying to peg them down.

 

However, to me, self-consciousness of absurdity does not erase or redeem the absurdity. Still, who cares? I have a bunch of hipster friends and they are some of the most interesting people I know. Knowledgeable about a lot of topics and, dare I say, they have good taste in lots of things (indie rock, craft beer, green/urban lifestyles, etc.). I hate their obsession with Apple products, though.

I think the term 'hipster' is so poorly defined that a lot of people take a bunch of attributes they don't like, put them together, and use that as their definition of hipsters.

 

In that thread on city-data, people were alternately describing hipsters as the essence of mainstream and a subculture outside the mainstream. The contradiction shows how people talking about hipsters are often talking past each other. It also cuts to the core of what hipsters are (to me): postmodern and contradictory. Simultaneously absorbed in the mainstream and its diametric opposite. Self-aware of their own absurdity, laughing at people trying to peg them down.

 

However, to me, self-consciousness of absurdity does not erase or redeem the absurdity. Still, who cares? I have a bunch of hipster friends and they are some of the most interesting people I know. Knowledgeable about a lot of topics and, dare I say, they have good taste in lots of things (indie rock, craft beer, green/urban lifestyles, etc.). I hate their obsession with Apple products, though.

 

Hipster has pretty much become a blanket word for "young person I don't like"

^ Exactly. And it doesn't help that even hipsters claim they hate hipsters, since you're disqualified from hipsterdom if you admit to being one. Thus there is just about no one left to defend them.

 

I will defend them, I think without risk of being accused of being one. Though I guess I share some traits with them, being a youngish urbanist cycling advocate into craft beer and indie rock. The only thing which I believe I am on the cutting edge of is advocacy of Midwestern/Ohio urbanism, which applies to everyone on this forum. No penchant for irony or trendsetting leaves me out of hipster candidacy, I'm pretty sure. Not to mention an aversion to skinny pants.

"The hipsters live all over the place, and they roam in packs. Their home base is usually around Northside, OTR, or Clifton, but they can be seen regularly at locations such as Animations in Oakley, Muz's in Mt. Lookout, various record stores, and even Montgomery Tavern. In small numbers they are merely a nuisance, but when events such as scooter rallies, music festivals, or modern art openings come to town, they threaten to make you throw up in your mouth."

 

Nice!

 

I'd add that you can frequently spot hipsters on the Thursday Night ride, at Mayday, Northside Tavern, MOTR, Reser, Campus Cycles, Comet, that new taco place in Northside...

 

These people are behind the times.  I rarely see hipsters in OTR these days, they've all migrated elsewhere.  OTR is almost full blown yuppie and frat boy at this point. 

Ha ha...stupid hipsters

 

http://io9.com/5923663/brooklyn-hipsters-try-to-guess-what-the-higgs-boson-is

the first recorded evidence of the word "hipster?" (0:56) anita o'day Are You Livin Old Man

Hipster has pretty much become a blanket word for "young person I don't like"

 

I agree. What's the big motivation to making fun of them? Though I don't consider myself a "hipster" in the general sense, I share a lot of sentiments with that group of people. I like biking, urban settings, indie music, good beer, etc. I don't drink kombucha, ride a bike with two frames, or wear mismatching clothes, but so what if I did? I'll just never understand people's hatred for certain groups of people.

 

And what's up with that video of hipsters not knowing what the Higgs Boson is? How about you make the same video about rural farmers, suburban moms, inner city teens, members of an orchestra, or members of a tea party meeting? Chances are you are going to be able to make a video that makes them look stupid too. I would guess that a greater number of the Brooklyn hipsters are actually more knowledgeable about these things than most of the groups I mentioned. It's easy to make people look stupid when you can edit videos.

^Very well said.  Having an opinion about something is all good and fine, but there is no need to be rude. You would look at me and think I'm a hipster when in actuality, I am a young professional who is outside of the normal bubble.

I prefer the hipster neighborhoods of Chicago compared to the Boule Mich attitudes here downtown.  Thank god the tourists offset the pretentiousness. At 3:00 am, I have to go from a chill and lively bar scene in Wicker Park to Jersey Shore douchebaggery near the rush street triangle with a bunch of punks that wanna fight anyone and everyone nearby my building. 

Jersey Shore douchebaggery near the rush street triangle with a bunch of punks that wanna fight anyone and everyone nearby my building.

 

Sounds like the guy and girl having this drunken fight in the elevator outside my hotel room (My hotel was on Deleware, half block from Rush Street).  Yet the tourists are pretty "boul Mich" too....you have to have a lot of $$$ to afford those hotels, so you are not getting the average Joe tourist in that area. 

 

I was up in Chicago for some used-book shopping, particularly the Newberry Library book fair.  Book boffins are their own set...and there where these quirky activists types tabling around that Bughouse Square event that was being hosted outside the library....and I saw this older guy with this anarchist/IWW stuff tatooed on him, when on the L. 

 

Chicago still has a few originals floating around, even tho the gentrification (hipsterization is a subset of this) is getting fairly intimidating to me, where I'm getting the same feeling I did when I was in DC and the Bay Area...that I don't really belong here, or I'm not young enough/ cool enough/smart enough/creative enough/affluent enough for the place.

 

To be frank about it reading about this stuff and studying it from from a distance is interesting and entertaining. Actually experiencing and witnessing  it in real life is alienating. 

 

 

 

 

How did the hipster burn his tongue?

He drank coffee from that new shop before it was cool.

^bud-um-psh

Well according to the trib, this is back to school fashion.  Wow...way out of my generation that was all about comfortable fitting jeans and a polo shirt in the mid 2000's. 

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/life/sc-fash-0730-school-style-20120731,0,5830363.story

 

This is the kind of fashion I'll see outside my building....it's not hipster but some may interpret it is that.  I'll just call it Boule Mich with the latest from TopMan down the street.  Tell me how dressing like a girl is going to get you a girl.  I'm happy to say these tight clothes don't fit me, not because of how I eat, but how I exercise.  Further, I'd hate to have to dryclean all that stuff.  At least with last decade's fashion it was easier to throw in the laundry and nearly impossible to ruin.  And though I dig the Brogues shoes, especially with a suede finish, I've found they aren't as functional in urban environments when they quickly get damaged.

 

Fact is, once I move out of this downtown environment and into the neighborhoods, I'll feel alot more comfortable in my surroundings. 

 

If you think they look stupid now, just think what people will think of the style 20 years in the future.

It will be as absurd as the big hair of the 80s.

I think there is an awful lot of confusion by people under 30 and especially 25 as to what a hipster is and why those over 30 find hipsters so effing annoying.  I'll do a comprehensive explanation at some point, but in brief a BIG defference between the ages is that those who were born between 1970 and 1980 grew up in the shadow of the Vietnam War and the Woodstock-era counterculture.  Woodstock was sort of the bar by which the next generation judged itself and was judged by the Woodstockers.

 

But everyone born since about 1985 seems to have no knowledge of this and mistakenly thinks it is experiencing things for the first time or that their time around is more profound.  It's not just time that has passed but the collapse of the Monoculture -- the counterculture is in turmoil and I believe is basically dead because it doesn't have as many common experiences to rally against BUT it has the internet.  So whereas the countercultre from 1960-2000 gathered around music and therefore had a lot more eclecticism, that crowd  has diluted since people can easily join virtual communities.

it's like the supreme court said about indecency (i think it was the supreme court) - I know it when I see it.

I, for one, welcome our Internet-era hipsterlords.

But everyone born since about 1985 seems to have no knowledge of this and mistakenly thinks it is experiencing things for the first time or that their time around is more profound.  It's not just time that has passed but the collapse of the Monoculture -- the counterculture is in turmoil and I believe is basically dead because it doesn't have as many common experiences to rally against BUT it has the internet.  So whereas the countercultre from 1960-2000 gathered around music and therefore had a lot more eclecticism, that crowd  has diluted since people can easily join virtual communities.

 

I interpret your remarks to mean that the inherent annoyance of hipsters stems from their lack of awareness of their own context. Someone who has adopted DIY or artisan values with sincerity and humility does not deserve to be disparaged as a "hipster;" they benefit our society. Someone who thinks they are the first person to discover obscure bands, wear skinny jeans and move to brooklyn naturally invites derision.

Most of the trends hipsters represent are good trends.  Imagine if all the kids these days wanted to be 80s preppies instead, with all the sociopolitical and urban development consequences that would entail.

Heheh, or if those Mullet/IROC/Metal/Budweiser guys from the '80s and '90s came back. I wouldn't mind, but would probably the only one who didn't.

Give me a Grand National, denim jacket w/Eddie on the back and a Michelob Dry, and I'd be a happy man.

Heheh, or if those Mullet/IROC/Metal/Budweiser guys from the '80s and '90s came back. I wouldn't mind, but would probably the only one who didn't.

 

I was going to say, doesn't that just about describe your metalhead self?  :-P :wink:

I haven't had a mullet since 1993.

 

But everyone born since about 1985 seems to have no knowledge of this and mistakenly thinks it is experiencing things for the first time or that their time around is more profound.

 

I get this with the modern "green" movement in its various manifestations...which extends to the bicycle trend and the interest in "streetcars".  A lot of this was happening in the 1970s, too. 

 

Imagine if all the kids these days wanted to be 80s preppies instead, with all the sociopolitical and urban development consequences that would entail.

 

I still get an LL Bean catalogue!  Preppy was my style.  An easy style because it was simple and you didnt have to think too much on how to put together an outfit....you could tweak it to be more professorial or rustic (which could read as sort of "grad student bohemian"), or more upscale &  "at the club".

 

 

 

>A lot of this was happening in the 1970s, too.

 

I remember Carter-era school social studies textbooks were full of EPCOT-type stuff: solar panels, windmills, geothermal, and I remember quite well a large photo of a BART train in one of my social studies books presented as a model system for other cities.  Reagan really put an end to all that.  Because I went to a Catholic school we used old public school textbooks to save money and that's why we still had 1970s textbooks in the late 80s. 

 

Also the schools used to bring in hippies to talk about environmental issues.  There were a lot of people trying to live completely off the grid, living in underground houses or houses built into mounds.  We had one guy give a slide show on how he bathed with less than a gallon of water.  The jocks went crazy making fun of the hippies since they were the reason we lost in Vietnam.  We had a hippie teacher at my high school who didn't own a car and used to hitch rides with students after school.  He would literally stand by the turn onto the main drag thumbing a ride. 

^

This stuff sounds really familiar!  LOL.....yep Malcolm Wells and his underground houses....and that whole back-to-the land thing, which sort of went more mainstream with the interest in community gardens and such....

 

I remember in Louisville, back in the 70s, they had the 'Passive Solar Urban House', which was sort of an old shotgun done up with solar panels, composting toilets, organic backyard garden, grey water reuse, etc....sort of quasi-off grid, in the Phoenix Hill neighborhood.

 

I read through some of the modern stuff about urban ag and think.."wow...this sounds familiar!"

 

@@@@

 

Hipsters are sort of confusing because if you read some of the writings on it, it seems to be sort-of an overlap with the modern take on counterculture---that modern indy/alternative/DiY scene (like the people who run that bike co-op in Northisde), but somehow more ironic and syle and, not as committed or perhaps ideological?  Not exactley the same thing tho there are stylistic similarities perhaps.

 

 

 

 

I think "not as committed" is the most important observation.  All this stuff now is so half-ass because it's not really about trying to change the world or anything.  The bicycles, the record collections, the beards, and everything else are just decoration.  There's not any apparent interest in understanding the context of pop culture or counterculture things from prior eras.  It's arm chair bohemia. 

I suppose in 10 years this thread will be a cutting edge discussion of dubstep and the London Olympics?  :-D

Pretty good explanation of  modern day hipsterdom here - http://www.planetizen.com/node/57766

Pretty good explanation of  modern day hipsterdom here - http://www.planetizen.com/node/57766

 

I pronounce your article to be fairly accurate.  I would, however, give them more credit in being beneficial to cities. These types cultivate and support local films, music, art and retail like nobody else.

^

The localist thing is sort of a newer riff, perhaps, on the older hipster concept, which relates to the interest in "realness", ie, authenticity.  Yet there seems to be a conflict between authenticity and ironic appropriation?

 

Localism also overlaps with the new Green movement ant the DiY ethos.

 

 

 

 

^

Yet there seems to be a conflict between authenticity and ironic appropriation?

 

The value of authenticity should be celebrated imho.

 

But ironic look? Wearing silly trucker hats, wife beater, uncomfortably tight jeans etc, that I don't get, but then again I kinda do... seems every subculture evolves a "uniform" where people just start looking/dressing a certain way to identify with like-minded others.  It makes it fun, because we can laugh at stereotypes! ie hippies, yuppies, ghetto pants, punk rockers, goth kids, rednecks, etc. etc.

If you've ever seen Heavy Metal Parking Lot, you saw the antithesis of hipster. All of the bands that the attendees spoke about were well-known as were the bands on the attendee's shirts. The fans also earnestly praised their favorite acts, condemned those they felt weren't being true to themselves and showed tons of enthusiasm about who they were and where they were at that point in time. And it's not because it's a heavy metal show; it's because the '90s and its love for sarcasm, irony and indifference hadn't happened yet.

Here are some clips:

 

I first knew of that film sometime around '98 but didn't see it until 2001.  Actually it was a showing in an old theater in Brookline, MA where the filmmakers themselves spoke.  The place was full of hipsters, who were completely confused by the film and there was absolutely no laughter.  There was more than one instance where I was the only person laughing in a room with 200 people in it.

 

That enthusiasm I remember from the 80's disappeared sometime around 1990 and hasn't returned.  I think when the drinking age was hiked to 21 that had a lot to do with it (the need for socializing amongst 18-21 year-olds moved to then-new coffee shops or 24-hour Denny's), but then the appearance of rap music and the punk revival and grunge thing had something to do with it too. 

 

Hipsterdom, specifically, I think really grew out of people who were film buffs in the 90s.  People that are serious movie people usually don't do much in real life but even then were obsessed with media representations of prior eras.  Again I think it's the legacy of Woodstock (and the perceived inferiority of Woodstock '94 and Lallapalooza), Vietnam, and the Civil Rights Movement that led people who were teenagers or college students in the 90's to feel that they didn't "measure up", and somehow that morphed into mindless hipsterdom by the early 2000's. 

 

I think that hippy that took almost no water showers also didn't blow dry his hair and made a big deal of it as well. I'm pretty sure the entire school would have been more than willing to sacrifice showering after gym to 'save the world.' Watch any 80s PBS - Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, they all reek of Carter era environmentalism.

They probably didn't feel like making all new segments just because the president changed. Ahh, Sesame Street's gritty days made me feel like it still was the '70s. Hell, most people didn't remodel their houses from 1970 until the mid-90s. Hipsters would love to have the textured pea green carpet that was commonplace until being ripped up and used for sound deadening or used in some shed with a tape deck where kids smoked pot in the '90s.

This is the kind of fashion I'll see outside my building....it's not hipster but some may interpret it is that.  I'll just call it Boule Mich with the latest from TopMan down the street.  Tell me how dressing like a girl is going to get you a girl.  I'm happy to say these tight clothes don't fit me, not because of how I eat, but how I exercise.  Further, I'd hate to have to dryclean all that stuff.  At least with last decade's fashion it was easier to throw in the laundry and nearly impossible to ruin.  And though I dig the Brogues shoes, especially with a suede finish, I've found they aren't as functional in urban environments when they quickly get damaged.

 

Fact is, once I move out of this downtown environment and into the neighborhoods, I'll feel alot more comfortable in my surroundings. 

 

Sounds like I live around the same area as you, and while it's the most convenient part of the city (especially if you're living car free), the atmosphere is certainly lacking. I miss my old hood of Wicker Park for sure when it comes to atmosphere and socializing. Although I think my favorite part of the city in terms of atmosphere is probably the North Center/Lincoln Square area since it's not too hipster or yuppie, but still has enough trendiness to keep it interesting.

 

I first knew of that film sometime around '98 but didn't see it until 2001.  Actually it was a showing in an old theater in Brookline, MA where the filmmakers themselves spoke.  The place was full of hipsters, who were completely confused by the film and there was absolutely no laughter.  There was more than one instance where I was the only person laughing in a room with 200 people in it.

 

That enthusiasm I remember from the 80's disappeared sometime around 1990 and hasn't returned.  I think when the drinking age was hiked to 21 that had a lot to do with it (the need for socializing amongst 18-21 year-olds moved to then-new coffee shops or 24-hour Denny's), but then the appearance of rap music and the punk revival and grunge thing had something to do with it too. 

 

Hipsterdom, specifically, I think really grew out of people who were film buffs in the 90s.  People that are serious movie people usually don't do much in real life but even then were obsessed with media representations of prior eras.  Again I think it's the legacy of Woodstock (and the perceived inferiority of Woodstock '94 and Lallapalooza), Vietnam, and the Civil Rights Movement that led people who were teenagers or college students in the 90's to feel that they didn't "measure up", and somehow that morphed into mindless hipsterdom by the early 2000's. 

 

I'm trying to figure out exactly when the first hipsters came to be? Around 2001 would have been some early hipsters for sure. I probably didn't become fully aware of their presence and what they actually were until around 2003. Although I used to hang out at Thursday's Lounge in Akron a lot in the late 90's, and I'm sure many of the people who hung out at that place at the time could have qualified as hipsters. I just didn't know about the term at the time.

 

Oh, and Heavy Metal Parking lot rules!

Indie kids from the 90s became hipsters as the millennium turned. I don't think there was a point you can say was the transition, it just became more popular to be an indie kid and the term came about.

“A countrywide anti-hipster movement?”  Where do I sign up?!

 

Montauk’s Hipster Fatigue

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/fashion/montauk-feels-the-effects-of-too-many-hipsters.html?pagewanted=all

SO, these signs have been popping up around the East End: a picture of a hat with a red slash through it.

Not just any hat, mind you, but a fedora.

 

What did a hat ever do to anyone? Why the chapeau chauvinism? Well, it’s complicated. And it’s really about those who wear the hat, and what it has come to represent in certain quarters, especially in the once happily sleepy, now unhappily besieged, hamlet of Montauk.

 

At its most superficial level, the fedora featured in the signs represents your basic hipster. And to some extent, it’s just part of what is shaping up as a countrywide anti-hipster movement. Something about artisanal tattoos; a bespoke, frontiersman beard; and, yes, a fedora perched atop the head just so is sending some people around the bend.

“A countrywide anti-hipster movement?”  Where do I sign up?!

 

Montauk’s Hipster Fatigue

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/fashion/montauk-feels-the-effects-of-too-many-hipsters.html?pagewanted=all

SO, these signs have been popping up around the East End: a picture of a hat with a red slash through it.

Not just any hat, mind you, but a fedora.

 

What did a hat ever do to anyone? Why the chapeau chauvinism? Well, it’s complicated. And it’s really about those who wear the hat, and what it has come to represent in certain quarters, especially in the once happily sleepy, now unhappily besieged, hamlet of Montauk.

 

At its most superficial level, the fedora featured in the signs represents your basic hipster. And to some extent, it’s just part of what is shaping up as a countrywide anti-hipster movement. Something about artisanal tattoos; a bespoke, frontiersman beard; and, yes, a fedora perched atop the head just so is sending some people around the bend.

 

Wow, I got a "Hipsters...even worse than MINORITIES" kinda vibe from that article.

 

Interesting about the mention of trash. I've noticed that most people who leave trash are visitors who just aren't familiar with beach culture. ie, they often don't view leaving their garbage on the sand as wrong. It transcends social class or stereotypes.  They  just assume it's someone else's job to clean up, just as one behaves in a stadium or restaurant.