Usually hippies start drifting in that direction early in high school whereas hipsters might maintain an ordinary style and manner until college, when they realize they're boring and the whole hipster thing arriives in a clumsy attempt for attention.     

I was curious as to which of the Cs is the most hipster and did some quick "research" using Yelp! where the word "hipster" appears in reviews, with the top results having the most occurrences of the word. Cincinnati lists 98 establishments, Columbus 169, and Cleveland 100 and virtually tied with Cincinnati. You have to factor in some reviews where reviewers mention their elation that such-and-such bar is devoid of hipsters and thus inflates the actual number of hipster establishments. So Columbus wins big, or loses big, depending on how you look at it. I think there's enough credibility based on the fact that Bodega and Carabar are the top two listings and are unquestionably two of the top hipster outposts (C-Dawg would love how much he hates these places). Although, the listing falls apart by Cafe Bourbon Street being way down the 4th page with suburban Bob's Bar ranking higher up along with decidedly yuppie Club 185 when it's certainly a contender for most hipster anyplace in Columbus. I guess it's because the only people familiar with Cafe Bourbon Street are by and large hipsters themselves. Uh-oh.

Hmm, all those strip mall bars here in town (partially due to annexation) that have reviews like "No hipsters here; drink specials during NASCAR" indeed could be messing up the rankings. Though an advanced hipster could look really deep by genuinely enjoying NASCAR and being knowledgeable about it.

I don't think the trust fund hipster, or "original hipsters" as C-Dawg calls them, are any more common than the trust fund kids who want to live the yuppie lifestyle.

 

I believe that hipsters have "avant-garde" tastes and most are either 1) college educated folks who are underemployed and likely have liberal arts degrees; 2) working professionals with hipster tastes; or 3) actual artists or musicians (typically these are rare or poseurs).

 

Unfortunately hipsters are neither bohemian nor a counter culture; but are a sub-culture. They are a group of people who are fans of previous counter cultures from the post war era, and have rehashed aspects of previous generations while creating nothing original themselves.

 

I can't say they totally annoy me though. I have come across a few that have for sure (especially the bike-shop hipsters!), but at least they're an alternative to the MTV and redneck crowds. Their like has produced some good, albeit unoriginal music acts and most hipster bars will at least offer some good tunes. They're also currently the best at being urban pioneers and settling in neighborhoods that would otherwise be in decline.

 

They're also currently the best at being urban pioneers and settling in neighborhoods that would otherwise be in decline.

 

If you think others view that as a plus you should check out this blog -  www.diehipster.wordpress.com/

 

This guy is in a hate-filled world of its own against hipsters...

I don't think the trust fund hipster, or "original hipsters" as C-Dawg calls them, are any more common than the trust fund kids who want to live the yuppie lifestyle.

 

They aren't. San Francisco and New York are loaded with both original hipsters and original yuppies. The difference is that hipsters try to look poor in a fake sense of trying to claim grit. Marina types with parental help try to look like they come from money, since the point is keeping a professional image while job hunting. Lots of parents pay for Suzy Sorority to move to the city so they can maintain an image of being successful parents and in the hopes that Suzy lands a high-level account executive position and/or rich husband.

 

There are some major gender differences at play here. Mission has trust funders of both genders in big numbers. Marina is mainly female trust funders. This makes sense when you consider hipsters are gender-neutral while the Greek crowd is much more conservative. A man can get away with a lot more if he's a hipster as opposed to a yuppie. That is a big reason why so many Midwesterners have jumped onto the bandwagon in this down economy. "Finally I can grow a beard, get a tattoo, dress terribly, be unmasculine, and women in the nabe won't care!"

 

Being a hipster offers men opportunities they wouldn't get in the straight world. How many yuppies are stay-at-home dads? How many hipsters are stay-at-home dads? I'm not sure if being a stay-at-home dad is a big, desirable thing in Ohio, but it's huge on the west coast. Gender politics are big here.

>Suzy Sorority to move to the city so they can maintain an image of being successful parents

 

Bingo.  All these 50-60 year-old couples are in an unspoken battle with each other.  After college they pay for their kiddies to drive decent cars and live in nice parts of town.  The problem is that they send them away to college to get an "education", but then expect them to come back and lead lives just like theirs in order to validate their own choices. 

jmeck, I tried PMing you but your box is full.

Okay I deleted a bunch.  It should work now.

I would have thought 'orginal hipster' would be the ones in the 1940s and 1950s.

^I think so. That's probably when this movement started in New York and San Francisco. In Ohio, it hit recently, and it's probably more about style (neck beards, mustaches, skinny jeans, Black Keys, etc.) than blue blood hipster attitude (I have money, so f you! I can do what I want!). The libertarianism of San Francisco and New York leads to more moneyed hipsterdom (you do what you want and where what you want as long as you have money). Original hipsters do have a lot in common with their moneyed yuppie counterparts. They just don't want to admit it. At a core level, they're on the same page. It's all about focusing on the self.

^I think so. That's probably when this movement started in New York and San Francisco. In Ohio, it hit recently, and it's probably more about style (neck beards, mustaches, skinny jeans, Black Keys, etc.) than blue blood hipster attitude (I have money, so f you! I can do what I want!). The libertarianism of San Francisco and New York leads to more moneyed hipsterdom (you do what you want and where what you want as long as you have money). Original hipsters do have a lot in common with their moneyed yuppie counterparts. They just don't want to admit it. At a core level, they're on the same page. It's all about focusing on the self.

 

Oh lawd....here you go again.

You all hate Hipsters, huh? The fact that you have to think so hard to psycho-analyze them and speculate their identity and culture tells me that you guys probably don't even know many (or any, personally) which makes your hatred towards them look even more ignorant. Makes me wonder how you all really feel about Jews, gays, African-Americans or any other marginalized group.

Hate is a strong word.  Not sure it really applies here. 

 

Hipsterism seems to me like a set of free choices, and I think most of the backlash comes from the same place as the song "Common People" by Pulp.  It's about the choice to cherry pick aspects of a poverty lifestyle, with ironic intent, while experiencing none of what actually drives poor people.  This, plus smugness, generates backlash.  As Cdawg mentioned above, it's likely that many here in Ohio never have met a real hipster, in the purest sense.  But we can still be familiar with the idiom.

Its bigotry, period. I really can't stand how skewed, judgemental and hypocritical folks on this forum are, sometimes and it's not like this is just some light-hearted humor directed at them. I think it's going a little too far.

I think we can analyze social phenomena without attacking each other. No one here "hates" hipsters.

Help me understand.  My concept of bigotry doesn't extend to evaluating free choices.  To me bigotry is hating someone for what they are, what they come from, what cannot be changed about them.  Judging people for what they choose to do with themselves is often considered the polar opposite of bigotry. 

 

What positive aspects of hipsters are people missing?  What misconceptions about them are people adhering to?

David, people don't control the circumstances of their upbringing but the decision to present yourself as a hipster is a conscious one.  When I was a kid I would overhear my mom talk about whatever kid was going through "a phase", and I became very aware that some people out there could see through people's acts.  So I knew as a young kid that teenagers dressing as punks or whatever were going through a phase and so wasn't intimidated or enraptured by any of the counterculture stuff. 

Essentially this thread has decided one thing:

 

If your parents are rich, and you live off of their money, you are a fake person whose opinions and lifestyle choices are not authentic. A yuppie who uses their parents money and a hipster who uses their parents money are both equally distasteful and we should shame them for it. Any music they listen to, clothes they wear, or activities they participate in are the worst.

 

Judging someone before you know them and coming up with a negative opinion of them based on their personal habits is definitely bigotry. Not saying I don't judge people, but you can't discredit them or hate because of the social circles they participate in or their own lifestyle choices before actually knowing them. I have to agree with David that this entire conversation is bigotry.

This thread should be locked and burned. Bigotry or not, it is full of prejudice, ignorance, and inaccuracy.

^I would add sweeping generalizations and exaggeration too.  Though I think David's comparison to racial/religious discrimination is absurd.

 

Essentially this thread has decided one thing:

 

If your parents are rich, and you live off of their money, you are a fake person whose opinions and lifestyle choices are not authentic. A yuppie who uses their parents money and a hipster who uses their parents money are both equally distasteful and we should shame them for it. Any music they listen to, clothes they wear, or activities they participate in are the worst.

is bigotry.

 

I'm confused.  I thought the lesson was that everyone in New York with tattoos and and a cool hat lives off their parents money.  And if they actually do work, it's only to be ironic, because deep down they are ruthless capitalists who hate the rest of us hard working people.

Judging someone for their background includes favorable backgrounds, and falls under what I'd call bigotry.  Choosing to live a vacation lifestyle on one's parents' money is... not the world's most respectable plan, but still far from hate-worthy.  However, doing this while looking down upon those less worldly, and lampooning their primitive tastes, can be irritating to many people.  But I still wouldn't say it leads to hate.

I just thought it was funny that a bunch of people who didn't know anything about Higgs Boson tried to pretend they did, and looked foolish as a result. People pretending to know more about something than they actually do is humorous. Obviously, only hipsters do that.

 

Really I'm just mad that they're young and have their lives ahead of them. That, and the fact they can pull off a fedora and I can't. I hate the young people.

There is lot of anger directed at the kind of wealthy, parental-supported hipsters living the young American's dream. Maybe it's a bit of jealousy, but I also think there is real reason to criticize those who are wealthy without working for it (and flaunt the lifestyle). It doesn't matter if they're hipsters, yuppies, etc. They all are terrible to those who understand what it's like to actually be poor. It's the naive attitude that pisses people off, and this is about gentrification. Blacks, Latinos, working class people, families, etc. are being displaced in many cities. Neighborhoods get insanely expensive and cities lose character/diversity. If criticizing hipsters is "racist," it's racist against white people. Gentrification is a double-edged sword (at least the way the American system works). There is no doubt cost of living is getting ridiculous in just about every desirable urban neighborhood. These issues are a lot bigger than hipsters...

 

There has to be a distinction between working hipsters and the kinds who are just partying off their parent's money. I think Ohio probably has very few of the trust fund hipsters (they still move away...for now). I'd argue what's going on in places like the Mission District is completely different. Ohio may have needed more indie types, even if it's copying what has been going on in other cities for quite a long time.

 

I'll admit I'm a fan of some of the west coast music revivals. Blouse is a good band that has rehashed previous music trends:

 

Dum Dum Girls are straight up Mazzy Star:

 

This stuff is a lot better than the top 40 garbage on the radio these days (some which is mainstream hipster music). There is no denying LA hipsters are making a ton of music you can't find in most cities. Best Coast is a great example and it seems like LA is morphing into something else entirely (post-hipster?). Maybe LA's lower cost of living compared to SF/NYC has fostered a more full-bodied scene? The scene there seems a lot different from New York, San Francisco, or anywhere in the Midwest. LA is a bit of everything.

 

What's going on in Detroit has some differences too. Detroit Cobras have been Rust Belt Chic since before people even used the term hipster...

This is pretty hilarious.

 

The 20 Worst Hipster Bands: The Complete List

By Ben Westhoff Thu., Aug. 23 2012 at 7:47 AM 1680 Comments

Categories: Indie Rock and Stuff, Top 20

 

Who are these hipsters we see each day in the streets, on our Tumblr feeds, and on the local news? And why are so many in bands? It's not the mere existence of hipster groups that distresses us -- some of our best friends are hipsters, after all -- it's their lemming-like tendency to, if you'll pardon a mixed metaphor, ape each other.

 

On its surface hipsterdom seems to be an individuality-grab, but most of today's 20 and 30-something bands from Silver Lake and Williamsburg sound shockingly similar. They're all playing variations of retro garage and soul music -- or bringing glockenspiels and choirs on incestuous nationwide tours -- all the while clad in vintage garb likely infested with lice. We're not saying that they should be outlawed by, like, Congress or something. Just that they should be avoided. Here then, is our field guide to the worst offenders.

 

20 The Black Keys

19 TV On The Radio

18 Sleigh Bells

17 fun.

16 MGMT

15 Death Cab For Cutie

14 Wavves

13 The Decemberists

12 Pomplamoose

11 Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros

10 White Rabbits

09 Beach House

08 The Airborne Toxic Event

07 Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

06 Beirut

05 Grizzly Bear

04 Bright Eyes

03 Arcade Fire

02 tUnE-yArDs

01 Bon Iver

 

FULL ARTICLE

http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2012/08/worst_hipster_bands_all_time_c.php

I wonder who they think we should listen to.  Nickelback?

 

 

 

 

 

^I didn't know Zach Galifianakis was a Youtuber.

Instagram, ha.

 

I was so relieved that day when Instagram was down. I got a short break on facebook from seeing my friends taking Instagram pictures of their f-ing omelets they had for brunch.

I have friends who are GRAPHIC DESIGNERS and regularly use Instagram filters. That's just lazy.

>I'd argue what's going on in places like the Mission District

 

No good music has come out of San Francisco (the actual city) in generations...all of the prominent music that has come out of the Bay Area has usually been east bay towns.  Metallica, Primus, etc.  The east bay punk scene is unfortunately responsible for the birth of the entire pop punk genre that is sometimes mistakenly attributed to LA.  Operation Ivy was only a band for 18 months back around 1988 but somehow its whiney style rubbed off most notably on Green Day, who they played with at small-time punk rock venues early on.  Two members of Operation Ivy of course reformed as Rancid, which had a couple top 40 hits in the early 90s but like Green Day was a horrible, horrible band.  I'm astonished that Green Day is still around -- when they first went national, saying you liked Green Day was like saying you liked Nickelback.  When I was a freshman in college I saw some guys gang up on a girl and bring her to tears when they found out she liked Green Day.   

 

Mostly lost to hipsters is The Dead Kennedys, who were the real thing and their music still totally holds up.  East Bay Ray is a vastly underrated guitar player and songwriter.  The whole act is that THE POLITICAL SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES IS WAY WAY WAY CRAZIER THAN THIS BAND and that the people who fear this band and think it's going to destroy their lives don't understand THAT THE PEOPLE THEY TRUST ARE THE ONES WHO ARE ACTUALLY RUINING THEIR LIVES -- even sending them off to southeast asia to get killed:

Dead Kennedys - Holiday In Cambodia (1981)

 

Again, the whole hipster thing is actually class warfare.  I agree C-Dawg that there are at least two major things going on, one being disenfranchised people without access to real capital creating cultural capital, then wealthy people acting shaggy flaunting the fact they don't have to work. 

 

All items thought of as "culture" really can be broken down into two categories -- the culture (music, writing, etc.) that either seeks overthrow of an oppressor (negro spirituals, blues, punk rock) and celebration of a modest life lived nobly, OR the culture itself is the agent of the oppressor who uses beauty and myth to keep the nobody down in the gutter.  Disco is the most obvious agent of the oppressor, and so hipster stuff is actually disco. 

 

 

 

Operation Ivy is really far from the derivative pop punk following in the Green Day vein. Rancid might have been top-40s ready, but Op Ivy never was. I don't know if I would even consider them pop punk, their sound is more hardcore than that. Even though they did throw in the ska, which is another reason I would set them apart from Green Day.

 

This is probably their poppiest song, and it has way more interesting stuff going on than a typical pop punk song:

 

Just like Dead Kennedys, Op Ivy is a unique band with a unique sound.

 

I think the hipster movement, insofar as there is a coherent movement, is a big part of the democratization of music that has happened, where anyone with a laptop can record and edit/engineer an album. The whole blogrock scene is not fundamentally elitist, though some people are snobs about it.

 

I might add that anyone can dance to disco music. Personally, I can't stand it.

Here's a Dispatch article about hipsters. You can't really say that this was a hipster event (plenty of "normals" were there too), but to me it was strange to open up a paper and see an article treating hipsters so matter-of-fact-ly.

 

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/09/16/vibe-is-right-for-hipsters.html

 

The fact that you have to think so hard to psycho-analyze them and speculate their identity and culture tells me that you guys probably don't even know many (or any, personally) which makes your hatred towards them look even more ignorant.

 

You are correct, I do not know any personally (and there are few to know anyway, here in Dayton).  I just find the phenomenon intriquing, as an outside observer, and interesting in a historical and cultural/stylistic sense. 

 

 

 

 

 

Opeation Ivy had a great logo. 

 

Disco is the most obvious agent of the oppressor, and so hipster stuff is actually disco.

 

...except that it was developed by the oppressed.  What we saw mass marketed in the late 1970s had sort of underground orgins out of the gay scene,sort of an overlap of underground clubs/gay scene stuff....a bit like how house started...

 

 

 

So now disco and hipsters are really a form of class warfare?

 

Instead of oppressors and oppressed, maybe the division is really between creators and consumers?

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"

 

This thread could have stopped here.  Nothing of any value has been added since.

 

Instead of oppressors and oppressed, maybe the division is really between creators and consumers?

 

Yes, I think this is a good distinction.  There is a strong element of lifestyle consumption going on with the hipster trend.  There is the creative aspect, which would be the ironic appropriations and references in hipster style, and the style or pose becomes a commodity. 

 

 

Operation Ivy is really far from the derivative pop punk following in the Green Day vein. Rancid might have been top-40s ready, but Op Ivy never was. I don't know if I would even consider them pop punk, their sound is more hardcore than that. Even though they did throw in the ska, which is another reason I would set them apart from Green Day.

 

This is probably their poppiest song, and it has way more interesting stuff going on than a typical pop punk song:

 

Just like Dead Kennedys, Op Ivy is a unique band with a unique sound.

 

I think the hipster movement, insofar as there is a coherent movement, is a big part of the democratization of music that has happened, where anyone with a laptop can record and edit/engineer an album. The whole blogrock scene is not fundamentally elitist, though some people are snobs about it.

 

I might add that anyone can dance to disco music. Personally, I can't stand it.

Don't even go there about Disco.  What is your definition of Disco?

Americans generally have a very poor understanding of disco music besides what went on here from 1977-79.

maybe the division is really between creators and consumers?

 

Yeah, most professional artists aren't hipsters. They can't get away with it! The big-moneyed art events on the coasts are high brow, dress up affairs.

Americans generally have a very poor understanding of disco music besides what went on here from 1977-79.

 

Americans?  I think you mean non Americans.

maybe the division is really between creators and consumers?

 

Yeah, most professional artists aren't hipsters. They can't get away with it! The big-moneyed art events on the coasts are high brow, dress up affairs.

C-Dawg.......WTF?

>ust like Dead Kennedys, Op Ivy is a unique band with a unique sound.

 

The only similarities are that they're both from the bay area and both guitarists occasionally play sarcastic surf/Chuck Berry licks.  The Dead Kennedys were a much more sophisticated band in every respect. 

 

 

As for inheriting money vs. having to wash dishes, I always felt like the opening lines to the third verse of this song sum it up (1:59):

Velvet Underground Sweet Jane (Full Version) (HQ)

 

When he says it so deadpan, it illustrates what a cruel coin flip our family backgrounds are.

 

The whole song I think is I think how the wildly eclectic people who made up NYC's bohemian circle circa 1970 ruined each other.  The problem with the hipster thing is that the scenes are nowhere near as interesting as what was going on in NYC during that time.  There's this deep want for one's young adulthood to have the epic events of the Warhol/Velvet Underground crows but none of that can ever happen again. 

 

For whoever heard Ann Romney's Speech at the RNC I have a question:

 

Mitt accepted loans from his father. Ann claims that she and Mitt used the ironing board for a kitchen table and rented out a basement apartment for something like $60/month.

 

Does this make Mitt Romney a hipster?

For whoever heard Ann Romney's Speech at the RNC I have a question:

 

Mitt accepted loans from his father. Ann claims that she and Mitt used the ironing board for a kitchen table and rented out a basement apartment for something like $60/month.

 

Does this make Mitt Romney a hipster?

 

Damn that's touching and really humanizes Mitt.

...I highly doubt that ever happened.

interesting. yet another romney gaff, but not really based on his exaggerated lying there, they all do that. more based on the fact that he shouldn't bother with that kind of talk if the intention is pointed toward younger voters -- half of the the hipster demographic does not vote anyway and apparantly most of those younger people who do vote (not all of whom are hipsters of course) will likely go for obama again:

 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/154151/young-voters-back-obama-aren-poised-vote.aspx

 

all in all romney should just avoid the under 30 crowd at all cost and focus elsewhere. otoh it looks like obama should work a lot harder to rally those troops.

 

the politics of hipsterism -- don't ya love it?!

 

^What's this have to do with hipsters?  Is hipster just all young people, now?

^What's this have to do with hipsters?  Is hipster just all young people, now?

 

No they are dirty, un-kept, unemployed, young people! HA!