- In February, director Spike Lee delivered an impassioned critique - derisively characterised as a "rant" by US media outlets - on the gentrification of New York city. Arguing that an influx of "... hipsters" had driven up rent in most neighbourhoods - and in turn driven out the African-American communities that once called them home - he noted how long-dormant city services suddenly reappeared:
"Why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the south Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better? The garbage wasn't picked up every ... day when I was living in 165 Washington Park... So, why did it take this great influx of white people to get the schools better? Why's there more police protection in Bed Stuy and Harlem now? Why's the garbage getting picked up more regularly? We been here!"
The article takes a nosedive when it starts trying to talk intelligently about conservatives, liberals and ridesharing, but the beginning is great.
My experience with gentrification has not been racial. Downtown Seattle was gentrified by MicroSerfs, who drove out the art community. North Hollywood was (sort of) gentrified by "hipsters" for lack of a better word, who drove out the gangs (Armenian and Mexican - Archie Bunker can be racist against both, but it's a stretch for most casual haterz, besides, without those two there's, like, zero food worth eating in Los Angeles). Not to say it doesn't happen, but to say it's not the exclusive cause.
Outside of racism, gentrification is driven by capital. People buy fixer-upper houses. They also move into fixer-upper neighborhoods. And while the old residents can't afford the taxes necessary to rebuild the sidewalks, the new residents get strident about it. Eventually, you hit a critical mass where the new residents get their way and the old residents are priced out. OR, the old residents start making the new residents feel unwelcome and someone cries "class/race war."
So that's the Ockham's Razor take - "Gentrification is driven by money." That's pretty much what we decided back when we moved the clubs from downtown to Belltown. Then they got too expensive so we moved them to Ballard. Then Ballard got too expensive so we moved 'em to Sodo. We'll probably move 'em back downtown in another few years. "Gentrification."
It's worth looking at the page of the art mentioned in the article. That shit ain't hidin' jack. It's hitting it with a highlighter.
It almost seems as if the author has an axe to grind and is perfectly happy to tailor the facts to fit the narrative.
He never says anything remarkable anytime he speaks out in public. Usually just tired, overreaching diatribes against whatever injustice he is feeling at the moment. That's why I ignore him, not because he is talentless, nor did I insinuate that you should ignore someone because they are talentless. I didn't realize there was different heights of stupidity either, I guess you have a little catalogue for that sort of bullshit.
"Hipster" is a pejorative like "douchebag" or "nerd." It is a venn diagram of characteristics in which "you" and "people you hate" overlap, creating a person just enough like you to aggravate but just enough unlike you to be dismissive.
This is why there will never be a "hard boiled" definition - a hipster is someone you don't like, for reasons that are best left unsaid, because the reasons aren't important, the dislike is.
- "Hipster" is a pejorative like "douchebag" or "nerd."
It's funny how these terms go from positive to negative and back again.
In 04-05, some of my friends proudly referred to themselves as hipsters.
My middle-school aged son says it's cool to be a nerd now.
I guess douchebag is what it is though….
The newest one is neckbeard, and I think that really puts the "like you but not enough" concept into perspective.
Like, what the fuck is a neckbeard. No one has ever met a "real" one in real life, because it's just a catch-all term. Same with "social justice warriors."
It's freaky how the internet can just do that with labels.
Oh, I dunno. There are true neckbeards in Seattle. Thing is, there isn't that much endemically wrong with them. I mean, Lincoln was a neckbeard. Up where I knew 'em, a "neckbeard" was more likely to be into Steampunk and likely had a BMI over 30. You're right, though, "basement-dwelling neckbeard" is a highly refined sobriquet, just like "teenaged crack-whore welfare mom." There's probably a couple out there somewhere, but they aren't hell-bent on voting for Obama, they're hell-bent on turning tricks for cocaine.
Before you call hipsterism a fad, consider this comment from kleinbl00. Hipsters are our version of '60s counterculture, which was their version of the beats, which was their version of the Horatio Alger prototype -- the noble tramp. Etc.
- The kids are all right. That "social safety net" described in the linked article is a strawman. It's not steady-state. For one thing, unemployment doesn't last forever (trust me, I know). For another, the United States is busily dealing with "structural unemployment" - a lovely technical term for "jobs that are not coming back ever." It's going to be a long slow decline. Part of it is caused by those very "hipsters" - they don't buy much. They don't need cars. They use "irony" as an excuse to shop at thrift stores (hey, whatever works!). They support "hipster" restaurants, which is code for "keeps money closer to the point of sale" (85% of money generated by a franchise restaurant leaves the zip code of the franchise). And they deeply believe in the shit they buy, to a zealous degree. It's not exactly an anti-consumer mantra, but it certainly protects the local at the expense of the global.
- Bill McKibben (GenX) argues in Eaarth that the way forward is distinctly hipster-like: Travel less, buy less, eat local whenever possible, use less energy and cultivate online relationships. Shannon Hayes (GenX) argues in Radical Homemakers that the way forward is to freeload until you have enough resources to live self-sufficiently off your own land.
--
Fuck aiming for uniqueness. I'm going to aim to live as simply and cheaply as possible so that I can enjoy my youth to the greatest extent. Maybe this means that next time I travel I figure out long distance carpooling and hostels instead of flying to a hotel. Maybe it means I spend a lot of my time in a free coffeeshop bumming wifi and occasionally making someone a drink to assuage my guilt. Could mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. But it's not a fad to everyone; I can guarantee you to some of us it's a lifestyle, and as kb mentions, it's a reaction to circumstances beyond gen x's control.
- Don't you believe that the 60's counter culture was probably more extreme than our said modern version of it now?
More extreme, much less pervasive.
- I guess you can almost say that being hipster is a label young generations aim for because it allows them to fit in
This is not remotely what I said.
Why? Income inequality ain't going away. This generational problem we supposedly have, of making less money than are parents did or whatever, that's here to stay. Most "hipsters" who actually embody what the average person thinks a "hipster" is are a lot older than you might guess anyway.
It's not a fad it's a reactionary -- and often necessary -- lifestyle.
You are all defining a hipster in one way and I am defining it in another. I think.
I think -- if you have to use the word at all -- it's best to define hipsters by their actions, as kb does in the bits of his post that I quoted above. People who have responded to changing social and labor conditions by reducing their "footprint." I'm not saying that's how almost anyone uses that term, but that's my best definition and the way I (and some people I know) use it.
And it seems to me a compliment; unfortunately the word as discussed above has become inherently pejorative.
This discussion took me back to my hipster chicken post https://hubski.com/pub?id=91192 . I was in retrospect pretty tired of hearing about hipsters that week and maybe went a bit deep.
I remember that wonderful post. I agree wholeheartedly with:
- So maybe these chicken keepers in my neighborhood aren't "hipsters" because they have kept chickens for many years, they are doing it to provide food not because it's the "hip" thing to do. Maybe it's the people who keep chickens and give them up who are "hipsters."
When I use the word 'hipster', as I have tried poorly to explain in this thread, I am using it in a complimentary way to describe the former group. People who keep chickens because, fuck it, it's cheaper and almost certainly less morally bankrupt than buying eggs every week. They have reacted to a certain part of society -- in this case, maybe, our fucked up food industry -- and found an 'alternative' solution. For which they are labeled hipsters. But there ain't nothing wrong with that.
My mom's friends give her some crap for raising chickens. But then they ask for eggs because 'They're just so much better!' Luckily our small flock is productive enough that it's no trouble to give somebody a half dozen every now and then, but the hypocrisy is astonishing.
Frankly, I would call the successful ones "hippies" and the ones who abandon their chickens "hipsters." I don't see a lot of hipster-dom as a genuine movement, more of a reaction to pop culture that has a lot more to do with obscure music, fixies, cigarettes, and fashion. Oh, and drinking - copious drinking and general drug use. I mean, I was in college with hipsters when the trend exploded and maybe that's part of why I have this perception. I think my friends who were hipsters have in some cases gone on and done things that are true to the underlying personality, such as move to New York City ( a lot of them), start working at farms or co-ops, and so on, but I also don't know if they would still identify themselves as hipsters.
Link leads to a blank page. Think I remember that post, but wouldn't mind reading again.