Deconstructing the Hipster
I was recently invited to an art show opening at a large Soho gallery where a friend’s work was being exhibited. I found most of the paintings, drawings and photographs on display quite interesting, with some exceptions. After a while, I noticed that most of the people surrounding me in the gallery were more interested in sucking down the free caipirnhas and chatting with their friends than enjoying and discussing the art. And it should come as little surprise to many of you that the majority of those chatting away and ignoring the art were hipsters. Yes, that dreaded word.
Hipsters are often reduced by critics to the style of clothes they wear and the type of music they listen to, but that’s only half the story. Hipsters are usually not artists, poets or musicians, but they frequent the right clubs, and wear the right clothes. They are obsessed with fashion fads, drink fads, music fads — all things that the old-school hipsters shunned. The original hipsters of the 40s and 50s listened to jazz, smoked reefers, took peyote in the desert, and wrote poetry about the atom bomb. By the late 60s, being a hippie was just a fashion statement. Many hippie wanabees were under the impression that if you took enough LSD, you could become a real poet. The Bohemian lifestyle was simply another costume one could wear in public. The same thing happened to the punk subculture in the late 70s and early 80s. When people start to lose any sense of individual style and identity, the original terms lose their meanings — which is how ‘beats’ became ‘beatniks’ and Maynard G. Krebs became a household name.
The term ‘beat’ was coined by petty thief and drug addict Herbert Huncke who used the word to describe being down on your luck. To put it another way: you gotta pay your dues before you can sing the blues. It’s no wonder then that Beat Generation icon William S. Burroughs was embarrassed to tell his friends he received a monthy allowance from his family trust fund. Today’s hipsters are often spoiled trust fund kids who are so insecure, they can’t allow themselves to dance at rock shows (sans ecstasy), or even applaud after witnessing a good musical performance. So obsessed are they with being on the cutting edge of style or music, that once the general public embraces a certain band or fashion, it’s ridiculed. For the original hipster, turning people on to what they considered cool was a manifesto. Teenagers in the 60s were excited that The Beatles were not only bending the rules of rock music, but also forcing the ‘establishment’ to pay attention to the restless youth culture around the world.
What motivated me to write this post was a recent Time Out New York cover which read in large black letters: The Hipster Must Die! I was intrigued that such a magazine seemed to be biting the hand that feeds. The first cover article must have been written by someone born in the 80s. How else can one explain using the term “Elvis Costello glasses” to describe those square black plastic frames made famous by Buddy Holly? Such is the problem when a member of the current youth scene tries to look back and deconstruct the history behind their own fad-ridden scene. The inclusion of Kurt Cobain and ‘grunge culture’ is also rather odd. As someone born only a few years before Cobain, I can tell you that wearing long hair, plaid shirts and ripped jeans in High School was anti-fashion, and anti-cool. To quote The Bunny Brains: “Kurt saw the future and it wore designer plaid, and that disgusted him.”
In the Time Out lead article, a real estate broker explains that “the profile of the typical (Lower East Side) renter in the area is changing from the ‘counterculture hipster’ to the ‘more mainstream’ hipster and young professional.” In a series of interviews with old-school hipsters, Stephanie Stone explains that “New York is losing its diversity, all because of the mighty dollar. It’s pretty sad.” Just take a quick walk up and down Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and you will understand why the Polish immigrants in Greenpoint are so angry about the hipster invasion. They have lived in Greenpoint for generations, and now they see rents going up and old businesses closing.
So, can ‘New York Cool’ be saved? Naw. I guess it’s time to move to Buffalo where they have a real alternative art and music scene. Oh, and the hipsters there are actually friendly to everyone, not just those who spend half their paychecks at Urban Outfitters.
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