Hipster Subculture: Revolutionary or Meaningless?
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- Category: History: People
- Date Submitted: 11/03/2015 03:59 PM
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Alison Rogers (357 374), Subcultural Studies (CULS40005), Research Essay: Hipsters. Question: What is a Hipster? What do they stand for? Where do they come from? And why does everyone hate them so much?
Hipster Subculture: Revolutionary or Meaningless?
Hipsters as they are currently recognized are a relatively new phenomenon. The term itself is much older than the current trend, with the term “hipster” going back as far as the 1940s. Yet the hipster as it is currently known began to populate the world’s major Western cities in around 1999, and their emergence – and whether or not they still exist – is a topic of ongoing debate. The hipster is a fluid subject; everybody seems to know what a hipster is, yet no one can come up with a reliable definition. Articles on hipsters demonstrate the disdain with which this subculture is regarded and titles such as Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization (Haddow) and Why the Hipster Must Die (Lorentzen) dominate the discourse. Hipsterism is symptomatic of postmodernism and as such is a subculture plagued by derivative identifiers and self-referential signifiers. Hipsters are inauthentic and that seems to be what everyone finds so annoying about them. I have been labelled a hipster myself once or twice, and have even acknowledged this label. That is why this subculture interests me so much. I know that I am not completely immersed in this subculture, but I certainly have my feet in the waters. I intend to research the hipster from what I perceive as a unique perspective, as one who can identify with the scene and whose exposure is more than simply research-based. Women will be a particular focal point of this essay, not merely because I am one, but because there is a suggestion that women are the underdogs of the subculture. The purpose of this essay will be to examine the hipster scene while drawing particular attention to the women found within the scene to examine who holds the balance of power. This essay will...
Hipster Subculture: Revolutionary or Meaningless?
Hipsters as they are currently recognized are a relatively new phenomenon. The term itself is much older than the current trend, with the term “hipster” going back as far as the 1940s. Yet the hipster as it is currently known began to populate the world’s major Western cities in around 1999, and their emergence – and whether or not they still exist – is a topic of ongoing debate. The hipster is a fluid subject; everybody seems to know what a hipster is, yet no one can come up with a reliable definition. Articles on hipsters demonstrate the disdain with which this subculture is regarded and titles such as Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization (Haddow) and Why the Hipster Must Die (Lorentzen) dominate the discourse. Hipsterism is symptomatic of postmodernism and as such is a subculture plagued by derivative identifiers and self-referential signifiers. Hipsters are inauthentic and that seems to be what everyone finds so annoying about them. I have been labelled a hipster myself once or twice, and have even acknowledged this label. That is why this subculture interests me so much. I know that I am not completely immersed in this subculture, but I certainly have my feet in the waters. I intend to research the hipster from what I perceive as a unique perspective, as one who can identify with the scene and whose exposure is more than simply research-based. Women will be a particular focal point of this essay, not merely because I am one, but because there is a suggestion that women are the underdogs of the subculture. The purpose of this essay will be to examine the hipster scene while drawing particular attention to the women found within the scene to examine who holds the balance of power. This essay will...