The Story Behind the Buzzword

My best friend’s a hipster. Or at least that’s what I tell him, contrary to his vehement denial.

His denial is masked by the fact that he’s wildly intelligent, cultured, and likes to skim the The Wall Street Journal through thick-rimmed glasses. He is one of the first people I know to have seen Animal Collective perform live; he afterwards claimed that they were entirely unremarkable and is currently very bored by the likes of Avey Tare. And one day, while I was enjoying múm’s “Green Grass of Tunnel,” he casually remarked that Kría Brekkan happens to be fucking Avey Tare, as if it were common knowledge.

Moreover, his tasteful yet minimal wardrobe, consisting of a host of colorful tri-blend BDG v-necks and skinny jeans, could have come straight out of an American Apparel catalogue. And when it comes to his music preferences, eclectic just barely covers it. His perpetual fondness for David Bowie is only ever challenged by his long-time favorite metalcore band, Converge; however, he loves Lil Wayne and Explosions in the Sky just as much as the former.

Yet, he is not a hipster. No thanks. He just doesn’t "self-marginalize like that" nor is he an "attention whore." If anything, he’s a self-motivated finance student—pragmatic and over analytical—but bound for success.

So that really makes me wonder what the hell the buzzword “hipster” refers to anyways. Colloquially, it means “that guy with headphones and tight skinny jeans, smoking a Parliament.” As it has been informally adapted into the English language, it is a slang term for young adults who are somewhat nonconforming to mainstream aspects of society, such as fashion and culture (music, movies, and media). According to the 2009 TIME article, “Hipsters,” the term was first introduced in the 1940s, coined after the jazz age (when those who appreciated the scene were called “hip”), and revived in nineties and 21st century.

In the beginning, there were Beatniks, such as author Jack Kerouac and poet Allen Ginsberg. Hipsters of the Beat Generation, much like Kerouac, aimlessly traveled the country, bumming off of others and eating out of trashcans, hoping to derive some deeper meaning in life that way. These individuals then morphed into our well-known tree-hugging and peace-loving hippies of the 60s and 70s. They then died out for quite some time until the nineties grunge kids emerged, never short of all things retro or Converse sneakers. These pop culture movements have combined and merged into what we know today as modern hipsters.

According to the previously stated TIME article, "Hipsters are the friends who sneer when you cop to liking Coldplay. They're the people who wear t-shirts silk-screened with quotes from movies you've never heard of and the only ones in America who still think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good beer. They sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses. Everything about them is exactingly constructed to give off the vibe that they just don't care."

Furthermore, Rob Horning, the author of "The Death of the Hipster" in the webzine PopMatters, considers hipsters to be the "embodiment of postmodernism as a spent force, revealing what happens when pastiche and irony exhaust themselves as aesthetics." He claims that the term “hipster” is defined by a lack of authenticity, laden with capitalistic exploits and the constant selling out of alternative sources.

This is perhaps what my best friend thinks of the word hipster—someone who gives off an inauthentic image, constantly searching for some source of superficial personal identity.

On the other hand, Urban Dictionary tells me that “hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter.” This is also known as people who have good taste—people who explore politics, culture, art, music, or whatever it may be beyond the basic realm of what mainstream society has to offer.

So despite the somewhat negative connotation of the phony and uninspired individual, this is what I think of when I think hipster. So in that case, the fact that I believe my best friend to be a hipster still holds true. And not only that—Urban Dictionary tells me that hipsters always deny their hipsterdom. Case in point.