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Why is being a hipster seen as wanting to "oppose trends"? I would think all of thing things we associate with being a hipster. Those things are what attract t

by coned88 11y ago

Why is being a hipster seen as wanting to "oppose trends"? I would think all of thing things we associate with being a hipster. Those things are what attract these people and we later just called them hipsters to categorize. Hipsters aren't non conformists. They are conformists. The whole culture is the act in conforming to be like other hipsters.

qbrass 11y ago
They're opposing current trends because they want to follow the next trend. That makes them appear non-conformist to the general public, while they're conforming to other hipsters.
ap22213 11y ago
Is it just the hipsters that are the conformists? It seems like many of that generation are somewhat more conformist than I'm comfortable with.
parasubvert 11y ago
That's taking nonconformity to an absurd level. Most everyone is a conformist at some level, because we are social creatures that have our sub-cultures that help shape our identity, for better or worse. There are very few people that make their own clothes from raw material, people have to buy the cloth or the clothing itself from somewhere. Of course this tends towards clustering as the mainstream is by definition pretty broad, so it is visually easy to group together "people who wear weird/retro/custom clothes and hair styles" together. Yet if you polled hipsters, I'd bet a wide diversity on other opinions/tastes in music, art, film, issues. This goes for many sub-cultures, from goths, to metal heads, to punks, to yuppies or Bobos. Everyone mixes non-conformity at some level with conformity, especially when they link their tastes and opinions with their identity. Hipsters just happen to want to be identified for their non-conformity which is what makes them annoying to many people, as this rejects the value of a thing based on its relative popularity. We've seen elements of this in the past with Rock music fan's accusation of "sellouts" which is somewhat unique among music genres but makes total sense when the identity of being "Rock", for a portion of the fan base anyway, is to be in rebellion against The Man (with money and power). Hipsterism just takes this to the next level, valuing the relative obscurity of a thing above all other qualities. Except with the Internet, it's easy to find obscure things and popularize them... Among hipsters anyway. Leading us back to clustering.

by coned88 11y ago

qbrass 11y ago

They're opposing current trends because they want to follow the next trend. That makes them appear non-conformist to the general public, while they're conforming to other hipsters.

ap22213 11y ago

Is it just the hipsters that are the conformists? It seems like many of that generation are somewhat more conformist than I'm comfortable with.

parasubvert 11y ago

That's taking nonconformity to an absurd level. Most everyone is a conformist at some level, because we are social creatures that have our sub-cultures that help shape our identity, for better or worse. There are very few people that make their own clothes from raw material, people have to buy the cloth or the clothing itself from somewhere. Of course this tends towards clustering as the mainstream is by definition pretty broad, so it is visually easy to group together "people who wear weird/retro/custom clothes and hair styles" together. Yet if you polled hipsters, I'd bet a wide diversity on other opinions/tastes in music, art, film, issues. This goes for many sub-cultures, from goths, to metal heads, to punks, to yuppies or Bobos. Everyone mixes non-conformity at some level with conformity, especially when they link their tastes and opinions with their identity. Hipsters just happen to want to be identified for their non-conformity which is what makes them annoying to many people, as this rejects the value of a thing based on its relative popularity. We've seen elements of this in the past with Rock music fan's accusation of "sellouts" which is somewhat unique among music genres but makes total sense when the identity of being "Rock", for a portion of the fan base anyway, is to be in rebellion against The Man (with money and power). Hipsterism just takes this to the next level, valuing the relative obscurity of a thing above all other qualities. Except with the Internet, it's easy to find obscure things and popularize them... Among hipsters anyway. Leading us back to clustering.