4 ms·

There are so many different characteristics listed under that definition that virtually all young white people could be called a hipster to some degree. I stil

There are so many different characteristics listed under that definition that virtually all young white people could be called a hipster to some degree. I still disagree with the judgemental definition of hipster. You could call anyone wearing clothes that aren't totally unique "pastiche". Assuming they're wearing the clothes out of a sense of "irony" is projecting.

chrisseaton 8y ago
> There are so many different characteristics listed under that definition that virtually all young white people could be called a hipster to some degree. I think that's pretty common in social subcultures though isn't it? It's an indicative description of something that's emerged naturally. It's not a mathematical formula. If you want perfect that you'll need to give up trying to define cultures entirely.
- QuantumYeti 8y ago
  That's a good point, most subcultures aren't going to perfectly describe everyone in them. I think my problem with the Wikipedia definition is that it's so overly broad that it's virtually unfalsifiable if you're young and white. That wouldn't be bad by itself (it would just be a large category of people). I guess the reason it bugs me is because it is so broad and so commonly -- exclusively, in my personal experience -- used as a pejorative.
  - existencebox 8y ago
    "I think my problem with the Wikipedia definition is that it's so overly broad that it's virtually unfalsifiable if you're young and white" Not my experience whatsoever. Philadelphia public school growing up, we had young white kids who would have unambiguously fallen into categories of "Punk" "metalhead" "goth" "hood" to just name a few of the most cliched highschool-sitcom-but-actually groups. (there was even regular assertions that "hipster" and "scene" were different but that one never really grokked for me) Especially having lived east vs. west coast over the last decade, the assertion that there isn't a distinct subculture in a non-derogatory way that can be defined usefully as "hipster" doesn't ring true for me. And for the most part, even growing up, I never got the sense the grouping was malicious except in rare cases. Most kids would own their tastes (usually associated with music and dress) and would probably take insult if you confused their clique :P (And less in the "you just shit on me" way, but that could happen, more in the "how the hell could you confuse that" fashion, which implies to me that others saw the same clean voluntary-group-agglomeration that I saw.)
    - Nadya 8y ago
      Scene has always been a closer approximation to "colorful emo" (as opposed to "wears only black emo") and nothing like a hipster. Maybe Scene is used differently in other regions? Where I'm from it's basically "emo-style clothing but with colored hair and eccentric outfits". Just search for "scene hair" online to get an idea of the aesthetic. "Scene/emo" tends to be the description for a lot of scene or emo aesthetics and never "scene/hipster". Tangent on the whole emo discussion, I recently heard of "Midwest Emo Revival" after the "popular" emo subculture kinda faded from the coasts. Makes me wonder how different other subcultures can become when the popularity shifts regions or the "underground scene" gains more popularity. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo_revival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo_revival
      - existencebox 8y ago
        re: my confusion between scene and emo/hipster, I think it was largely that scene was "just becoming a thing" as I was graduating highschool so while those who were "Down with the kids" knew the new patterns, I was 200% tuned out by then. The descriptions you give seem to contextually fit where I've heard it used since. Re: subculture shifts and underground revivals, don't even get me started. I have a personal fascination in how what "goth" is has changed _so drastically_ over the last 30 years, (The Cure, david lynch/oingo boingo, then the explosion into cybergoth/punk, overlap with death metal, branches off into classical) Someday I'd love to read on someone who has made a study over how these shifts occur and propagate, largely with an eye for how technology has changed this in a post-internet age.
    - QuantumYeti 8y ago
      Why would they have "unambiguously" fallen into those categories? There's just this assumption that people who "look like that" don't listen to punk or metal, and it's just not true. People who listen to punk or metal can be young, white (I hate to harp on the white thing, it's just the way Wikipedia describes it), live in gentrified urban areas, buy clothes from the thrift store, buy vintage jackets. Lots of punks are vegan and live alternative lifestyles. All of those things are characteristics that supposedly identify someone as a hipster. If it seems like I'm cherry-picking, I'd ask how many of the characteristics need to be met for the categorization to be true. So I don't agree that they unambiguously fall into their own "punk" or "metalhead" categories. Maybe they self-identify as punk or metalhead, but that doesn't change the fact that the definition of hipster is so broad that their subcultures are a subset of it.

chrisseaton 8y ago

> There are so many different characteristics listed under that definition that virtually all young white people could be called a hipster to some degree. I think that's pretty common in social subcultures though isn't it? It's an indicative description of something that's emerged naturally. It's not a mathematical formula. If you want perfect that you'll need to give up trying to define cultures entirely.

QuantumYeti 8y ago
That's a good point, most subcultures aren't going to perfectly describe everyone in them. I think my problem with the Wikipedia definition is that it's so overly broad that it's virtually unfalsifiable if you're young and white. That wouldn't be bad by itself (it would just be a large category of people). I guess the reason it bugs me is because it is so broad and so commonly -- exclusively, in my personal experience -- used as a pejorative.
- existencebox 8y ago
  "I think my problem with the Wikipedia definition is that it's so overly broad that it's virtually unfalsifiable if you're young and white" Not my experience whatsoever. Philadelphia public school growing up, we had young white kids who would have unambiguously fallen into categories of "Punk" "metalhead" "goth" "hood" to just name a few of the most cliched highschool-sitcom-but-actually groups. (there was even regular assertions that "hipster" and "scene" were different but that one never really grokked for me) Especially having lived east vs. west coast over the last decade, the assertion that there isn't a distinct subculture in a non-derogatory way that can be defined usefully as "hipster" doesn't ring true for me. And for the most part, even growing up, I never got the sense the grouping was malicious except in rare cases. Most kids would own their tastes (usually associated with music and dress) and would probably take insult if you confused their clique :P (And less in the "you just shit on me" way, but that could happen, more in the "how the hell could you confuse that" fashion, which implies to me that others saw the same clean voluntary-group-agglomeration that I saw.)
  - Nadya 8y ago
    Scene has always been a closer approximation to "colorful emo" (as opposed to "wears only black emo") and nothing like a hipster. Maybe Scene is used differently in other regions? Where I'm from it's basically "emo-style clothing but with colored hair and eccentric outfits". Just search for "scene hair" online to get an idea of the aesthetic. "Scene/emo" tends to be the description for a lot of scene or emo aesthetics and never "scene/hipster". Tangent on the whole emo discussion, I recently heard of "Midwest Emo Revival" after the "popular" emo subculture kinda faded from the coasts. Makes me wonder how different other subcultures can become when the popularity shifts regions or the "underground scene" gains more popularity. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo_revival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo_revival
    - existencebox 8y ago
      re: my confusion between scene and emo/hipster, I think it was largely that scene was "just becoming a thing" as I was graduating highschool so while those who were "Down with the kids" knew the new patterns, I was 200% tuned out by then. The descriptions you give seem to contextually fit where I've heard it used since. Re: subculture shifts and underground revivals, don't even get me started. I have a personal fascination in how what "goth" is has changed _so drastically_ over the last 30 years, (The Cure, david lynch/oingo boingo, then the explosion into cybergoth/punk, overlap with death metal, branches off into classical) Someday I'd love to read on someone who has made a study over how these shifts occur and propagate, largely with an eye for how technology has changed this in a post-internet age.
  - QuantumYeti 8y ago
    Why would they have "unambiguously" fallen into those categories? There's just this assumption that people who "look like that" don't listen to punk or metal, and it's just not true. People who listen to punk or metal can be young, white (I hate to harp on the white thing, it's just the way Wikipedia describes it), live in gentrified urban areas, buy clothes from the thrift store, buy vintage jackets. Lots of punks are vegan and live alternative lifestyles. All of those things are characteristics that supposedly identify someone as a hipster. If it seems like I'm cherry-picking, I'd ask how many of the characteristics need to be met for the categorization to be true. So I don't agree that they unambiguously fall into their own "punk" or "metalhead" categories. Maybe they self-identify as punk or metalhead, but that doesn't change the fact that the definition of hipster is so broad that their subcultures are a subset of it.