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I am so sick of this term "hipster". It has become watered down to the point of complete meaninglessness. I swear it has become a catchall for the world-of-wa

by blhack 14y ago

I am so sick of this term "hipster". It has become watered down to the point of complete meaninglessness. I swear it has become a catchall for the world-of-warcraft set to apply to anybody that doesn't spend their time playing video games. Ride a bike? HIPSTER! Wear jeans? HIPSTER! Listen to music? HIPSTER! Like art? HIPSTER! Enjoy non-sports-bars? HIPSTER! Drink coffee? HIPSTER! Like unpopular films? HIPSTER! It's ridiculous, and seeing people actually use this term as though "hipster" is a cohesive group is embarrassing. I drink PBR as my "stapble" beer. Why? Because it's cheap, and it tastes okay, and because I live in Arizona, and when I come inside from riding my bike (HIPSTER!) or walking my dog (hipster?) drinking some giant craft brew sounds terrible.

rm999 14y ago
Your criticism is off-base. Yes, some people have watered down the label hipster, but the communities this article discusses contain a much more pure form of hipster than what's entailed in the ordinary things you list. I spend a decent amount of time in Williamsburg and Bushwick, and a lot of the people there call themselves hipsters and live a lifestyle consistent with the stereotype. Your comment is analogous to complaining that Big Bang Theory has watered down the word 'nerd', so now someone can no longer extrapolate patterns he finds at MIT and comic-con and describe them as nerd culture. It's a bad argument because those labels still hold cultural meaning, regardless of how some people have abused the labels.
- resu_nimda 14y ago
  > Your comment is analogous to complaining that Big Bang Theory has watered down the word 'nerd', so now someone can no longer extrapolate patterns he finds at MIT and comic-con and describe them as nerd culture. I don't see how the second clause follows from the first. Maybe it's just different definitions of "watered down." I think things like Big Bang Theory and the assimilation of nerd culture into the mainstream have watered it down, and are analogous. MIT and comic-con are still nerd culture, but now all these other things are too, so that when you say the word "nerd" to someone, you have no idea what it means to them. It could be "true nerd culture" or anything else. Words like nerd and hipster used to have meaning; in other words, they were controversial, polarizing terms that triggered emotional responses and strong opinions. Now they're very general and common descriptions, that's what is meant by watered down.
peterwwillis 14y ago
One way to prove you're not a hipster is to be so out of touch with the definition of a hipster that you'd generalize that badly. Here, let me fix your list: Ride a fixie? Wear tight pants? Listen to indie/obscure music? Finished one semester at an art school? Love dive bars? Live in seattle? Enjoy art-house and indie films? You're probably a hipster.
resu_nimda 14y ago
Hipster has become a ubiquitous and largely non-pejorative term. Watered down is a good description. Yes, all of those things are hipster, and yes, some people are still angry about it. But, for the most part, it's just a word that describes a cultural subset that has widened greatly. Over the past few years I've transitioned from "ugh hipsters" to "yeah you could say I'm a hipster." This has been my experience, in Austin.
pettazz 14y ago
> for the world-of-warcraft set to apply to anybody that doesn't spend their time playing video games "I hate how all video game players generalize everyone else."
aqme28 14y ago
It's a catch-all term for people who don't fit cleanly into one of the other archetypes 20-somethings still somehow get labelled as (such as jock or nerd or prep).
waterlesscloud 14y ago
I knew this was going to be the top comment on this story. I'm a comment hipster.
- JPKab 14y ago
  I was commenting on this link before it was posted. Posted comments are SOOO mainstream....
JPKab 14y ago
Miller High Life blows PBR away, FYI, and you can get it anywhere in the US. Its also cheaper than PBR, hipster. :) In all seriousness, its a catch-all term, and I agree with you. Now go drink some High Life, put on some looser jeans, and go to a sports bar. And your fixed gear bicycle is an insult to the history of engineering.
- freiheit 14y ago
  They're made in the same plants.
rhizome 14y ago
Then why do you care whether the term "hipster" is meaningless?
josefresco 14y ago
"I swear it has become a catchall for the world-of-warcraft set to apply to anybody that doesn't spend their time playing video games." I'm honestly confused. How did we start at hipsters and beer and end up with WoW players insulting non-video game players? How are the two related at all? I'm guessing (wildly) you play WoW with older 30somethings who call you a hipster? I really have no idea, so someone please inform me if I'm off-base in my confusion about the connection between the two.
farinasa 14y ago
Of course this comment would show up. We get it. People overuse the word. You're offended because someone used it on you once and you only loosely fit the description. Instead of muddling the comments of every post that contains the word hipster simply because you take offense, at least have something to contribute to the discussion. The same thing happened with punk, goth, emo, and now hipster. It will happen again. Either get used to it or actively avoid participating in the things that people stereotype as hipster. Since that is nearly impossible, just get used to it. People who get offended by labels are just as ignorant as those that use them. And before you get all offended, you might want to think of every time you tried to label someone else as anything. It can be as simple as black, white, programmer, etc.

by blhack 14y ago

rm999 14y ago

Your criticism is off-base. Yes, some people have watered down the label hipster, but the communities this article discusses contain a much more pure form of hipster than what's entailed in the ordinary things you list. I spend a decent amount of time in Williamsburg and Bushwick, and a lot of the people there call themselves hipsters and live a lifestyle consistent with the stereotype. Your comment is analogous to complaining that Big Bang Theory has watered down the word 'nerd', so now someone can no longer extrapolate patterns he finds at MIT and comic-con and describe them as nerd culture. It's a bad argument because those labels still hold cultural meaning, regardless of how some people have abused the labels.

resu_nimda 14y ago
> Your comment is analogous to complaining that Big Bang Theory has watered down the word 'nerd', so now someone can no longer extrapolate patterns he finds at MIT and comic-con and describe them as nerd culture. I don't see how the second clause follows from the first. Maybe it's just different definitions of "watered down." I think things like Big Bang Theory and the assimilation of nerd culture into the mainstream have watered it down, and are analogous. MIT and comic-con are still nerd culture, but now all these other things are too, so that when you say the word "nerd" to someone, you have no idea what it means to them. It could be "true nerd culture" or anything else. Words like nerd and hipster used to have meaning; in other words, they were controversial, polarizing terms that triggered emotional responses and strong opinions. Now they're very general and common descriptions, that's what is meant by watered down.

peterwwillis 14y ago

One way to prove you're not a hipster is to be so out of touch with the definition of a hipster that you'd generalize that badly. Here, let me fix your list: Ride a fixie? Wear tight pants? Listen to indie/obscure music? Finished one semester at an art school? Love dive bars? Live in seattle? Enjoy art-house and indie films? You're probably a hipster.

resu_nimda 14y ago

Hipster has become a ubiquitous and largely non-pejorative term. Watered down is a good description. Yes, all of those things are hipster, and yes, some people are still angry about it. But, for the most part, it's just a word that describes a cultural subset that has widened greatly. Over the past few years I've transitioned from "ugh hipsters" to "yeah you could say I'm a hipster." This has been my experience, in Austin.

pettazz 14y ago

> for the world-of-warcraft set to apply to anybody that doesn't spend their time playing video games "I hate how all video game players generalize everyone else."

aqme28 14y ago

It's a catch-all term for people who don't fit cleanly into one of the other archetypes 20-somethings still somehow get labelled as (such as jock or nerd or prep).

waterlesscloud 14y ago

I knew this was going to be the top comment on this story. I'm a comment hipster.

JPKab 14y ago
I was commenting on this link before it was posted. Posted comments are SOOO mainstream....

JPKab 14y ago

Miller High Life blows PBR away, FYI, and you can get it anywhere in the US. Its also cheaper than PBR, hipster. :) In all seriousness, its a catch-all term, and I agree with you. Now go drink some High Life, put on some looser jeans, and go to a sports bar. And your fixed gear bicycle is an insult to the history of engineering.

freiheit 14y ago
They're made in the same plants.

rhizome 14y ago

Then why do you care whether the term "hipster" is meaningless?

josefresco 14y ago

"I swear it has become a catchall for the world-of-warcraft set to apply to anybody that doesn't spend their time playing video games." I'm honestly confused. How did we start at hipsters and beer and end up with WoW players insulting non-video game players? How are the two related at all? I'm guessing (wildly) you play WoW with older 30somethings who call you a hipster? I really have no idea, so someone please inform me if I'm off-base in my confusion about the connection between the two.

farinasa 14y ago

Of course this comment would show up. We get it. People overuse the word. You're offended because someone used it on you once and you only loosely fit the description. Instead of muddling the comments of every post that contains the word hipster simply because you take offense, at least have something to contribute to the discussion. The same thing happened with punk, goth, emo, and now hipster. It will happen again. Either get used to it or actively avoid participating in the things that people stereotype as hipster. Since that is nearly impossible, just get used to it. People who get offended by labels are just as ignorant as those that use them. And before you get all offended, you might want to think of every time you tried to label someone else as anything. It can be as simple as black, white, programmer, etc.