To begin by quoting the article “Why The Hipster Must Die” by Christian Lorentzen, printed in Time Out New York on June 5:
“Under the guise of ’irony,’ hipsterism fetishizes the authentic and regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity. Those 18-to-34-year-olds called hipsters have defanged, skinned and consumed the fringe movements of the postwar era—Beat, hippie, punk, even grunge. Hungry for more, and sick with the anxiety of influence, they feed as well from the trough of the uncool, turning white trash chic, and gouging the husks of long-expired subcultures—vaudeville, burlesque, cowboys and pirates.”
The Hipster identity thrives on narcissism and self-indulgence, enabling the denial of any involvement in the processes and policies that support their lifestyle. The Hipster’s self-indulgent fantasy prevents them from acknowledging their role in white supremacist capitalism, allowing them to build a guilt-free identity based on the consumption of its products. Obsessed with outward appearance, Hipsters value fashion “statements” which advertise (or perhaps mask) their personality to others. Often, clothing displays ironic slogans taken from gift-shop novelty mugs, or contain a reference to an obscure or outdated product of popular culture. Also, so-called “vintage” clothing stores are frequented, where pants sold for a dollar in some garage sale are marked up many times its value in a thrift outlet. To take such care in constructing an image of carelessness betrays a poverty-fetish that is manifested in other aspects of the Hipster.
The phenomenon of Hipster Gentrification is a testament to this. It is most visible in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Previously a community of Polish immigrants, Williamsburg has been flooded with Hipsters seeking a grimy, artsy, “indie” scene, which is advertised in the popular L Magazine (so named for the infamous L train). The demand for such a playground is so great that apartment prices in Williamsburg have skyrocketed, and the neighboring Bedford-Stuyvesant area (a previously lower-class Black and Latino neighborhood) has been coined “East Williamsburg” to attract the young and hip to former slums. Where do the displaced families go when their rent goes through the roof?
Hipsters sure won’t know, or care for that matter, because they are too busy consuming in the trendiest place on earth while the economy plummets. Trends are the lifeblood of Hipsters, who spare no expense to be the first to mimic the newest, hottest thing. These trends are designed to have a high rate of turnover, because a given trend is only in style so long as it is exclusive to a handful. As soon as too many people have access to this trend, because of reduced price or simply the passage of time, it falls out of style into the dreaded category of cliché. This “hot race” is run without meaningful self-reflection because it is a necessary prerequisite for participation, and participation does not include originality or creativity except in the method of appropriating cultural products.
Counter-intuitively, half-hearted and shallow self-reflection actually is actually a core value of Hipster identity. This is evident in the prevalent use of dispassionate irony in Hipster culture, which recognizes the existence of certain hetero and inalbo-normative constructs (norms that whiten) which are fashionable to challenge, while simultaneously commodifying such acts. This commodification of contrarianism is a credit to the capitalist system, which has succeeded in harnessing angsty adolescent pseudo-rebellion for profit. In Hipsters, the human desire to impact one’s environment has been perverted by capitalism into a preoccupation with self-modification through self-indulgence.
The heavy use of mind-altering drugs, both prescription and illicit, serves the purpose of altering one’s perception of an environment as a lazy alternative to actually changing anything. It is important to note here that Hipster drug use is not a coping behavior to distract from repeated thwarted and/or brutally repressed attempts to change one’s circumstances or environment, a behavior that occurs in demographics that lack capitol and agency. At the heart of the Hipster drug fad is a fundamental attitude of resignation (and therefore collaboration through silence) toward the white capitalist establishment, an attitude that also lurks behind the pseudo-conscious display of dispassionate irony.
Initial passivity inevitably leads to active support of white supremacist capitalism through the compulsive consumption of “Lifestyle.” The revenue generated by spending is then taxed by the government and funneled into the execution of repressive policies at home and abroad. Not to mention that many of the items purchased are assembled by child-laborers, “happily” working in “well-paid positions” making Gap clothes, among others.
In spite of these and other cruel realities, the Hipster has been conditioned by white supremacist capitalism from his or her first seven minutes of television to be concerned with the superficial above all else, to prostrate themselves by altering their perception of the world for peace-of-mind, and to impulsively buy expensive crap—the most recent among many seduced by shiny things into complicity with machine-gunning whichever community of color has the most profitable raw materials to make all the things they crave.
The Hipster is a tragically ironic figure, a pawn only spared from true villain-hood by ignorance. I know that no one will be offended by this Wespeak, because true Hipsters shrink from identifying themselves as such, so that only other people can be Hipsters.
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