Individuality and Hipster Culture: On Self-Contained Hobbies and Interests
I hate hipsters.
I know, only hipsters say that. Maybe that’s true. Maybe I’m a hipster for saying it. If that’s the case, I hate myself, too. Everything about hipster culture, the faux uniqueness, the hollow caricature of zaniness, the idiosyncratic absurdity of “authenticity.” There is no subculture or cultural identity I loathe more than contemporary hipster-ness.
And yet…I might be a hipster.
I lack the skinny jeans, the mustache tattoo on my index figure, the plaid or checkered shirts, the thick glasses, the vintage clothing or obsession with antiques and many other of the trademark staples of hipster culture. Yet, I appreciate style, authenticity, experience and uniqueness. Mark Greif, writing for New York Magazine in 2010, argues that “the term <hipster> has always possessed adequately lucid definitions…because everyone affiliated with the term has a stake in keeping it murky.” Given that it’s increasingly difficult to define hipster outside the larger images and stereotypes that come to mind, I fail to label myself one way or another.
The hipster culture is discussed in “The 21st Century Hipster: On Micro-Populations in Times of Superdiversity” by Ico Maly and Piia Varis of Tilsburg University, a public research university in the Netherlands. Maly and Varis argue that hipster culture “relies on specific identity and authenticity discourses” and ultimately is embodied in “a perfect instantiation of this: a translocal, polycentric, layered and stratified micro-population that is not only visible in style and infrastructures, but also constantly (re)produced through identity-authenticity discourses.” They go on to state, “‘Being real’ thus means having a discourse regarding the authenticity of one’s choices. It is, however, essential to keep in mind that (1) what is seen as authentic and ‘real’ in one context is not necessarily so in another, and (2) the more globalized the hipster indexicals become, the more elaborate identity discourse is needed to be able to employ them as authentic, individual choice.”
Perhaps the larger debate roaring in my head is between structuralism and post-structuralism, as I continue to wrestle with my own identity. In any case, that’s a think piece for another day.
To bring this back to something more easily digestible, let me put it this way. Here are some (arguably, given the discrepancies that exist in defining it) key tokens of hipster culture that I personally partake in:
Craft coffee: I’m still relatively new to the coffee scene, and I also proudly own stock in Starbucks. However, I own a french press, moka pot and pour over, and am a frequent patron of local, “craft” coffee shops.
Craft beer: I pride myself in the fact that I’ve never consumed Coors Light, Natural Light or Budweiser in my life. Every beer I’ve ever consumed originated from a brewery that sits comfortably within the confines of “craft” with the exception of the few Heinekens I’ve had.
Vinyl records: I started collecting vinyls when I was 13 and now own over 100 records. I have everything from vintage Frank Sinatra and Rolling Stones albums, to contemporary albums from artists such as Charles Bradley, Of Monsters and Men and the like. I am a true believer that vinyls sounds better and promotes a more concentrated venue.
Foodie: I’ve never called myself a foodie, but a few others have used that term for me. I don’t generally enjoy eating at chain restaurants unless I need something quick or cheap, and 90 percent of the food I buy is from Natural Grocers or Whole Foods, and I do my best to buy local or farm-to-table.
So am I a hipster? Traditionally, I’ve added the concept of “spite” into my definition of hipster culture. Hipsters drink craft coffee as a means to reject flagship, mainstream brands such as Maxwell House or Folgers. Hipsters drink local beer as a way to flip off Anheuser-Busch. Hipsters buy vinyls so they can reject the mainstream medium of MP3s, Spotify and iTunes (hell, even Spotify was hipster at one point, debuting in its earliest stages in the American market as an obscure, European brand). This spite is the foundation for a kind of rebel consumer in a rebel culture. A hipster adopts the countercultural consumption (but generally not the countercultural politics) as a statement on authenticity and individuality. Rather than being a “sheep” or a archetype consumer, this rebellious hipster takes to doing everything differently for the sake of being different.
That’s the core reason why I reject hipster-ism. To reject the mainstream for the sake of individuality is as much as a rejection of individuality as anything else; in order to reject the mainstream, one must take the archetype of a mainstream person (culturally and/or politically speaking) to which a comparison is drawn, and do the opposite. There is nothing unique or authentic about that. Even worse, hipster-culture is usually saturated in uniformity and gentrification, turning run-down sections of cities into high-end, upper middle class havens for privileged, plaid-laden white people to flock to in search of coffee houses, gastropubs and overpriced condos turned Airbnbs.
Yet, I have to admit that maybe some of my angst is rooted in the uncomfortable notion that I find so much of that hipster culture attractive. I don’t consciously (and I’d argue unconsciously, though perhaps I’d need a hell of a lot more psychotherapy to be sure) partake in my craft coffee, beer and vinyl-record hobbies to spite any kind of mainstream notion of what it means to be “cultured.” The only reason I reject mainstream political narratives and mainstream legacy brands (from airlines to department stores to food and pretty much everything in between) is because I truly believe that they are inferior to others. I pick Main Root cola over Coca-Cola because (1) Main Root tastes better and (2) Main Root uses Fair Trade certified sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup. I pick locally-roasted coffee over Folgers because it’s definitively better and fresher. I listen to vinyls over MP3s because it’s a higher fidelity medium and requires me to sit down and relax while I listen, resulting in a more wholesome listening experience (though to be sure I listen to an absurd amount of music via Spotify, as well). I don’t do what I do out of spite, and that’s what makes me feel exempt from the “hipster” label. But I am choosing to incorporate the concept of “spite” into my definition of hipster, so perhaps according to others, I am a hipster nonetheless.
As a dear friend of mine put it, “We’re all just performing identity with cultural markers. Hipsters try to pretend they aren’t doing that, but there’s no way to exist outside of a cultural identification.” Which brings me to my final point. I like to think that what I do is “right”, i.e. a lifestyle that pursues authenticity, goodness and wholesomeness. Other people believe differently, and sometimes we struggle to admit that that’s okay. In a very powerful chapter (chapter nine, to be precise) in Rising Strong by Brene Brown, Brown wrestles with the question of “Are people doing the best they can?” It’s a fascinating thought experiment, to think rudest customer you’ve witnessed and think that the rude customer in question was “doing their best.” Could you bring yourself to empathize with a person whom you just witnessed scream at a cashier or insult a waiter?
All that to say, I believe people are doing their best. We all struggle with identity, some of us more than others. We all want to be unique yet we all want to feel commonality. We want to be “cool” but we may not want attention. We all want to be special, yet by definition, no one would be special in such a world. People will be who they will be. We often fulfill the stereotypes and the roles in which we find ourselves, an idea famously supported by Philip Zimbardo’s prison experiment. It’s easy to think that “everyone else” is just fulfilling their own ideas of their role(s), but it’s much bigger than that; we’re all searching for, struggling to create and building our own identities on a daily basis. I don’t really care if some people think I’m a hipster and I am trying to do my best not to care to think of others as hipsters (or any other stereotype). I’m doing my best and I believe others are, too. I have my interests and hobbies and I just want to share those with the people that matter most to me.