Came across this great article on adbusters today, which describes hipsterdom as "the end product of all other countercultures, stripped of its subversion and originality." Douglas Haddow writes, "An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society....We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new."
To be perfectly honest, I have to agree. These thoughts have been floating around in my head for a while- we seem to be fetishize the past, blindly swallowing its paradigms with a lack of incentive to progress. Granted, there are only so many ways to clothe a body, but this is about far more than fashion.
While there are glimmers of good intentions (environmentalism, "anti-consumerism", etc.) within the hipster "lifestyle", these faint beliefs are swamped beneath "scene-to-be-seen" aspect of the movement. Though I'm sure they would like to think of themselves as modern-day beats or punks, hipsters have yet to create anything of cultural importance or challenge any societal dogma. There are no visionary Allen Ginsbergs, Bob Dylans, or Lou Reeds among them, no ideals or utopian visions to strive for. It's not that every generation or counterculture are obligated to be angry hellraisers (nor should they be!), but it's certainly the responsibility of each to at least recognize the foibles of the previous and challenge them in an attempt to correct them. Hipsterdom, however, just falls right under the previous generation's thumb- we're equally materialistic, self-centered, and shallow as our predecessors. Adults feed us trends ("Miucci Prada says lace is in. Lace must be in. I now need something with lace" mentality), and, in turn, we dutifully buy them (take the enormous popularity of hipster-mecca superchain, Urban Outfitters, for instance), and yet congratulate ourselves on how cool and anti-conformist we are.
Maybe our generation has just been lulled into placidity. From an early age, society gives us a formula to carve out a safe existence for ourselves-" get into a good college, get a good job, get a spouse and kids and then get stuff". The "get" aspect, this sense of entitlement to acquirement is nauseating- nothing could be more reflective of our period's rampant consumerism. By quantifying experiences that are worthy ends within themselves rather than a means to an end, we are cheapening their value. Take education, for instance. If you ask a typical high school senior what they want to major in in college, you're likely to get an "I don't know." Ask them future ambitions, on the other hand, and they'll most likely want to be "rich." Rather than a passion for a topic or learning itself being the driving force behind higher education, the mentality among teenagers seems to be that college is merely a means to a well-paying job in the future, a stepping stone between high school and "the real world". The value of the knowledge and passion for a topic you gain, the broadening of interests, and the wonderful experiences are tragically lost. The temptation to stick to this formula is so strong, seems so safe, people no longer feel the need to change the status quo or, for that matter, the world.
The lack of wanting to change the world is perhaps the most tragic aspect. Our society is unique for both its openness and its detachment- we're exposed to an enromous stream of media, more than ever before, but so much of it is inwardly directed at our own culture we become insulated from others. We hear about tragedies and human oppression halfway round the world, but people hardly anyone cares about it: it is happening halfway round the world. And even when we do witness wrongs in our own country, we are moved not to action but to passive grumbling (witness the Bush-bashing of recent years).
One can only hope that hipsterdom, a hybrid of past subcultures' images, American consumerism, and staunch passivity, will not remain our chief subculture movement for long. Perhaps Christian Lorentzen, writing in Time Out New York, is right- Hipsters "must be buried for cool to be reborn.” Until then, we're just a bunch of lost kids looking for a party.
Photos courtesy of Flickr and The Cobrasnake
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