The coverage of the panel they held was pretty much a farce, though. The emphasis was on the NY hipster. Apr 30, Logan rated it really liked it. Sometimes funny, with varying degrees of academic and anecdotal insights, painfully self-conscious, and, of course, ironic, What Was the Hipster? Jace Clayton's "Vampires of Lima" avoided some of these opacities with a look at how U. I cringed furiously at how much the first section of What Was the Hipster?
Then again, cosmopolitan navel gazing is so characteristic to the hipster, the self-absorbed merchant of Cool. Fitting, to that end. Some of the measured, haughty responses to the symposium in the second half are essential reading, especially as to how non-white males configure into hispterism.
Self-identifying as such would be embarrassing, because they reduce vocation to the limited digital real estate of a social media channel s. As if their performances and postures are not "real" by virtue of being online vs.
IRL modes. These influencers see things like photography, fashion, music and film less as inherited culture we synthesize into personality ornaments i. The reality being we are assemblages of Xerox'd culture with slim chances at ideals like 'freedom' or 'the authentic self. They perform conspicuous gentrification of cultural and economic whitespace, the newest mediums where you may be very visibly "fashionable," where what is cool can now be transparently performed on behalf a personal-brand aesthetic and as sponcon for companies commodifying the new stems growing out of the hipster's corpse.
Cool is no longer a monolith embodied in the hipster, it is a series of business verticals. Jul 10, Sophie Bucci rated it really liked it. Nov 21, Harris rated it liked it Shelves: usa , non-fiction , library-book , millennial-life. Minnesota was declared the most hipster state in the country a few years back and just a week ago, St. Paul was named the most hipster zip code in the nation. What is all this? What are we to make of it? It was for some answers that I went to this collection of essays.
The participants only barely scratched the surface focusing on reasons behind various styles, discussions of classicism and racism, and identity but these ideas are hardly given any space to really get to the guts of the debate. One of the goals of the "investigation" was its hope to express the reality of the hipster to future readers, which is itself a bit ironic, as the book, now three years old, is already showing its age.
In particular, the descriptions of the Peruvian hipsters from Lima who only embraced their Peruvian chicha musical identity when it was embraced as ironically cool by a French recording studio based in New York. This globalizing presence appears to be part and parcel of the hipster idea, as things become "cool" divorced from their origins only to lose their "authenticity" in the process. Themes of irony, authenticity, sincerity, and nostalgia all seem to be at the heart of the idea and lead to some of the most incisive essays in the collection.
With the proliferation of the internet, ideas and styles merge and mutate, leading to conflict among groups about meaning and identity. Jan 07, Errol Orhan rated it really liked it. It is the structure of the book that makes it such an enjoyable, thought provoking and light work of social analysis. The ironical symposium is following by a group discussion in which little is discussed and even fewer answers to questions from the audience are provided.
However, these two events form the foundation for several more in depth analyses of what the cultural and social meaning of 'hipster' is. First, two journalists comment on the symposium, questioning its worth and depth, both pr It is the structure of the book that makes it such an enjoyable, thought provoking and light work of social analysis. First, two journalists comment on the symposium, questioning its worth and depth, both providing an analysis of the event itself and adding an extra layer of analysis to the question at hand.
This part is followed by more in depth reactions to the question, and rounded off with essays on the social dynamics creating and created by hipsters. I liked the book, not because it provided real answers, which it sometimes did, but mostly because it used hipsters to pose real and important sociological questions in a light way. Examples include but are not restricted to: what does it mean to think you are different?? What are youth cultures?
How do culture and capital interact? And finally: am I a hipster? Basically, I think this is what sociological inquiry should be like: interesting, inquisitive and accessible.
The final thing I like about the book is that it puts forward the ultimate hipster irony: if you engage in an activity ironically, you sometimes end up getting quite good at it, and add something valuable to that activity. Jul 20, Evan rated it liked it. Throw our hands up and mug for the cameras. And for all of this effort, he assumes that he will be granted a slight, unspoken modicum of respect and admiration. Yet this respectrespect predica "[H]ipsterism strikes me as what happens when white folks become aware of power and inequitybut then say, 'Well, what are we supposed to do?
Yet this respectrespect predicated upon normalcy rather than uniquenessis exactly what the hipster withholds. Only in this way can the hipster maintain his complacency, believing he deprives some douchebag of his.
But when douchebags have discovered skinny jeans, as they surely will. Parachute pants? Aug 25, briz rated it it was amazing. Somewhere between irreverence and academia, there is this book.
Absolutely wonderful. It may seem like a self-indulgent exercise in developing a taxonomy of hip, but it really is an intriguing and eye-opening look at the socio-cultural movement that is hipsterism.
A series of essays, a transcribed discussion from a New School debate, and a series of response essays. The best: probably, the identification of hipsters as promoting an infantilized, entitled white-ness, politically nihilist, represe Somewhere between irreverence and academia, there is this book.
The best: probably, the identification of hipsters as promoting an infantilized, entitled white-ness, politically nihilist, representing nothing, and circling around an almost neo-conservative fetishism of suburban whiteness from the 80s. I refuse to accept it. Mar 12, Aaron rated it really liked it. Aug 02, Andrew rated it really liked it. Also, Glazek wins with the line, "Franz Kafka, a significant hipster if not the original one Dec 08, Symphony Space added it Shelves: selected-shorts-on-stage.
Jan 10, Jennifer Barbee rated it liked it. Equal parts funny and obnoxious, I can't help but be amused that this treatise serving as a sort of ethnography of the modern hipster, manages to also be the very distillation of hipsterism itself. But because I think that the panellists are achingly aware of this, I give it a general thumbs up. As one reviewer said, I think I like the idea that this exists more than I actually enjoyed the work iteself.
Nov 18, Ben Walker rated it really liked it Shelves: life. Kept me amused for a couple of days. Dec 14, Tess rated it liked it. I got so confused at points because I had no idea what they were referring to half the time.
Also, a lot of the writing was like an 11th year students' sociology essay - way too much use of a thesaurus. May 29, Kristian rated it liked it Shelves: own. It was interesting getting a little more insight into the origins of the term.
Aug 06, Christian rated it really liked it. One of the characteristics of hipsterism is that no one group claims the label. When asked "are you a hipster? This little book is filled with clever insights about the hipster among us but never with us. While learning what the hipsters are, mostly through what they are not they are not artists by definition , you might learn a lot about yourself.
Mar 01, Lou rated it liked it Shelves: non-fiction. Oct 17, Matt Slaybaugh rated it really liked it. Totally great, but only if you care about such things.
If you don't care about the evolution of hipsters, the care and meaning of kitsch, etc. Feb 10, Kaija rated it did not like it. I did not like this book. Some features of WorldCat will not be available. Create lists, bibliographies and reviews: or. Search WorldCat Find items in libraries near you.
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Please re-enter recipient e-mail address es. Why are we debating hipsters, when we could be talking about the growing levels of inequality in the United States? As Jace Clayton asked on the panel, "What are we not talking about when we're talking about the hipster?
Let's be honest: The only thing easier than hating the hipster is discussing him. And god knows making a profit in the magazine industry is an uphill battle. I hope this book sells piles of copies. Like, say, the structures that enforce inequality.
They could get a woman to edit it. Phoebe Connelly is web editor for the American Prospect. Culture What Was The Hipster? What Was The Hipster? The uncanny thing about the early-period white hipsters is that symbolically, in their clothes, styles, and music and attitudes, they seemed to announce that whiteness was flowing back in [to the city].
Unconsciously, they wore what they were — because for reasons mysterious to the participants, those things suddenly seemed cool. At their most extreme, hipsters and Hasids present rival heresies, dueling rejections of bourgeois modernity.
That each group selected Williamsburg as the terrain for carving out a secessionist utopia can only be blamed on the cunning of history, plus the L train. Preface All descriptions of hipsters are doomed to disappoint, because they will not be the hipsters you know.
I Was Wrong The truth was that there was no culture worth speaking of, and the people called hipsters just happened to be young and, more often than not, funny-looking.
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