On Hipsterism

I have a complicated relationship with Hipsters. On the one hand, I tend to get along with individual hipsters just fine. I like indie music. I like film as an art-form. I like delving in the minutia of topics that most people don't particularly care about. The thing is, I like doing these things because I actually like them. On the other hand, I can't abide hipsterism as a cultural philosophy. To explain why, I'll briefly define hipsterism as broadly as possible -- as any attempt to nail down what, specifically, hipsterism is just leads to inconsistency.

Hipsterism is a broad classification, but I think that most people will agree that, at its core, it involves a rejection of main-stream culture, and that means that, whatever the masses like, the hipster is required to consider inferior in someway (whether it's passe or unrefined or overproduced or whatever else). Being defined by that which they reject means the hipsters that I know focus more on what they don't like about the world around them than the things that they do like. Even more troubling, this means that the values of hipsterism are not determined by its practitioners, but by those outside of it.

The Hipster's attempt to remedy this failing is even more frustrating. The significance of "irony" in hipster circles is disturbing. Basically, if something is "bad" by hipster standards, one is able to like it as something other than what it was intended to be -- kind of like lots of people watch bad movies as comedies. This basically gives the hipster full license to like anything, and for reasons that make him superior to those around him or her in their mind.

It's a cynical, lifestyle that discourages its practitioners from actively and authentically engaging the world around them so much as dismissively observing it; and ultimately, that makes spending much time with hipsters a depressing experience. I mean, I can't claim that I don't have my cynical moments or that I don't rag on the crap that flows into the market in the name of mass-appeal. I've done plenty of both right here in this blog. But I like to think that I evaluate these things based on their own values and that I'm willing to accept that the public is perfectly capable of recognizing quality. I over-think my own behavior and motives enough as it is. I don't need to devote my life to worrying about who else likes the things I like.