In light of a recent correspondence between Babbling Bryan and I, I got a little creative and wrote a mock interview.

Bryan wanted to know exactly why I hated hipsters and why he had mixed feelings about them too. You can skip to my final creative response by clicking –> here.

Or you can read our correspondence as seen below. Or you can do both. There are your options, dummy.

Sleater-Kinney – Entertain
Nirvana – Mr. Moustache

Still I’m very conflicted on the whole Hipster issue. I share the hatred for the superficial youngens that used to like hiphop back in 06 when it was hip, but are now listening to indie rock because that’s the new hip thing. They just go with the flow and only care what others think of them, not what they think of the things they like.

But yet there are aspects to the ‘Hipster’ label that appeal to me, and I’ve seen appeal to you. Haven’t I also seen you wearing keffiyeh scarfs?

On the one hand I get why people hate the fashion item the keffiyeh has become. It has lost it’s political and historical meaning, but on the other hand I feel like why can’t it just be a cool fashion item? Why does everything have to have a meaning or deep rooted purpose?

One of the big characterizations and ‘problems’ that I read about on Hipsters is that it’s a melting pot of styles, a mashup of all kinds of music genres and subcultures. And again I wonder what is so bad about that?

I feel like there was a movement of young creative individuals that didn’t cling to one label, not one music genre. Rather they liked hiphop, rock and all things in between. They weren’t just mindless followers of the hip thing of that time, they just did their own thing.
Then this ’style’ started to be boxed in and now it’s called hipster. And now people who used to cling to one label, which isn’t a bad thing at all, are all of a sudden also diverse and have taken on the ‘hipster’ style because they wanna be cool.

And that’s when I come back to the Vampire/Goth comparison. You have seen that south park ep right? Or else I’ve made no sense so far with my vampire goth talk.

Anyways, I thought your opinion would be interesting, so thoughts?

This is what I think, just for the record:

I don’t mind the fashion of hipsters, I love fashion, I think you are stepping into bad territory when you begin to define yourself by what you wear. I dress like a hipster, but not all the time and the way that I dress isn’t so, how do I put it? It’s not so perfect. I don’t mind being sloppy, I guess.

But look your best I have no problem with that, when it comes down to it. The problem with hipsters is that they use fashion, music and irony as a way to define themselves. Which doesn’t seem bad, but it is when you have one group of people who only allow themselves to behave in a way that is ironic, to only like this set list of artist, who only wear these specific styles of clothing. Subcultures are bad, because they are rigid. Trying to unique by identifying with a subculture just means you are conforming to a different norm.

With that said, that still isn’t the biggest problem. The biggest problem I have for hipsters is this “artistic humbling” they present themselves with. Most hipsters come from well off families, and have large trustfunds, they move to New York City to live in self-imposed poverty, which is kind of offensive to people who HAVE to be poor. They go to good colleges but take their education for granted. They try to do as little as possible with their lives, as much drugs as possible and they say they are doing this because they are artist.

Playing an accordion because it’s ironic isn’t art. When you have thousands of people playing “ironic instruments” it’s no longer unique. When you have thousands of people sitting in a circle agreeing with each other and doing all the same things it’s boring. The problem with hipsters is that they don’t allow themselves to step out of this box they have put themselves in all for the sake of being cool. They are self-conscious to the extent of self-deprecation. They make themselves hate themselves out of guilt and so they are ultimately useless and just annoying.

Thanks for taking the time,

Tatoes

Bryan’s Conclusion:

I agree with you. I’ve recently seen hipsters that wear the elvis costello-ish eyeglass frames without the fucking glass in them! That’s so fucking dumb.

The superficiality of the hipsters in combination with the characteristics of the hipsters annoys me so much, because it starts to make me feel like a hipster or make me seem like a hipster. And yet again I go back to my vampire/goth comparison. If you have the characteristics of a hipster, without the reasoning of a hipster, so you like certain music, you like the ‘hipster’ fashion, and you are creative, then these days, at first glance, your inseparable from the hipster subculture.

Now while I just typed this last paragraph I’m realizing all kinds of things. I find my problem with hipster stupid. It’s a fucking selfish reasoning to hate hipsters. What should I care that I look like, or seem like a hipster. I know I’m not, and if people don’t care enough to involve themselves in a dialogue with me to find out who I really am then why should I care about those people?

I’m still such a highschooler. My initial feelings are that I care about what people think of me. But when I think about it more I only care what certain people think about me, and those people that I care about are intelligent enough to not just assume whatever about me.

But maybe that one problem with hipsters I have isn’t so selfish. Because I also hate that I can’t identify the hipsters from the real individuals anymore. When I went to a bloc party concert a few weeks ago almost the entire crowd could be hipster. The thing is I know for sure that there are people there that are not just wearing those cloths or going to bloc party because it’s the cool thing, there are people there that actually really like the music, and dig the fashion. Like you and me.

Ah fucking hipsters. Now on to reading your mock interview.
Thank YOU for taking the time to respond!

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