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41 comments

  1. § Tommy Salami Email said on :
    Very well put. Hipster irony is more like Bizarro Superman’s take on the world.
  2. § Supertedd Email said on :
    You lost me when you got the definition of kitsch wrong.
  3. § Wolfie G. Nards® Email said on :
    According to Webster’s:

    Kitsch – something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality.

    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kitsch?show=0&t=1282933720


    If you can define it better than Webster’s be my guest.
  4. § flickerbat said on :
    Isn’t it ironic when hipsters think they are smarter than Wolfgnards ? AHOOGA!
  5. § gucci mane Email said on :
    dude, come on. i thought you would be above this ‘blog trend’.

    sweeping generalizations are a bit cheap
  6. § TomW Email said on :
    Also, bloggers don’t understand what “begs the question” means. It does not mean “raises the question”. Unless you were being wrong on purpose. To be ironic.
  7. § J.M.S. Esq. Email said on :
    Very true. A nice discussion of how hipsters leech meaning from culture appears here (http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/features/4840/why-the-hipster-must-die#ixzz0y7KY1t3k), but the meat of it is this:

    “Under the guise of ‘irony,’ hipsterism fetishizes the authentic and regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity . . . . As the hipster ambles from the thrift store to a $100 haircut at Freemans Sporting Club, [the aesthetics of fringe movements and ethnicities] are assimilated—cannibalized—into a repertoire of meaninglessness, from which the hipster can construct an identity in the manner of a collage, or a shuffled playlist on an iPod.”

    There’s another good article over here, https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html. This one makes note of my personal favorite hipster trend, where hipsters display their fierce Palestinian nationalism by sporting keffiyehs.
  8. § Z. Email said on :
    While the classical meaning of “begging the question” relates to the logical fallacy of assuming an initial point, it has indeed come to mean “to raise the question” in a modern context, TomW. Such is the elastic majesty of language.
  9. § Adrien Email said on :
    Yesterday I pulled up to a gas station pump behind a white van covered in very ironic hipster stickers and as I pumped gas I snarkily thought, surely this person is taking too long to buy his PBR and pay for his gas. He came out with a pack of American Spirits and, wait for it, a case of PBR and drove away without buying any gas, even though he parked in front of a pump. My eyes are still pretty much rolled into the back of my brain. The end.
  10. § grays sports almanac Email said on :
    Things ain’t so bad over here in the UK. You’ll see smatterings of ‘hipsters’ but mostly they’re a nameless community reserved to university term times and the occasional times where a punk rock gig clashes with an academy unsigned venue.
  11. § TomW Email said on :
    I don’t disagree with you Z. But, then that must surely mean the elastic majesty of language would also allow for “ironic” to mean “bad”, right?
  12. § crusher machine Email said on :
    It’s true! Thank you for your sharing!
  13. § DarkSock Email said on :
    I peed in a horse once.
  14. § Meeee Email said on :
    You misuse the phrase “beg the question.” You make horrendous errors re basic grammar. Your thesis is bunk arrogance and your writing style is faux intellectual. Therefore, you don’t suck.
  15. § Ira Knee Email said on :
    In fairness to the esteemed Mr. Hawke (ahem), the blame for that line from Reality Bites belongs to the screenwriter, Helen Childress. With an assist going to Ben Stiller, the film’s director.
  16. § Derek Flint said on :
    You know, another thing I don’t get about hipster ‘culture’, is that they mostly are going to all this time and expense on their appearances,…

    Wait for it…

    TO LOOK LIKE CRAP!

    I remember going to a meetup in Williamsburg, after seeing some guy peeing in a policeman’s horse once, and looking at all these allegedly ‘ironic’ people and thinking, “WTF? The joke’s not on me. It’s on them. They can’t figure out how to dress/groom differently from everyone else for their little clique membership and still look ok doing it. Weird.”

    Don’t get it. Just really stupid.
    And there really were a few girls who clearly were cute.

    Maybe another element of this fad is that they’re so desperate to alienate themselves from everyone else, making themselves look like buffonish homeless people is just another part of it.
  17. § IP Camera said on :
    woot, thankyou! I finally came to a site where the webmaster knows what they’re talking about. Do you know how many results are in Google when I search.. too many! It’s so annoying having to go from page after page after page, wasting my day away with thousands of people just copying eachother’s articles… bah. Anyway, thankyou very much for the info anyway, much appreciated.
  18. § gramnaz said on :
    @ Meeee

    You inserted “re” into a sentence without properly identifying that you were using it as an irregular, arbitrarily placed abbreviation. You also did this in the very sentence for which you were criticizing someone’s “grammar” use.

    You failed to properly hyphenate “faux-intellectual”, again within a criticism of some one else’s intellect. You also did this under an obvious pretense of judgment, assuming yourself to be superior, and therefore had more of a faux-intellectualism than anyone else in this thread.

    Finally, the construction of your comment into a sort of demonstration of irony, which you certainly think is quite clever, was done with the subtlety of a baboon.

    Therefore, I declare your comment to be merely a demonstration of your own lameness and an almost assured proof that you are yourself a hipster.
  19. § Dog Boy Email said on :
    Hawke’s definition is actually a definition of sarcasm. And he was indeed an indie wanker. I always thought the yuppie should have got the girl.
  20. § Steve Dave said on :
    I’m the toughest hipster on my block: I wear western shirts, can do a pull-up and have mastered the art of U-Lock Kung Fu.

    Sometimes I go to the art gallery down the street, grab the first guy I see with jean shorts and boat shoes by his tiny wrist, twist it behind his back and make him give me his cocaine and cigarettes.

    If these kids were really trying to be “ironic” they would dress/talk like The Situation from Jersey Shore and be funny about it.

    This is just an aging (creeping up on a decade, now) and overcooked fashion movement where the girls dress like Elaine from Seinfeld and the men are hairy, delicate flowers. In other words, its gross and annoying, but they’re totally harmless, so who cares?

    Would you prefer more Situations on our city streets? I don’t think so.

  21. § Sexy said on :
    She has an unlimited supply of money for herself, she has no stress of needing to get a job or really any responsibilities at all.
  22. § raymond mill Email said on :
    thank you for this
  23. § dirtpig Email said on :
    In the late 90s, when the Alanis song was a big hit, it was the hipster dbags of that time who would roll their eyes when the song came on, and try to convince everyone that nothing in the song was “ironic”. Then, I remember hearing the question put to an academic, decribed as the country’s foremost expert on Irony, on NPR (Google tells me it was Herbert Lindenberger, pres. Modern Language Soc.). The prof. sided with Alanis. He said that all of the situations in the song would fit the bill for some sort of situational or cosmic irony. The fact that you are now poking fun of the same ilk of hipster that used the same fallacious argument to tease Alanis and her square fans back in the day is… (wait for it)… ironic.
    Btw, I am not a hipster. I don’t own a western shirt, but I have worn Chuck Taylors to a cowboy bar. I am also not an Alanis fan, though I do find her strangely bangable.
  24. § dropin Email said on :
    We grew up in the Bay Area, and my sister, who was a hipster through her 20s, just made a move to the Marina. She says in a town of men who wear skinny jeans and 45 YO execs who attend Burning Man parties in costume every weekend, the only way to make a real counter-cultural stand is to cross over to the “dark side” — AKA the yuppy side — and rock the cashmere + a pencil skirt look.
  25. § trituradora Email said on :
    Sucks = Cool if Cool ≠ Sucks ,Haha,yes Good article.
  26. § 乳膠床墊 said on :
    Wow! This can be 1 of the top blogs I’ve actually arrive throughout on this subject. Merely Magnificent
  27. § ish Email said on :
    I am so fucking tired of reading long, well written articles about the intricacies of hipsterdom. The term hipster can officially retire. Everyone wants a voice and a style, and some make it up and make it better than others. I’m not invalidating your statement on the ironic and the misconception of irony, I’m just saying I’m fucking tired of reading about it. And I am allowed to have my opinion and refrain from reading any more article on this topic.
    My point: Hipster discussion is no long interesting.
  28. § joilson Email said on :
    a hispter blog criticizing hipsters is ironic? just kidding…
    but receive this post from a hispter is.
  29. § Pandorica said on :
    Fezzes are cool.
  30. § Mandragora said on :
    I intend this fez sarcastically. You see, I’m not trying to be “impressive” or ironic or anything. I’m saying I’m not that interested in my own fashion statement.
  31. § Logopolis said on :
    The irony being the *perception* that a hipster is actually trying to impress people by being unimpressive when actually they are as disinterested as you in themselves. See?
  32. § Bowelhowl Email said on :
    Hipsters, their music, their “lifestyle”, their vile little hitlerian facial fungi, and all that oozes with them are like the little nuggety bits of dried fecal matter found in the gusset of a meth heads underwear. Worthless, stinky and should be disposed of rapidly. How about dedicating one day a month as A Hipster Day? On this day one could rain un-ironic comments about their appearance, about their nasty upper lip growth, trip them on the el platform, spill drinks on their clothes…. this list is endless and fun….. I think an annual “Culling Of The Hipster” day where they can be thrown to floor and be shaved of their mustaches (yes, the girls too) without recrimination is also a good idea….
    Vote Bowelhowl for President and it shall be so!
  33. § jeff Email said on :
    i don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t know that alanis got the definition of irony wrong … that song is from 15 years ago. you might be right if you were like the first person to think of that. Also, hipster = former alanis morrissette fans? probably not so much.

    Part 2: Reality Bites is generally considered overrated in my age group 20-26 ( prime hipster years). It was kind of lame. Really lame. Winona Ryder was in it.

    I think hipsters are annoying, but I’ve seen this post over and over for the past 2 years. At first, it was novel and interesting. Now it’s just sort of tedious.
    Nice attempt tho.


  34. § Danny Email said on :
    Irony is very subjective. No one person’s view on what may or may not be ironic, is necessarily 100% true. Fighting over what is “ironic” seems like the worst possible way to tell a hipster his faults. You mights as well argue the definition of faith to a religious person. In the end, who cares? Douschebags dress in all styles. I haven’t seen enough of them in hipster’s dress to disdain the fad all together.
  35. § Tommy Email said on :
    Irony is NOT “very subjective.” Surprise, words have definitions, and they matter.

    Secondly, Ethan Hawke’s definition is a good definition of irony, and does not imply that all opposites are ironic. Black is not somehow “ironic” because it is the opposite of white. Just like you said, the context is very relevant. So, black would be ironic only if it were the color of the White House.

    Mediocre article, I’ve read better.
  36. § Dave Email said on :
    Being severely old (I’m 50), I wasn’t aware about this thing called hipsters until I got bombarded by Hyundai TV commercials this season. I did some research and discovered that the clowns in it were supposed to be hipsters and that explained why some youngsters I know today look the way they do. It reminds me of when I was young. I grew out my hair, put on a leather jacket, jeans and cowboy boots so everyone would immediately know that I was a counter-culture badass who rejected their mainstream blah, blah, blah, never noticing that I bought the jacket from JC Penney at the local mall with money my mom gave me for keeping the front lawn so pretty.

    Next time somebody starts telling you about indie music, just ask him when was the last time he listened to Beethoven – the original independent.

    Anyway this is a terrific essay. Kudos to whomever wrote this – you have a great writing style.
  37. § Kyle Email said on :
    improper use of the phrase “beg the question”… learn. improve.
  38. § me said on :
    Jokes on you, they’re creating the ultimate irony. Fuckin hipsters. Just wait until there’s no money for social services and welfare, that’ll straighten them out when they’r starving.
  39. § scrawny said on :
    i think you are confusing kitsch with post-irony or even post-modernism in general.
  40. § Harry Hipster said on :
    I didn’t give this article a thumbs up because I like it, I gave it a thumbs up to be ironic.
  41. § Joe Email said on :
    Fuck hipsters!

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