Over the years, the word “hipster” has been tossed around in youth culture, but always has a vague definition.
Some people see hipsters as younger, hip and opinionated people in their late teens or early twenties. The word gets dropped a lot, but every time I hear it, it never means the same thing twice.
Hipsters have begun to be declared a “subculture” or “movement.” The way I see it is when a culture prides itself on status or having certain things or acting a certain way, it becomes less of a movement and more of a clique.
Another thing that hipsters lack is unification for a cause or causes. The powerful movements of the sixties — including the civil rights, women’s, and anti-war movements — each united and fought for its own cause.
It was what they were fighting for that made them a movement, not a certain type of music or the way they dressed.
If you look up the word “hipster” on the Internet, you come across common traits and how-to-be-a-hipster articles. I find it odd — and almost posing — that people yearn for the label, yet do not wish to be anything beyond the word. They seem to want the shortcut to obtaining a title, but don’t want to actually stand for anything of value.
Hipsters often claim that swearing off labels is essential to being a hipster, but then, they label themselves. It is both ironic and hypocritical that they do so.
If they value independent thinking, why do they label themselves and almost create a set of rules to be a part of their group? Conformity, or the lack thereof, is essential to almost every movement in order to form their own views.
Acting a certain way or wearing specific clothes is conforming to the hipster masses. Just because they reject mainstream culture does not make them revolutionary if they create a new culture and all try to act similarly.
Hipsters are not a real movement at all — but potentially, they could be. If the group were to realize the real meaning of what makes a movement, they could unify and begin to make change.
A lot of what hipsters feel strongly about has now become part of regular society — such as eating organic foods and supporting environmentalism — so the beliefs that were originally meant to separate them as a counter-culture have made them mainstream citizens.
The hipster clique lacks conviction and overall understanding of what a movement is and can be. Music shaming, wearing expensive, anti-mainstream clothing and rejecting all pop culture does not equate them or even put them on the same level as the revolutionary movements they are wrongly compared to.
Hipsters are quickly becoming the epitome of cool, but I have only noticed that’s as far as their profound ideals and thoughtfulness goes.
