Those that know me surely know of my penchant for growling about the prevalence of this breed of unbelievably annoying New Yorkers. Now I know that other cities have their share of hipsters, but NYC is literally the birthplace, so for the time being we are going to have to endure the trend, in the world capital of hipsterdom, until it dies out. What makes NYC so bad is that the hipster trend is a throwback to the glorydays of New York downtown rock, the late 70-early 80s. Back then the dress was a rejection/transformation of the formal way of dressing much of America was still very much accustomed to and the colorful psychadelic dress of the hippies. The style was decidely minimalist and almost industrial, for example: tight, worn out jeans with a white shirt often with a drab sport jacket or leather jacket. The main icons of the style are for guys, Joey Ramone and for girls, Debbie Harry of Blondie.
While this style was largely utilitarian, since many in the downtown scene were musicians or artists and couldn't afford fancy dress, the resurgence is anything but: gaudy, superfluous, and unbelievably mundane. My friend Pete Wise has a really interesting idea on the resurgence. He notes that usually about 25 or so years after a particularly interesting period in our culture, a retro comeback occurs. He believes, and I think I do too, that the powers that be are simply marketing to the nostalgia of the powerful class, the people who have money in their 40s. When the garage rock/punk scene hit, these people were the culture. Now they have the money. Think about it, the early to mid-90s and the hippie/grunge scene, the 80s and rockabilly...
Now I think most trends are fucking idiotic anyway, but if your special little trend is merely a marketing ploy, wouldn't you feel like, well, a tool?
But even aside from theories of cultural manipulation, the hipster trend is really just so freaking obnoxious. Many of my friends have shown confusion as to what dress, style, attitude constitutes - hipster, so I thought I'd clear it up a bit.
While the archetype of hipster dress is that watered-down early-punk look, there are many stylistic nuances. Pervasive in nearly all hipster dress is a somewhat complex sense of irony and sarcasm, which many rely on to justify them looking like unbelievable douches. For girls it might be the fallen angel look: an old wedding dress or pink ballerina dress while layering on thick scary makeup and wild hair; for guys often the red state spoof: wearing a trucker hat and having a thick mustache to juxtapose against the trad hipster garb of a tight band t-shirt, skin tight jeans and Converses.
Also common for girls are the pink leg-warmers, neon spandex with a loose blouse, and hair done up in scrunchies, in tribute to/mock of the Cindi Lauper look. The guys almost always have the longer hair look, impeccably messy, often covering part of their eyes or face, and preferably dark brown.
The pants must be as tight as possible, and not just around the vitals, preferably tapering down to the ankles and the more you have that heroin-skinny look, the better.
The M.O. of the hipster is too mock fashion while being completely reliant on it. White people love appearing deep while doing nothing to prove it. One term that has been applied to the fashion of hipsters is looking "vaguely creative". I love that.
Often people will point at a member of one of the several other douchey sub-cultures in NYC and mistake them for a hipster. Here's a few that are commonly mislabeled at hipsters:
Yuppies in their 20s: often mixing casual with fancy and a hint of retro, these people are merely following the mainstream trends and have no connection with the retro ideals of hipsters, as stupid as those ideals are.
Metrosexuals: often to appear edgy, metros will borrow from hipster fashion to lend some variation to their androgynous look.
Emo kids: ok this has a definite overlap, but the emo look is a little different, often less rigidly retro, and markedly more casual, as hipsters spend a lot of energy on their look.
Punks: whether they want to admit it or not, punks' fashion is just as contrived as hipsters'; they both spend a lot of time and energy trying to evoke a specific time and fashion. While I like a lot of old punk music, modern day punks are merely playing dress up as if every day were Halloween.
So why do so many people expend so much energy to merely look like idiots. Well for the guys I have a theory.
Ok, seeing that 99 percent of the energy expended by a guy regarding dress is specifically to attract girls, it is obviously a ploy to hook chicks. Most girls seem to want a rather confusing mix of the dangerous and the prosperous, the exciting and adventurous without the annoyance of a guy who doesn't have his shit together. And sorry girls, but a lot of y'all seem to eat up the hipster guy act like pumpkin pie. My theory is this: the hipster look is an outward display of that ideal mix. The fashion is somewhat audacious, so the guy has some balls to wear it in public; it plays up the dangerous rocker look which the girls seem to fall for; but the clothes are often expensive, from places like Diesel or American Apparel, places that specialize in high-end clothes that don't appear high-end, and this shows that the guy has money and must have his shit together; and above all it's in fashion and the girls seem to love dudes who care as much about fashion as they do.
Ok I finally got my hipster rant onto my blog. Now I'm going to go to the Jerseyband show in the east village, where I'm sure that I'll be confronted with a heaping helping of sassy hipster goodness!
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