Apparently, there is now a anti Hipster backlash, why are they hated so much?

Is it because they are pushy, snobish, and pretentious, or is it something else?

???

I haven't met very many hipsters, myself though, anyone else?

Is it because they are pushy, snobish, and pretentious, or is it something else?


There needs to be a "something else"? :)

I actually don't have anything against hipsters, but I'll give it a shot.

The backlash is primarily against the cultural appropriation.  A few years ago, it was bobos, and now it's hipsters who have taken over false authenticity.

Just because you're wearing a trucker hat and drinking PBR to make fun of truckers and guys who drink PBR... doesn't make you cooler than truckers and guys who drink PBR.  It makes you less cool, because you're mocking people who worked for a living and drink cheap beer before the hipsters tried to make it cool.

Modern-day hipsterism is nothing more than a rebranded version of GenX cynicism.  The GenX-targeted brand of OK Cola was an invention of the marketing community then, and it'd be an invention of the marketing community today.

That's not to say that Hipsterism is entirely without appeal.  Right now, for instance, I could really go for an OK Soda.  Not because I ever tasted the product, but because it's so kitschy I'd like to try it, just so I can say I experienced it.  The fact that I'd be doing it 10 years after the marketing campaign flopped, and drinking a 10-year-old soda, well, that'd just be more to brag about on the Food board.  In fact, I should probably check eBay now...

/stops himself

...and kids, that is how hipsterism starts.  It's not the nostalgia that grates on the nerves; I shamelessly enjoy 8-bit video games and own some old arcade machines, but those are the games I grew up with, and don't classify it as hipsterism.  You cross the line from retro to hipster when it's false nostalgia - playing up retro not because you actually liked it, but because it was so old you hated it - that grates on the nerves.

The true way to be a hipster is to be exactly who you want to be and to hell with what everybody else thinks.*  It has nothing to do with trends, fashions, or even social status.  
8)

*Excluding violent crime and general obnoxiousness.  No GG Allins or Charlie Mansons, please!

You both made excellent points.

By the way, Tim Robbins plays an excellent hipster doughbag, in the film, High Fieldilty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28S-aOWtFdo

someone who loves indie rock and existentialist films and wears flannel.

You both made excellent points.

By the way, Tim Robbins plays an excellent hipster doughbag, in the film, High Fieldilty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28S-aOWtFdo


Nah, too close to home for me!
:-\\

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzocvh60xBU

We don't hate the true hipsters unless it's out of envy.

We hate the "poseur" hipsters because they're arrogant and smug.
::)

I had kind of a funny encounter with some hipsters at a coffee shop in Lawrence, Kansas the other day. I was at the counter ordering some coffee for myself and my brother, and the barista was talking to this know-it-all hipster type. The stereo was playing "Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and the Shondells, and the know-it-all was going on about how he thought it was funny that Tommy James was just some bubblegum pop singer who recorded his background singers vocals through Leslie speakers to make his songs shound "psychedelic."

I then mentioned to the barista that I liked the song "Sweet Cherry Wine," and the barista said, "Yeah, that is a pretty good song," and Mr. Know-It-All was like, "Never heard of it." And the funny part was I could tell I kind of pissed him off because I'd mentioned something he didn't know.  :D

I had kind of a funny encounter with some hipsters at a coffee shop in Lawrence, Kansas the other day. I was at the counter ordering some coffee for myself and my brother, and the barista was talking to this know-it-all hipster type. The stereo was playing "Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and the Shondells, and the know-it-all was going on about how he thought it was funny that Tommy James was just some bubblegum pop singer who recorded his background singers vocals through Leslie speakers to make his songs shound "psychedelic."

I then mentioned to the barista that I liked the song "Sweet Cherry Wine," and the barista said, "Yeah, that is a pretty good song," and Mr. Know-It-All was like, "Never heard of it." And the funny part was I could tell I kind of pissed him off because I'd mentioned something he didn't know.  :D


High five!

;D

I had kind of a funny encounter with some hipsters at a coffee shop in Lawrence, Kansas the other day.


Did you say hello to the ghost of William S. Burroughs?
;)

Did you say hello to the ghost of William S. Burroughs?
;)


No, I was more like, "Zoinks! Run, Scoob!!!"  :o :o :o

While the hipster may be dying out, people are still trying to figure out what a hipster actually is.  And after all this time, I think Dustin Glick finally got it.  See, there is no such thing as a hipster on its own.  A hipster can only exist in comparison.  So all it is then, is a relative term.  It's an adjective, like tall.  If you're 5', someone 6' is tall, but if you're 6', someone 6'6" is tall.  And thus, I present to you: The Theory of Hipster Relativity:

http://oi55.tinypic.com/a08ldd.jpg

Urbandictionary.com says that people hate hipsters because they feel inadequate when they can't keep up with the changing Hipster style/culture:

"The true irony here is that many of the detractors of hipster culture are in fact unknowingly following a path that hipsters have carved out years before them. This phenomena also applies to music as well, as many bands have become successful and known to mainstream audiences only because hipsters first found and listened to them as early-adopters of new culture. Once certain concepts of fashion and music have reached mainstream audiences, hipsters move on to something new and improved."

Don't know that Hipsters deserve that much cultural credit, but there you have it.  8)

I hate hipsters because they dig old stuff that went out of style before they were born and then compete to see who digs the oldest stuff.

They ruin good old man bars.

and for this:  "sure, I'll go to the park with you.  What?  It's 98 degrees?  Hang on while I get my wool hat and strip-ed scarf or out-of-style hat!"

The hipster doesn't sheepishly follow "American Idol," he sheepishly follows Foucault or something!
::)

I hate ironic hipsters.

I hate ironic hipsters.


When I was at that coffee shop in Lawrence, there was a skinny dude with the Buddy Holly glasses, and he was wearing a Yellow Freight jacket. Since I used to work at Yellow Freight, I had to fight the urge to laugh in his face, especially since I could just tell he probably wouldn't have lasted more than a couple days on the dock at the Kansas City terminal. It just screamed "DOUCHE!"

The barista was wearing a T-shirt with the coffee shop's name (which was the Bourgeois Pig), and the logo included a hammer-and-sickle. And part of me wanted to yell at him and tell him that I'd been to East Berlin Wall when it was East Berlin and I saw the barbed wire and machine guns and Trabants and the Palace of the Republik and all the other ass-backwards crap that went along with it, and ask him why he'd want to live in such a place.

But the barista seemed like a really nice guy, so I just carried on.

When I was at that coffee shop in Lawrence, there was a skinny dude with the Buddy Holly glasses, and he was wearing a Yellow Freight jacket. Since I used to work at Yellow Freight, I had to fight the urge to laugh in his face, especially since I could just tell he probably wouldn't have lasted more than a couple days on the dock at the Kansas City terminal. It just screamed "DOUCHE!"

The barista was wearing a T-shirt with the coffee shop's name (which was the Bourgeois Pig), and the logo included a hammer-and-sickle. And part of me wanted to yell at him and tell him that I'd been to East Berlin Wall when it was East Berlin and I saw the barbed wire and machine guns and Trabants and the Palace of the Republik and all the other ass-backwards crap that went along with it, and ask him why he'd want to live in such a place.

But the barista seemed like a really nice guy, so I just carried on.


Meanwhile, in the Mirror Universe:

Since I used to own a few shares of YRCW, I saw the guy in the jacket, and thanked him for working so hard, even though his company was still on the verge of bankruptcy and only last week got a last-minute reprieve in the form of a credit restructuring after a recent legal victory.  He looked at me like I was from Mars.

So I grinned at the barista from the Bourgeois Pig - paid him $5.00 for a latte, and we both laughed at the way in which the most terrifying symbol of the 60s had been reduced to ironic hipsterism. 

We beat the Nazis, but at we had to fight tooth-and-nail for it.  We even had to ask for help (and we got a lot of it) from the Commies.  It was just us and the commies for 40 years, but in the end?  In the end, their leaders faces live on, but only on the T-shirts of ironic baristas.  Sure, the T-shirt was made in China, but that's only because China turned out to be better at capitalism that we were.

Enjoy your coffee, dude.  Every time you see a place like that, it's a reminder that - however badly we lost the War on Terra - we won the Cold War, lock, stock, and two smoking shots of espresso.