BEDN - This Blog is So Mainstream (Nov 11th)

Ohai there!

Today, I want to talk about hipsters: how they're defined and perceived, if I am one, and if it's possible to try and be one.

Definition
Where do we turn to to define such a modern conundrum? I mean, I get punks, emos, goths, jocks, chavs et al, but HIPSTERS? HIPSTERS!? By their very being they fight any kind of categorisation. The answer: we turn to urbandictionary.com.

The best definition I found was here. Since it's quite long and biased, I'm not posting it and just taking the gist of it for the rest of this article.

For me it boils down to these factors:

• IMAGE
• black, thick-rimmed wayfarers
• charity shop clothes
• skinnies - jeans and bodies
• Urban Outfitters
• carefree hair

• ATTITUDE
• liberal
• forward-thinking
• consider themselves to be culturally elite
• passive and uncaring
• intellectual

• TASTE
• alternative music/film/art
• things which are non-conformist
• things which push boundaries
• ignore traditional societal views of sexuality
• artistically-orientated

So that's 5 things within each of the three main categories that I've just gone ahead and made up cause it's my blog and I'll do whatever the fuck I what! So, in theory, could you be a hipster without knowing it, if you fit most or all of the criteria?

There is a terribly negative cultural stigma surrounding hipsterdom, which I think stops people from embracing their inner hipster. I imagine this stems, not from the pioneer hipsters themselves who help to define the next cultural movements, but from the pretentious characters who have donned some enormous spectacles in the hope of seeming cool. There are a lot of those characters.

Some may argue there are no hipsters nowadays, and that hipster died with the beat generation in the mid 20th centuries. These young writers and poets and musicians and artists had actual battles to fight in the name of artistic and sexual liberation, such as censorship. The so-called 'hipsters' of today would seem petty in comparison.

Just for my friend Lauren, an excerpt from Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl', a poem which was nearly banned due to its sexual content.

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection

to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night"

Oh Joe, You Just Quoted Allen Ginsberg - You're a Raging Hipster

I have often been accused by friends of being a hipster. I have denied it, in my head associating it with the people who try to appear cool by showing off that one weird thing that they listened to and kind of liked that one time.

To be fair, I don't do much to help my case. On Saturday afternoon, I went to see a film in Cantonese and was nearly treated to a private screening in Cinema 1. I had a photo taken to prove it (and yes, it is Instagrammed, I know):

But that aside, let's apply the criteria to me. In an unfortunate turn of events, I own a pair of thick-rimmed black glasses and wear them fairly frequently - they're the only ones I own that don't fall of my face, and I occasionally need to see things. I own (excellent) clothes from the charity shop, I am both varieties of skinny, and am often very lazy with my hair. I would consider myself very liberal and forward-thinking, I have somehow ended up writing a cultural analysis of hipster, so I'm probably at least a bit of an intellectual. I consider myself to have good taste, so a dash of elitism surely seeps through. Artistically, I'm pretty open to doing or seeing anything (*cough*cantonesefilm*cough*) and I work in an arts centre. I'm also very gay.

There are some distict differences though. Namely, I take pride in caring about things and people. Oh, and I'm far too poor to shop at Urban Outfitters.

So, you know what, I probably am a hipster. (Feel free to screenprint and say you were right.)

BUT

By admitting that, does that mean I'm no longer a hipster? Will I have my skinny jeans revoked?

And for me a more pertinent question: can you be a hipster without realising it? Apply my criteria to the person you'd least expect to be a hipster. Apply it yourself. Are you surprised with the results? Please let me know.

Maybe you're the next pioneer of a new cultural movement. I think to truly incite change you do have to not conform. If the beat generation and similar folk had sat idly by and let whatever guff was on the go reign supreme, we wouldn't have something to spark the last 50 years of good music, film, literature, dance, theatre...  Don't try to be as cool as everyone else. Be everyone else. Be an individual! And there's nothing to say you can't do that whilst wearing wayfarers.

If you are happy enough just to be a follower, here's an educational video for you, courtesy of the excellent 'Happy Endings':

This blog... over it.