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Hipsters 101: Their History, Bleak Future

Their main enclave is threatened, but no one seems to care

By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff

Posted Jul 29, 2009 11:12 AM CDT
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(Newser) – Hipsters. They “sneer when you cop to liking Coldplay”; they “sport cowboy hats and berets”; they’re “the only ones in America who still think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good beer.” But they’re certainly not a new phenomenon, writes Dan Fletcher for Time. The first jazz-loving hipsters emerged in the 1930s; after World War II, Norman Mailer “painted hipsters as American existentialists, living a life surrounded by death.”

The first generation of hipsters was replaced by hippies, and yet another crop emerged in the early 1990s to recycle trends past: “Take your grandmother’s sweater and Bob Dylan’s Wayfarers, add jean shorts, Converse All-Stars, and a can of Pabst and bam—hipster,” Fletcher writes. They have been described as “the death of Western civilization,” and as “hipsterdom's largest natural habitat”—Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood—is threatened by squatters, “there aren’t many who are concerned.”

Hipsters are the people who wear T-shirts silkscreened with quotes from movies you've never heard of, writes Dan Fletcher.
Hipsters are "the people who wear T-shirts silkscreened with quotes from movies you've never heard of," writes Dan Fletcher.   (©ret0dd)
Hipsters sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses, writes Dan Fletcher.
Hipsters "sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses," writes Dan Fletcher.   (©Kerosene Photography)
Hipsters manage to attract a loathing unique in its intensity, writes Dan Fletcher.
"Hipsters manage to attract a loathing unique in its intensity," writes Dan Fletcher.   (©Diego Cupolo)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 8 comments
jagerhans
Jul 30, 2009 10:28 AM CDT
another thing. in the pictures above, with my european eyes i see four utterly ordinary boys and girls , people i won't waste a second look on nor i can put them into any 'category' except 'random ordinary people dressed in common ways' and one guy from a circus. i am starting to suspect that everyone around me in the radius of thousands of kilometers is a hipster.
jagerhans
Jul 30, 2009 10:21 AM CDT
looking from the outside , the impression i get from you mostly-US crowd is that in the USA people just won't leave you alone and stick their own business. you claim to be the land of the free but we mold covered european people don't care much about what urban subcultures do unless of course it is cultists who buttrape nuns and cats in the streets while high on glue. posts on the net, literature, cartoons, comedies, are full of bashing on hippies-goths-hipsters-emos-etc and the overall sensation is that you do care a lot about, criticise and overdramatize the different lifestyles and habits of your neighbors. in brief, you yankees look perpetually for some weird witch to burn and not very tolerant , except when you state that some categories like the black, the jew, gay ones etc are holy cows. then your formal self-imposed respect for them becomes so obsessive and formal . you invented the term 'politically correct' , right ?
emptycalm
Jul 30, 2009 3:54 AM CDT
Well the kids they're talking about dress very "euro-friendly". I think it looks pretty normal too and a lot of people here are like that to varying degrees. But a lot of this country isn't into that and they are quick to judge anything europeans might see as cool or acceptable. It's the american way.

 
Bob Dylan • Brooklyn • hippies • Norman Mailer • Coldplay • trend • Pabst Blue Ribbon • Jay-ZTV • Converse • hipster

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