“i’m not a hipster” said the hipster

This morning my friend sent me a link to this piece in NY Mag about a casting call for a reality show in Williamsburg.

Did you wake up today around 1:30 EST in your industrial loft, pull on your favorite (and only) pair of cutoff jean shorts, and take a leisurely stroll down Bedford Avenue in search of organic green juice and the new DFA on vinyl? Do you tap the family trust fund every time you need to make rent? (or do you have to fix bikes for a living?) Does your tattoo have a story to tell? Do you jam with a hardcore band on the weekends and DJ on the weeknights? Are you cooking tofu right now for you and your seven roommates? Do you barely make it into Manhattan three days a week for “college”? Is that handlebar mustache merely for comedic effect?

I found this to be semi-relevant in light of the recent post about Oi! music and image projection versus perception written by my cohort.   Hipsters (in the caricatured sense) hate being labeled ”hipsters”, because the culture niches itself on a foundation of originality and authenticity.  And here, things get tricky, because in practice labeling anything puts said labeled-thing into a neat little category for organization and standardization– a 180-degree contradiction to the ”hipster” ethos whichs brings all sorts of conflicting weirdness to the forefront.

Recently, a friend and I came up with a way to measure how much common sense a person has: common sense can be estimated by determining the difference between what a person projects themselves to be versus what they really are (which can be determined by how other people would describe them).  If the gap between what the person thinks themselves to be versus what they really are is vastly different, that person falls more on the delusioned side of the common-sense spectrum.  We all know someone like this, and usually treat everything that person says with the same care and affection shown towards a small child or puppy.

However, being delusional about one’s self  isn’t necessarily a bad thing (like being a small child or puppy).  Delusion connotes “social weakness” in our modern vocabulary because it insinuates that we’re dependant on other people to feel validated.  For whatever reason, individuality and the ability to “be yourself” is something put upon a pedestal, and when people are overly relient on others we frown upon them for such needy behaviour (which is, weirdly enough, another defense mechanism!  Confused? Me too).

But but but, this idea of frowning on social validation is weird to me because we are, first and foremost, social creatures! *dun dun dun!!!*  I (and I say I with a self-aggrandizing sense of entitlement) don’t subscribe to the belief that depending on others to make you feel good about yourself is a bad thing– it has its limits, yes, and it can get annoying– however, social validation is healthy for us on an individual level because it gives us peace of mind, which can’t can’t CAN’T be overstated enough.  It’s why Facebook, Twitter, and all this other community stuff exists in the first place– everyone, now matter how much they deny it, measures themselves in different extents based upon the feedback we get from others. We can’t get by on mirrors alone, no matter how capable we’d think ourselves to be.  And we aren’t meant to.

On the other side of the self-awareness spectrum, usually those who are acutely observant of their environment and self are bummed out by what they see.  Many of the best artists, writers and musicians throughout history (sidenote: that sentence sounds lame), were more or less, as depressed as they were genius. This example paints a neat little corrollary between the average person’s level of delusion/self-awareness and their level of overall happiness.

So…. the divide is as follows: on one hand, we have a bunch of hyper-aware acutely observational people kicking-rocks around being sad and ANGRYYYYY about things, and on the other, we have a bunch of delusional happy people who see the world through tunnel vision kaleidoscopes and butterflies (this isn’t an explicit either/or, but you can more or less fit people into one category better than the other).

Which brings me back to the hipster label.  Hipsters fall into a weird category (not unto themselves) because they fall on the non-sensical side of the spectrum, but at the same time project themselves to be hyper-sensitive to their surrounding world (ie artsy-fartsy).  By displaying yoursef a certain way (girl pants, beards, Macbooks, etc.), you set up for others to perceive you a certain way, and the defiance hipsters use to shield the hipster label is in many ways a strange, strange self-victory because it’s the external acknowledgement of what they put themselves out to be.

“god, i hate hipsters.” – non-hipster
“god, i hate hipsters.” – hipster

So meta.

Some of these same concepts can be applied towards  other social constructions we tend to label people as (punks, bros, hypebeasts, trekkies, backpackers, socialites, “normal people”, etc.). The hipsterverse provides a fun case to look at because, well, like its precedessor, the emo-verse, hipsters provide one of the rare cases where the denouncement of the label serves to define it.

Plus, I wear girl pants, carry a Moleskine, ride a fixie with no brakes, listen to obscure music (and rap!), think I’m better than everyone else, AND live in Brooklyn, buuuuut (!!!!) I swear I’m not a hipster!!!*

So… what’s the point?  Allow me cheat a bit to and go into BULLET MODE:

- People, on the most superficial of levels (where labeling is passed most easily), are more or less the same.
- People, on a personalized level, are more or less different, which is where individuality actually occurs.
- Labeling is, more or less, pretty fun!
- Perception = sadness = art.
- Delusion = happiness = non…art?
- Chris is so keenly self aware he defies ALL labels and categorization… save “genius” and ”super handsome.”

…and we’re all special =) =D =P

<3 <3 <3

//C

*So hipster.