What the blinkers is wrong with being a hipster?

dominic

Beast of Burden
for example, i know this girl who's in her late 30s, very cool and on the level, has all kinds of friends, plays lots of 60s and 70s funk and latin sounds, and has more style in her right pinky finger than other women do in their entire wardrobe

she's hip

and were you to see her walking down the street you'd probably call her a hipster

and yet she's certainly not cutting edge

and it's no longer the case that she belongs to a scene, though she's of course conversant in the djs and records that interest her (i.e., old sounds)

and once a person's hip to the extent she is, i don't think it's the kinda thing that can be lost

it's like a status that once achieved, remains in effect until you die

that's why certain jazz musicians in their 80s or 90s are still hip

why keith richards is hip
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
i meant it as a "despite everything" example

i.e., once the threshold of "truly hip" is crossed, you remain blessed no matter the gravity or chronicity of your sins
 

zhao

there are no accidents
so that's what's wrong with hipsterism, is that what today passes for it is actually just trendy bullshitters, poseurs and biters. conformist packs of self-righteous MTV-babies. Vapid fashion victims who does not acknowledge the big wide world outside their little circle of cliche friends. and this would also explain why the word is almost always used with a negative connotation.
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
Isn't hipster nothing more than a pejorative term, a projection onto someone else of personal judgments?

I mean, has anyone ever heard anyone say, out loud, that they are a hipster? I've certainly spent a certain amount of time in The Black Cave Of Deepest Darkest Hipsterdom (aka Williamsburg) and I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe themself as a 'hipster'; I've only heard the term used to refer to other people or for whole groups in aggregate. It just seems to be a catch-all term for musicians, artists, designers, and hangers-on that people dislike in some way (even if they are people who themselves would be considered hipsters by others).

Dominic is right about the cutting-edge thing; the dominant pulse of what is considered NY hipsterdom is indie rock, which is one of the most sonically conservative forces out there.
 

soundslike1981

Well-known member
blissblogger said:
To suggest that a whole swathe of people are benighted and bamboozled on account of their bad taste or from swallowing what the mass media offers---that's like the UNSAYABLE thing now

yet this cultural populism is utterly divorced from political populism (ie. commitment to eradicating the inequalities that create class-determined taste distinctions)


Exactly. That's what I wasn't getting in the "Definition of Rockism" thread--the pseudo populism I detect in the antirock-ist/anti-rockist "camp"---though maybe I'm seeing "pop-ists"--seems to relativise (not a word, is it?) political action or criticism out of possibility: conflating popular with of the people, refusing to believe that the mega-corporate structure as it's related to music may have a vested interest in telling people what they should want, not asking what people want and providing it. And yet all the bitching about the hegemony of mediocre rock--Coldplay and other bands I haven't heard--is the one exception.
 

Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
oh please let's try and do better than that never more tired old meme about People Only Buy What They're Told we're all held down by The Man maaaaannnnnn. i don't see security guards in hmv frogmarching (hah!) customers to c/frog and c/play cds at bayonet point.

the last time there was a mandate for politically committed music was 1985. look at the embarrassment of riches that came out of that era - redskins, style council, faith brothers, big sound authority, latin quarter, billy bastard bragg, all yours for a fiver the lot at mve.

i don't really understand why simon wants to scamper back to that golden age.
 

Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
(nb: this of course discounts all the musical microclimates like improv etc. viz. smallscale models of what society should be - functions normally on its own terms and within its self-restricting circle but otherwise The World pays no mind to them)
 

zhao

there are no accidents
Rachel Verinder said:
oh please let's try and do better than that never more tired old meme about People Only Buy What They're Told we're all held down by The Man

are you fucking kidding me??? of course most people only buy what they are told by advertising. this fact is not really even contestable. most people work so much they don't have time to develop individual tastes and consume what the media tells them they should want. atleast in the US this is very apparent.

have you talked to any "normal" people lately? people who think Bjork is WAY too strange and out-there? I bet the micro-community of electro-acoustic improvisors you hang out with has made you a bit out of touch with the Real World™.

same with fashion, as I pointed out in another thread, every girl on Sunset blvd dresses like Jessica Simpson and every dude tries to look like Brad Pit (whether they actually look good in those outfits or not) and these are the supposed taste "makers" in LA whom the rest of the country copies. so it's like sheep imitating sheep.

it's difficult to underestimate the degree to which 90 percent of the population is spoon fed and brainwashed.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
confucius said:
it's difficult to underestimate the degree to which 90 percent of the population is spoon fed and brainwashed.

It's difficult to underestimate how stupid it is to extrapolate anything from what music people buy, or clothes they wear.
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
Rachel Verinder said:
a mandate for politically committed music was 1985. look at the embarrassment of riches that came out of that era - redskins, style council, faith brothers, big sound authority, latin quarter, billy bastard bragg, all yours for a fiver the lot at mve.

i don't really understand why simon wants to scamper back to that golden age.

what does "a mandate" mean exactly? besides which, almost none of those groups were successful or popular (and they were of course crap)... moreover there's been plenty of political pop and rock bands since then, some of them way more popular (manics, rage against the machine, certain hip hop artists) than the 1985 soulcialist contingent

i'm talking about Pop-ism's anti-snob posture as a kind of pseudo-populism w/o any political bite or political corrolary, and from that you leap to the notion i want to bring back the Redksins (who i critiqued to within an inch of their lives in my very first Melody maker live review)?

that's an unusually strained argument, even for you "Rachel"!
 

zhao

there are no accidents
John Eden,

do you think I have never associated or talked to or even tried to befriend the kind of people I described above? I am NOT making broad geo-political generalizations based on appearance and choice of music alone. I have worked with, partied with, come across and known countless people whose lives are so shallow and provincial it's scary. these are the ignorant bigots that have no inkling how ignorant and bigoted they are.

I'm not being a snob. just telling it like it is.
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
in regard to looking for vital energy, i cant help but think of grime - how energy is its main calling card and what bearing that has on how popular it is with hipster types. hipsters seem to get a bad rep though for not liking something because they actually do deep down, but simply because they think they should, or because no one likes it, which makes them theoretically somewhat empty as they dont like anything because they do, its all gauged on the percieved perception/opinion of others. flying in the face of convention for the sake of it.
 
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john eden

male pale and stale
confucius said:
John Eden,

do you think I have never associated or talked to or even tried to befriend the kind of people I described above? I am NOT making broad geo-political generalizations based on appearance and choice of music alone. I have worked with, partied with, come across and known countless people whose lives are so shallow and provincial it's scary. these are the ignorant bigots that have no inkling how ignorant and bigoted they are.

I'm not being a snob. just telling it like it is.

Well our experiences are very different then. But ok "90%" of people you've met are worthless consumer zombies. That is a pity.
 

nonseq

Well-known member
WOEBOT said:
This might seem like a vapid remark, but would you want to eat rotting vegetables? Who reads yesterdays papers?
I'd say this is exactly a tendency of the hipster modus vivendi: eating raw vegetables instead of carefully prepared dishes, reading newspapers instead of books. The typical hipster consumes the grapes du jour instead of enjoying a vintage wine. This is my first problem with hipsterism: blinded by the newness of things, refined taste and historical perspective are diminished. "It doesn't have to be a timeless masterpiece as long as it is fresh or new."

The second problem follows from the first. In a sense and to a certain degree, the hipster sacrifices not only a historical perspective but also her individual taste on the altar of the Now. Considering only the fresh and new, the choices are greatly reduced, disqualifying things that might in reality be much closer to her taste.
 

nonseq

Well-known member
Pearsall said:
I mean, has anyone ever heard anyone say, out loud, that they are a hipster? I've certainly spent a certain amount of time in The Black Cave Of Deepest Darkest Hipsterdom (aka Williamsburg) and I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe themself as a 'hipster'
Isn't the actual reason that, while 'knowing you are so wonderfully hip' it is completely uncool to proclaim that you are a hipster, even in America? That it is uncool to stress your coolness?
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
nonseq said:
Isn't the actual reason that, while 'knowing you are so wonderfully hip' it is completely uncool to proclaim that you are a hipster, even in America? That it is uncool to stress your coolness?

Well, yes.

Now I feel stupid. :eek:
 

komaba

All guesswork
Confucius said:
“It’s difficult to underestimate the degree to which 90% of the population is spoon fed and brainwashed.”

John Eden replied:
"It’s difficult to underestimate how stupid it is to extrapolate anything from what music people buy, or clothes they wear.”

Black and white, night and day. Is it that simple either way? I think not. People generally like to feel they are part of a larger movement and thus to feel ‘validated’. Safety in numbers. Once you leave the mainstream you’re out on your own and it’s scary… what if you’re wrong? Much safer to adorn your clothes with safety pins and belong to Punk, or grow your hair long and belong to Hippy. Or constantly seek the New and belong to Hipster.

Before this thread started I had no idea that Hipster was a term used these days. I thought it was something Sammy Davis Junior or Lord Buckley might say. For me music is a joy, a marvelous decoration of time and although I find some genres rather opaque (Thrash, Heavy Metal and the stuff I used to hear emanating from the Methodist chapel in my village) I can usually find ‘something’ I can feel, for want of a better way of putting it, in every genre I’ve come across, from Mongolian throat singing, Japanese brothel music, Gregorian chant, Flamenco, Chanson, Alan Lomax field recordings, Baku accoustic, the Mills Brothers to Punk, Jazz, Hip Hop, Rock… and on to you name it. There is so much fabulous music out there that I’ve yet to hear. I don’t care if it’s rooted in the mists of time or comes out of a computer as I listen – if it hits the spot.

I do wonder about people who wed themselves to a particular type of music but if it works for them… I worked in a paint warehouse in France years ago with a guy who lived for Elvis Presley. He invited me to his house for dinner and there was nothing anywhere that wasn’t Elvis. I have a student here in Tokyo who only listens to The Clash – she says she loves Joe Strummer. So what? Are they hip? They are nice enough people and are likely unaware who the prime minister of their country is.

All this second-guessing of people’s motives for liking any particular kind of music strikes me as strange. It might give you a nice, fuzzy, warm feeling inside to think you’ve got other people pegged and that by knowing them and what makes them tick you might even feel you are somehow superior, but as Edward Said in Orientalism, that is the mechanism by which one people feels justified in subjugating another. And that’s worth being wary of.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
take for instance this girl I used to be friends with (she was a friend of a friend but we ended up hanging out sometimes), nice person, sweet girl. but she worked at HBO and all she would talk about is HBO constantly and celebrities and HBO parties and dated HBO guys. I think I was the only person who didn't belong to that circle that she was friends with. she was not interested in ANYTHING else outside of HBO and hollywood. she takes FOX news to be the truth and does not question GWB when he makes a speech. we finally got into an argument over politics and I stopped being friends with her.

all my real friends are super independent thinkers who know more about free jazz than the Wire editors, amazing artists and film makers... but none the less I think most people in this city, if not the world, are sheep. especially the "alternative" kids who are just sheep in wolve's clothing.
 
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