I think that this is what I was trying to get at with this bit:
But how do you know who is doing this and who is into it for "real"?
The image of the archetypical hipster is of one for whom this is the be all and end all... Picking and choosing your likes and dislikes based on whatever happens to be the current micro trend, whilst safely tucked away behind a veil of ironic distance.
To what extent does this image conform with reality, though - any reality? More generally, how much reality do the imaginary archetypes ever really have?
What I question, in short, is precisely this image. I think it's a smokescreen of dubious substance, as archetypes tend to be. Furthermore, I contend that its main function consists in allowing one to say "Whereas they consume fakely, I consume authentically." Games, upon games, upon games...
it's not about fake vs authentic consumption, it's about surface consumption, vs engagement. championing, working with, critiquing, supporting etc. That has nothing to do with games, just supporting something whether it's popular or not.
You just have to look at the 5 minute fashion for grime, to see that it's not just a myth.
Bit of a tangent, but what's the attraction of these single-speed bikes (beyond "cool people have them")? I seem to remember there was a thread about them on here a while back, can't be arsed to look for it now.
Edit: ahh, so it's a bit like a BMX?
it's not about fake vs authentic consumption, it's about surface consumption, vs engagement. championing, working with, critiquing, supporting etc. That has nothing to do with games, just supporting something whether it's popular or not.
You just have to look at the 5 minute fashion for grime, to see that it's not just a myth.
Absolutely.
Its only a game if you're playing.
But is the idea: "I am not playing the game" not in some sense the ultimate game?
Some people liked grime for five minutes, others support it and champion it... but so what either way? Some people only like cake a little, others like it a lot, indeed, may actually bake cake.
I think you're right. However, the fact that realness/fakeness is so often mentioned in this context and is something that most intuitively relate to these people (vs themselves) suggests to me that there is at least something in this idea. Even if it is hard to put your finger on who is real or what exactly makes someone fake it seems plausible to me that there can exist such a thing as this fakeness or lack of depth and that it is an undesirable trait."I dunno... It seems to me that you have a surface/depth dichotomy going on here which although, okay, is not quite authentic/fake, is at least in some ways similar."
Seems important as well. Basically, I get the impression that hipsterism is seen as not just unpleasant because of its perceived shallowness but also because it is nakedly competitive and thus unfriendly."It seems to me that the likes can only exist alongside dismissals of what other, less hip, people like."
But - in this semiotic space where we find ourselves - is not analysis itself a form of semiotic trading? More to the point, whatever else k-punk is, he clearly isn't distanced; quite the contrary, he is consistently very polemical, very judgemental, and, ironically, very consumer-friendly; decreeing this or that cool, this or that not cool. At bottom, he rates, no?
Fundamentally, hipsters are people who look interesting, but aren't. So they waste everyone's time. Which makes them naff.
Basically, I get the impression that hipsterism is seen as not just unpleasant because of its perceived shallowness but also because it is nakedly competitive and thus unfriendly.
Fundamentally, hipsters are people who look interesting, but aren't. So they waste everyone's time. Which makes them naff.
Yet the irony is that the critique of hipster ultimately curls right back into exactly the same place, only with the order of terms slightly rejigged... now the idea is that people have not spent long enough with cake, or whatever...But the (stereotype of the) hipster approach is more than not/liking cake. It is all about discovering cake first and then getting into lasagne and then getting into fasting and then getting into pork pies, all the while slagging off people who are still into cake, lasagne, fasting or whatever.
It seems to me that the likes can only exist alongside dismissals of what other, less hip, people like.
Funky MCs aren't chatting endless gun bars looking for reloads, they aren't killing each other over bullshit. No one has gotten murdered over making Funky House yet.
You can't say the same thing about grime.
This "ah but isn't it the same thing on some level" approach seems like a rather lazy and reductive viewpoint, though. Surely there's more to it than being in the same 'formal space'.Let me put it like this: What if it was equally true that nerd, or geeks, people deeply committed to engaging, critiquing, etc, can only exist alongside the dismissals of shallow hipster proclivity? I submit that either this is indeed the case, in which case we are indeed in exactly the same formal space as the hipsterism which is being criticized, as I've suggested, or else it is not the case - in which case hipsters are fundamentally irrelevent as a cultural issue.
This "ah but isn't it the same thing on some level" approach seems like a rather lazy and reductive viewpoint, though. Surely there's more to it than being in the same 'formal space'.
And just because people are capable of being deeply engaed with a given form of music and culture without needing to dismiss people who aren't (which I'd say is true), why would that make hipsterism irrelevant as a cultural issue? Can't we aspire to an analysis of social / cultural trends that is independent of where we stand ourselves, or at least which isn't a neccessary part of how we engage with culture ourselves?