There is a lot of indignation surrounding indie/hipster culture considering that every other social demographic also has it's own stylistic nuances. It is a generally good thing that different categories of people can be distinguished by their clothes and other visible lifestyle choices. But in the case of those of us who consider ourselves legitimate devotees of the alternative arts, what was once, "Oh look, that man is in a police uniform, he must be a cop," has become, "Oh, that guy in polo shirt is obviously a preppy brainwashed asshole... but that girl in the jorts with the owl tattoo on her arm looks like she would be into the same music as me, even though I still probably know more about cool bands than she does... so I'm going to go over and impress her with my knowledge of Saddle Creek Records."
The definition of "Who is a hipster?" is both a hackneyed subject and yet constantly shape-shifting and ripe with layers of social barometers that are worth unpacking. The question famously prompted a popular blog, Look at This Fucking Hipster, where pictures of decidedly quintessential hipsters were posted to not only skewer the youth culture, but to also serve as examples of how to identify said hipsters based solely on appearances.
But is there more to the hipster identity than a recognizable veneer? Is the personality defined by the exterior, or is there a deeper commonality of real convictions driving the outer aesthetic?
Indie music is a huge component of typical hipster culture. People who claim to love indie music seem to be annoyingly ostentatious about their enthusiasm for it (to the point of even starting a blog...) and are eager to share their opinions. Beliefs about music are externalized in the form of t-shirts, tattoos, and blatantly contrived "favorite music" lists and music related status updates on facebook.
It can seem so artificial as to prompt the old question, "If a hipster listens to the new Animal Collective album, but doesn't tweet about it, is he/she really an Animal Collective fan?"
Of course, it is important to keep in mind that hipster culture is a construct of teens and 20-somethings, and that a major part of finding who you are as a young adult is first recognizing and then distancing yourself from who/what you aren't. Perhaps that is why there is a palpable undercurrent of anger among hipsters - teens who were once pressured to conform into traditional life paths are finally pushed to the point of decrying, "Fuck you! I hate the suburbs, I hate American Idol, I hate your expectations, and I hate you!", and so hipsters especially are defined as much by what they hate as by what they actually like.
But for a culture that so strongly dissociates itself from "mainstream consumerism" and a common lack of autonomy, several corporations continue to make billions of dollars using "indie" as a marketing tool. Urban Outfitters has probably been the most successful at this while remaining intuitive enough to the hipster sensitivity towards being officially labeled to know to avoid using explicit marketing terms. The brand (along with it's sister store, Anthropologie) has been malleable enough to adapt to the cycling inventions and reinventions within trends, and recently launched an online wedding shop, BHLDN, in order to, "help a woman create an event that reflects her own unique perspective," and to further demonstrate the company's ability to grow with it's aging consumer base.
I'm ashamed to admit that I'm a sucker for all of it. When BHLDN launched this past Valentine's Day, I found myself immediately taking the, "What Kind of Bride are You?" quiz (I'm "neo-sophisticate" by the way) and thinking of all the things I could purchase to establish my uniqueness at my wedding... someday...
What the success of companies like BHLDN really proves is that as good as they are at marketing products towards us, they are still no where near as good as we are at marketing ourselves. We are the perpetual bridezillas of identity externalization with our carefully constructed "About Me's" and online obsessions with "liking" and "disliking" things.
Maybe we will all grow out of it once we turn 30 and (presumably) figure out who we are. Maybe we will still dress our babies in American Apparel onsies and raise them in a "cool but family-friendly" Brooklyn neighborhood to the soundtrack of vinyl records by "real" indie bands so that they can grow up to attend the progressive colleges of our choice and we can vicariously live through them as they carry on our hipster torch.
Or maybe we will start making decent salaries, buy a house with a yard, and only come into the city on occasion, to end up walking past a group of nihilistic-looking 20-somethings in their sloppy-chic clothes - and find ourselves mumbling under our breath, "look at those fucking hipsters."
