"Unhappy Hipsters" Blog

[vitanola]

Hmmm...

I've been following these long and agonizing discussions of the ins and outs of what may be called HIPSTERISM. It does appear that some are speaking at cross purposes.

There seem to be two different groups of "hipsters" describes here.

Oddly enough I believe that I've become acquainted with both. In 2010 and 2011 I spent just over a year designing building and opening a pair of restaurants in Charlottesville, VA.

There I met and worked with great many young folks in the restaurant subculture (and believe me it is a culture all its own!)

Most of these folks were over educated for their jobs, as it typical of a university town.

They wore the working-class drag, guzzled PBR and what they called "handles" of cheap Bourbon, listened to the obscure, noisy "music" (NORWEGIAN DEATH METAL????), tried to be anti-consumerist, and locovore, and viewed mass culture with what I found to be an amusing ironic detachement.

Annoying, well, at times, but note that these youngsters worked like dogs at poorly paying jobs.

I found them to be generally friendly, curious, talented and entertaining.

Despite their education, and their often upper-middle-class origins, these people are working class, and fully expect to remain so for the rest of their lives.

They are working for wages. Period. Always on the edge of destitution, they seem yet to enjoy their lives, and are quite generous and sharing. (and appear to be much more hygenic than Mr. Power's Hippies) They also enjoyed sharing their art and music, and generally evinced a great curiosity in my atavistic style and music. One of the local "hipster" hang outs even arranged to put Fletcher Henserson, Paul Whiteman and Glen Gray on their digital juke box at the behest of my new friends, so that I would better enjoy "hanging" with them after working hours.

These seem to be the "hipsters' as described by our poster from San Fransisco.

Then there is the OTHER hipster group that I've met. They are younger, undergraduates at our local college (Hillsdale).

These youths for some reason find my fireside to be an interesting place, and I was once amused by their company, though not so much of late. I suspect that I'm becoming more intolerant of the air of smug superiority which they tend to assume.


These folks also wear the working-class drag, drink PBR and bourbon, and propose to view the world with ironic detachment. They also prattle on about Ayn Rand, and spout the most astounding fabrications about our country's past. Their sense of entitlement must be seen to be appreciated. I have at times felt like the "help" in my own home when some of these sprouts visit. It appears to me that the hipsterism of this last group is merely a pose, like a cloak to be thrown off when they leave school and take the reigns of power which they so self-evidently beleive that they own.

I suspect that Miss Maine may have had much more experience with the latter group than the former. Should this have been the case, I can well understand her antipathy towards this crowd.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

It churns my stomach that the hipsters try to take PBR away from us working-class guys. I ain't giving up without a fight!

 

[Gin&Tonics]

It churns my stomach that the hipsters try to take PBR away from us working-class guys. I ain't giving up without a fight!

Ironically, my friend who introduced me to Pabst Blue Ribbon (I assume this is what you're referring to) told me that his dad told him that PBR was once the ritzy, expensive, upper crust beer, and that it has since "fallen" to its current status as a cheap, low class beer.

I just thought it was a pretty tasty lager for a nice price, so I certainly don't mind it, although it wouldn't be my first choice.

 

[Touchofevil]

Hmmm...

I've been following these long and agonizing discussions of the ins and outs of what may be called HIPSTERISM. It does appear that some are speaking at cross purposes.

There seem to be two different groups of "hipsters" describes here.

Oddly enough I believe that I've become acquainted with both. In 2010 and 2011 I spent just over a year designing building and opening a pair of restaurants in Charlottesville, VA.

There I met and worked with great many young folks in the restaurant subculture (and believe me it is a culture all its own!)

Most of these folks were over educated for their jobs, as it typical of a university town.

They wore the working-class drag, guzzled PBR and what they called "handles" of cheap Bourbon, listened to the obscure, noisy "music" (NORWEGIAN DEATH METAL????), tried to be anti-consumerist, and locovore, and viewed mass culture with what I found to be an amusing ironic detachement.

Annoying, well, at times, but note that these youngsters worked like dogs at poorly paying jobs.

I found them to be generally friendly, curious, talented and entertaining.

Despite their education, and their often upper-middle-class origins, these people are working class, and fully expect to remain so for the rest of their lives.

They are working for wages. Period. Always on the edge of destitution, they seem yet to enjoy their lives, and are quite generous and sharing. (and appear to be much more hygenic than Mr. Power's Hippies) They also enjoyed sharing their art and music, and generally evinced a great curiosity in my atavistic style and music. One of the local "hipster" hang outs even arranged to put Fletcher Henserson, Paul Whiteman and Glen Gray on their digital juke box at the behest of my new friends, so that I would better enjoy "hanging" with them after working hours.

These seem to be the "hipsters' as described by our poster from San Fransisco.

Then there is the OTHER hipster group that I've met. They are younger, undergraduates at our local college (Hillsdale).

These youths for some reason find my fireside to be an interesting place, and I was once amused by their company, though not so much of late. I suspect that I'm becoming more intolerant of the air of smug superiority which they tend to assume.


These folks also wear the working-class drag, drink PBR and bourbon, and propose to view the world with ironic detachment. They also prattle on about Ayn Rand, and spout the most astounding fabrications about our country's past. Their sense of entitlement must be seen to be appreciated. I have at times felt like the "help" in my own home when some of these sprouts visit. It appears to me that the hipsterism of this last group is merely a pose, like a cloak to be thrown off when they leave school and take the reigns of power which they so self-evidently beleive that they own.

I suspect that Miss Maine may have had much more experience with the latter group than the former. Should this have been the case, I can well understand her antipathy towards this crowd.

So for the most part it's who they are not what they wear, listen to, or drink as a favorite beverage that is annoying. I would agree. This could be applied to any group so why then is it so many dislike hipsters? Is it because they embody so much that just isn't likeable?

I don't like people for who they are not for what they wear, drink, or listen to.

 

[Touchofevil]

It churns my stomach that the hipsters try to take PBR away from us working-class guys. I ain't giving up without a fight!

That might be the PBR.
Or the Bratburgers.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It churns my stomach that the hipsters try to take PBR away from us working-class guys. I ain't giving up without a fight!

Come to Maine sometime. I'll buy you a 'Gansett.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Oh yeah, Blue Ribbon was a real high end beer, especially in the late 19th, early 20th century. Remained as a higher quality beer until the 1970's, or so. Everyone used to drink it in our family and in our area once upon a time. I refuse to give it up. The price has doubled since the 'wannabe rednecks' and the hipsters decided to make it their thing.

Ironically, my friend who introduced me to Pabst Blue Ribbon (I assume this is what you're referring to) told me that his dad told him that PBR was once the ritzy, expensive, upper crust beer, and that it has since "fallen" to its current status as a cheap, low class beer.

I just thought it was a pretty tasty lager for a nice price, so I certainly don't mind it, although it wouldn't be my first choice.

It can't be the PBR, haven't had any in a few days, been drinking Blatz (cheaper) Maybe it is the brat burgers

That might be the PBR.
Or the Bratburgers.

I'll take you up on that, Lizzie. I'm usually a Milwaukee beer guy, but I've heard good things about Narragansett Beer, and hey, when in Rome!

Come to Maine sometime. I'll buy you a 'Gansett.

 

[ButteMT61]

It churns my stomach that the hipsters try to take PBR away from us working-class guys. I ain't giving up without a fight!

In my yoot, it was Genessee and Rolling Rock and on occasion when the Steelers cans came out, Iron City beer. Then slowly, the Rock became a jock brew at Penn State and it's frat's. seems posers always try to do that. As you say. Not without a good fight. My dad and granddad were both miners in Montana. But dad got the GI Bill and kicked ass to make our lives good. I know blue collar and below. We lived it.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Then there's Budweiser which completely turned me off of beer.

 

[Touchofevil]

In my college days Lucky Lager, PBR, and Mickeys Big Mouth were all cheap and popular. I was fond of Jack Daniels and Old English 800 although not as a mixed drink.

I came from middle class by parents who came from as poor as you can get. As a kid I picked peaches, almonds, and walnuts. I worked in fields and painted houses. I worked insulation and construction while in college and insulation again to afford me the ability to attain a teaching credential. White collar or blue, the job is equally important as each needs the other. It is not the job that determines the quality or value of the person, but how you treat others. Sounds corny, but it is true.

 

[Touchofevil]

Then there's Budweiser which completely turned me off of beer.

Leaves more for me! Not Budweiser of course!

 

[vitanola]

Then there's Budweiser which completely turned me off of beer.

Why?

That would be akin to saying that a Ho-Ho turned one away from Sacher Torte, don't you think?

I miss our good old P. O. C. though

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Well, rice beer, you know.

Then there's Budweiser which completely turned me off of beer.

 

[Flicka]

I have very little invested in the term 'hipster'. To me it's bandied around in a way that reminds me of how the term 'bright young people' was used in the '20s. To people like Lizzie, it seems to mean the roughly same type of people as the BYP. To jlee, who has written some of the best posts I've seen on here, it refers to another group.

I just wanted to put a positive spin on the whole thing. Call them what you will (I usually just call them alternative) but there are groups of young people here who are dedicated to an alternative lifestyle much along the lines of what vitanola outlined. A good deal of them have working class backgrounds too. It's not a passing fad or a rebellion to them, they are simply throuroghly disgusted with the way the world is going and they refuse to take part in it. They still love 'hipster' music & have t-shirts with slogans, but a lot of their embracing of old working class culture is from love, not irony. A longing for innocence lost, for a time when people dared dream of a better world. And, I admit, because they often share the vision of how that better world ought to be with 'working class politicians' (yes, euphemism) in the '30s-'50s (Swedish politicians, that is).

They may be hard to distinguish from the idiots on first ocular inspection, but Lizzie, if you ever pass through Sweden, I'd be happy to introduce you to them and the maybe we can figure out a good name for them.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Social class in America is a funny thing. We claim -- fanatically -- that it doesn't exist, but it informs our society on every possible level. A lot of people confuse it with income, but in reality if you're born and raised working class you can make a million dollars and you'll still be working class: because class is truly determined here by background and life experience. If you were raised middle class, with all of the assumed class privilege that goes along with that background, you have no more genuine cognizance of what it means to be working class in America than a white person has of what it means to be black. And to claim that you do, or that you even *can*, is deeply, profoundly, and immutably patronizing, offensive, and classist.

To illustrate -- a middle-class kid raised by indulgent parents in the suburbs who, say, attended a Montessori school, went to a prestigious college on an art scholarship, studied for a year overseas, and all the rest of it, and who then moves to Brooklyn and gets a job as a house painter is not, and will never be, "working class." He doesn't have the expectations, the outlook, the experiences, or the worldview of a working class person, he doesn't have the long-term prospects of a working class person, and he shouldn't presume that wearing a blue collar and drinking cheap beer makes him a working class person, any more than me winning the lottery would make me middle class. This is my biggest problem with the so-called hipsters around here. I can forgive the pretentiousness and the calculated bad taste, and even the arrogance --- but to appropriate and trivialize my own life experiences because they think it's cute to do so is more than I'm willing to overlook.

For someone to think that it's acceptable, from a position of middle-class privilege, to take a culture that your class has historically oppressed and hold it up as some sort of ironic plaything when it suits you to do so is beyond my ability to dismiss with an indulgent smile. And to claim, when called on this, that you're being misinterpreted is the same sort of blame-the-victim game that classist oppressors have practiced thruout history. It's always *our* fault for not "bettering ourselves."

As I say, I've never met an actual working-class hipster, and I seriously question whether such a thing can exist in America. The working-class kids I know all work multiple jobs, and there's no time left in their day for them to loaf on the sidewalk, mooching free wi-fi on their Smart Phones, and casting a supercilious eye on the passing scene. And they tend to view the hipsters even less favorably than I do.

 

[Feraud]

To illustrate -- a middle-class kid raised by indulgent parents in the suburbs who, say, attended a Montessori school, went to a prestigious college on an art scholarship, studied for a year overseas, and all the rest of it, and who then moves to Brooklyn and gets a job as a house painter is not, and will never be, "working class." He doesn't have the expectations, the outlook, the experiences, or the worldview of a working class person, he doesn't have the long-term prospects of a working class person, and he shouldn't presume that wearing a blue collar and drinking cheap beer makes him a working class person, any more than me winning the lottery would make me middle class.

This reminded me of a comment I overheard a few years back at a craft fair in Brooklyn.
My wife and I were browsing a stall when I overheard one hipster gal comment to the other, "yeah I'm really into the burly aesthetic now." Burly aesthetic? lol
I am still adding that line in odd and random coversations my wife.

 

[Flicka]

Definitely. My BFF comes from a typical working class background and she referred to 'us working class kids' when talking about herself and I recently. It made me feel like a fraud because I'm not working class. I grew up about as poor as anyone can be in Sweden, but my mother comes from an upper middle-class background of university professors and doctors and that gave me a very middle class mindset.

On the other hand... What I do have that many others don't is the experience of fearing poverty. Most of my friends have grown up with their parents as an economical safety belt. I don't have that. I never got anything for free. Every single thing I own I earned myself, and I know that unless I make it happen, it doesn't. Most of my middle class friends lack that experience but several of my working class friends know what I mean. It's a mental attitude that just influences how you look at the world.

Funny thing is, my middle class friends who got everything from their parents do jack for them now that they are growing old. They think I'm bizarre for helping my mother both financially and physically. It's very strange, really.

 

[ButteMT61]

Social class in America is a funny thing. We claim -- fanatically -- that it doesn't exist, but it informs our society on every possible level. A lot of people confuse it with income, but in reality if you're born and raised working class you can make a million dollars and you'll still be working class: because class is truly determined here by background and life experience. If you were raised middle class, with all of the assumed class privilege that goes along with that background, you have no more genuine cognizance of what it means to be working class in America than a white person has of what it means to be black. And to claim that you do, or that you even *can*, is deeply, profoundly, and immutably patronizing, offensive, and classist.To illustrate -- a middle-class kid raised by indulgent parents in the suburbs who, say, attended a Montessori school, went to a prestigious college on an art scholarship, studied for a year overseas, and all the rest of it, and who then moves to Brooklyn and gets a job as a house painter is not, and will never be, "working class." He doesn't have the expectations, the outlook, the experiences, or the worldview of a working class person, he doesn't have the long-term prospects of a working class person, and he shouldn't presume that wearing a blue collar and drinking cheap beer makes him a working class person, any more than me winning the lottery would make me middle class. This is my biggest problem with the so-called hipsters around here. I can forgive the pretentiousness and the calculated bad taste, and even the arrogance --- but to appropriate and trivialize my own life experiences because they think it's cute to do so is more than I'm willing to overlook. For someone to think that it's acceptable, from a position of middle-class privilege, to take a culture that your class has historically oppressed and hold it up as some sort of ironic plaything when it suits you to do so is beyond my ability to dismiss with an indulgent smile. And to claim, when called on this, that you're being misinterpreted is the same sort of blame-the-victim game that classist oppressors have practiced thruout history. It's always *our* fault for not "bettering ourselves." As I say, I've never met an actual working-class hipster, and I seriously question whether such a thing can exist in America. The working-class kids I know all work multiple jobs, and there's no time left in their day for them to loaf on the sidewalk, mooching free wi-fi on their Smart Phones, and casting a supercilious eye on the passing scene. And they tend to view the hipsters even less favorably than I do.

Best post yet. Well put.

 

[sheeplady]

As I say, I've never met an actual working-class hipster, and I seriously question whether such a thing can exist in America. The working-class kids I know all work multiple jobs, and there's no time left in their day for them to loaf on the sidewalk, mooching free wi-fi on their Smart Phones, and casting a supercilious eye on the passing scene. And they tend to view the hipsters even less favorably than I do.

I actually know a young woman who considers herself a hipster (something that surprises me given the description I've read on here in the past and knowing her). She is what I would call working class- she lives close to where she grew up (within 2 miles), married a local boy who farms Christmas trees and repairs farm machinery for a living. She worked grading lumber, in a discount department store, and at a grocery store until she went to college. Both came from farming families- I think her mom also worked as a custodian- her and her husband were the first to graduate from high school in their families. They also raise and sell rabbits for meat in their backyard to get by. They live in a very typical country house for around here- nothing overly modern, big, or in good shape.

One day she posted a survey on her facebook and it said "hipster." I asked her, "really? you don't seem like a hipster" And she was like "of course! We're into all this local food because we've got to support local farmers and I love going to the thrift store. I've loved thrift storing it since I was a kid" I'm not one to argue with how one self-identifies, so perhaps there are working class hipsters out there.

 

[jlee562]

I suspect that Miss Maine may have had much more experience with the latter group than the former. Should this have been the case, I can well understand her antipathy towards this crowd.

(snipped for brevity, no offense intended)

A thoughtful post indeed and excellent contribution to the discussion. Flicka had said on the first page that hipsters were not a coherent movement or subculture. I said this point was debatable, in that my position is that we can make some generalities about hipsters, but I would agree that "hipsters" lack a coherent and overarching ethos which makes it a true movement. This is in no small part due to the fact that the word itself has become more in fashion as a derisive term.

I have very little invested in the term 'hipster'. To me it's bandied around in a way that reminds me of how the term 'bright young people' was used in the '20s. To people like Lizzie, it seems to mean the roughly same type of people as the BYP. To jlee, who has written some of the best posts I've seen on here, it refers to another group.

I just wanted to put a positive spin on the whole thing. Call them what you will (I usually just call them alternative) but there are groups of young people here who are dedicated to an alternative lifestyle much along the lines of what vitanola outlined. A good deal of them have working class backgrounds too. It's not a passing fad or a rebellion to them, they are simply throuroghly disgusted with the way the world is going and they refuse to take part in it. They still love 'hipster' music & have t-shirts with slogans, but a lot of their embracing of old working class culture is from love, not irony. A longing for innocence lost, for a time when people dared dream of a better world. And, I admit, because they often share the vision of how that better world ought to be with 'working class politicians' (yes, euphemism) in the '30s-'50s (Swedish politicians, that is).

They may be hard to distinguish from the idiots on first ocular inspection, but Lizzie, if you ever pass through Sweden, I'd be happy to introduce you to them and the maybe we can figure out a good name for them.

Another thoughtful and reasoned addition. There have been some very broad generalizations made against "hipsters" and taking into account posts such as the above, I simply don't think it makes sense to offer such blanket condemnations, as they surely do not hold up.