"Hipster" as pejorative.

I don't think there's any correlation with being "cool" and being a "hipster".

Does discussing the definition of hipster qualify you as one? Not me, I'm here for scholarly purposes only.

What do people who are overly populist about having fun do for fun?

I don't know if you're hip or not, Edd, but you're definitely OTM.

Digable Planets used it positively as recently as 1993.

the word "hipicat" means something relevant in wolof: sadly i forget what

Dear Cecil:

What is the origin of the expression "hip hip hurrah"? According to one book I've read, it derives from an abbreviation of the Latin Hierusylema Est Perdita, "Jerusalem is destroyed." Apparently, medieval antisemites yelled "Hep! Hep!" as they exiled or executed innocent Jews. Can this be true? Can modern expressions such as hip, hipster, hippie, and hip-hop have such an odious etymology? Say it ain't so. --Name withheld, Washington, D.C.

Cecil replies:

You're not going to believe it, but there may be a germ of truth to this bizarre story.

Hip, hippie, hipster, and presumably hip-hop all derive from hep (meaning hip, of course), which dates from the turn of the century. There are several theories where hep came from:

(1) From the marching cadence "hep, two, three, four." If you were hep, you were in step with what was happening.

(2) From Joe Hep, who ran a low-life saloon in Chicago in the 1890s. (You may recall our discussion of another 1890s Chicago saloonkeeper who allegedly lent his name to the language, Mickey Finn. 1890s Chicago saloonkeepers were obviously quite a crew.) Hep liked to hover around the local hoods while they plotted their dirty deeds and fancied himself in the know. His name was originally used ironically to refer to someone who thought he knew what was going on but didn't. The ironic sense was soon lost and to get Joe to or to get hep to simply meant to get the straight dope, so to speak. (Source: D.W. Maurer, American Speech, 1941.)

(3) According to a 1914 slang dictionary, "from the name of a fabulous detective who operated in Cincinnati."

Of the three explanations, #1 is probably the least absurd. Hep (or hup or hip) has long been a multipurpose exclamation. In addition to being a cadence counter it was a traditional cry used by teamsters and herders to rouse animals. Hip was used to mean something on the order of "yo" or "hey" in the 18th century, and folks obviously thought it made a nice kickoff for hip hip hurrah.

Now we get to the bizarre part. Antisemitic rioters in Europe in the 19th century often shouted "Hep! Hep!" while on the prowl for Jews. Mob harrassment of Jews in Hamburg, Frankfurt, and other German cities in 1819, in fact, became known as the "Hep! Hep!" riots.

The origin of the expression is unclear. Some claim it derived from Hierusylema (also spelled Hierosolyma) Est Perdita. This theory obliges us to believe that a significant fraction of the rioters were students of Latin. Others say it came from the German habe, in this context apparently meaning "give." But some believe it was nothing more than the traditional herdsmen's cry, perhaps used because the rioters thought Jews ought to be rounded up like animals.

Does this mean we owe hip, hippie, hip hip hurrah and the rest to the howling of a bunch of Jew baiters? Not necessarily. Literary citations of hip hip hurrah in clearly innocent contexts date from 1818, the year before the "Hep! Hep!" riots. (I've seen nothing to convince me "Hep! Hep!" was used in the middle ages.) The most plausible explanation is that hip hip hurrah and "Hep! Hep!" simply have a common source, the herder's cry. Still, it's something to think about next time you're about to give someone three cheers.

(i got this from the net, not a speaker of Wolof)

Almost anyone who wasn't mainstream and 'square' was a hipster.

E.g. almost no-one was a "hipster" -- Mark is spot-on here, that such terms can only be developed by the subculture they describe (as a way of identifying and distinguishing themselves) but as of the 40s and 50s in America the standard arc was for that description to be revealed to the mainstream public ("here we have the freaks who describe themselves as X") and then become bulk-usage pejorative. (If the dynamics were anything like they are with such words now, one assumes the subculture quits using it as soon as it's revealed to the larger public -- it loses its purpose as a shibboleth and in lots of senses cops to what they'd probably consider the public's "misunderstanding" of them.)

E.g. in bulk usage from 1963-1976 what would you guess the ratio would be between "hippies" as positive or neutral description and "hippies" with an implied "damn dirty" beforehand?

I was called before a high school English department tribunal for using this word in a newspaper article my freshman year. They wanted to know where I had stolen it from.

Martin, I think you're on the right track, since I do recall reading about jazz musicians favorably talking about "hipsters," at least c. 1950. Although by then the word had a slightly patronizing cast, it seems, meaning someone who came from the outside but eagerly, admirably wanted in. (I.e. the white fans who would trek to Harlem clubs in those days.)

I think the word's lost most if not all of its racial implications right? Can we safely say that?

What do people who are overly populist about having fun do for fun?

I don't know if you're hip or not, Edd, but you're definitely OTM.

-- Stuart (gonzomoos...), February 10th, 2003

See, Stuart, I'm so unhip I don't even know what "OTM" means. On the money? Off the money? Off the mark? On the mountain (Hank Williams Jr. reference)? I always thought the word itself came from Wolof (sp?); that's what Robert Palmer (the late music writer, not the British singer who wears suits all the time) says in "Deep Blues."

I always was under the impression that "hipster" was not a compliment, it referred to a white-person jazz wannabe--who was that guy, Dean Benedetti, who wire-recorded all the Charlie Parker solos he could get but left out the others? Am I wrong here? Didn't the term come into general use in the bebop era?

(when i was in the shower today i flashed on that sun ra quote "blah blah these are the hopes and dreams of someone, don't be so hip" to his sneering band. i can't date it, tho.)

And it's the third one at that.

So--who out there can get to the bottom of the etymology of "hip"? The "hip-hip-hooray" hypothesis doesn't strike me as very convincing. Surely someone out there knows the answer. Actually, looking back up the thread, the explanation of its origin in the name of the Chicago saloonkeeper strikes me as plausible.

I haven't read the piece yet, but he quotes Foreigner's 'I Want To Know What Love Is' as one of the ten worst songs of all time, so I'm suspicious.

i think the wolof "hipicat" deal is a gazillion times more plausible than the chicago barman one!!

ps the word "dude" was reintroduced to america by p.g.wodehouse

I don't think Paul Oliver is that bad, he always carefully qualifies the connections he draws b/t Africa and the blues even if it is a more central part of his writing than of Charters's, Lomax's, etc. Anyways, I should add that Palmer had the benefit of a few decades' more ethnomusicological analysis than Charters (who *ahem* chartered blues studies to some extent).

I had this problem with "ululating"

I myself believe (off-topic here) that 99% of all blues writing is worthless--I've read just about every book on the topic.

clearly, the boy is a hipster.

He's so dangerous!

I'm sorry I hijacked your thread! I didn't mean any harm to you or them or anyone, it was just a really bad combination of my eye happening to fall on something I thought was cool and me failing to realize that presenting it in a certain way could be construed in a way other than I intended.

again, I'm sorry, but also: look at those first two kids, is there any way I (or anyone) could have possibly have even suggested that they were anything other than very, very cool?

TRENDY, by the way, is a bit of an insult in my books. But I prefer leading to following in terms of my aesthetic choices. I also do not abandon my aesthetic choices according to the whims of fashion (which is not the same as getting sick of a record or a skirt; my aesthetic will merely inform my next choice).

i suppose cool is like eccentric or diva. it cannot be self-bestowed.

(See Nabisco!)

In his notorious essay 'The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster' (1956) originally published in Dissent and reprinted in ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF (1959), Mailer examined violence, hysteria, crimes and confusion in American society through the fashionable existentialist framework, which owes much to Jean Genet. Mailer defined the hipster as a philosophical psychopath, and urban adventurer, who has adopted elements from black culture and could be called "a White Negro". To become a hipster is a conscious choice for members of the intellectual élite. However, the black man knows the art of the primitive "in the cells of his existence", and is forced to accepts the moral wilderness of civilized life, condemned by "the Square".

The same amount of talent, work, creativity and historical reference can go into a beautiful dress as some glorified painting or black and white still. Making and designing clothes is fucking hard.

for whom consumer choices in music and/or fashion are defining aspects of their personality?

what about them?

http://www.zoilus.com/rsz_cg0455riddle.jpg

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

christ

SOMEONE didnt get invited to the gallery opening!!!!

omg, i am only a few paragraphs in and...wow

Gavin McInnes, one of the founders of Vice, who recently left the magazine, is considered to be one of hipsterdom’s primary architects.

“If only we carried rocks instead of cameras, we’d look like revolutionaries.”

no momus no credibility

Hipster Dom

& adbusters has the temerity to subtitle their march issue 'the reconquest of cool'

explain to me adbuster

Is that a Thomas Frank ref?

http://www.whsmith.co.uk/Images/Products%5C226%5C260%5C9780226260129_m_f.jpg

Punks wear their tattered threads and studded leather jackets with honor, priding themselves on their innovative and cheap methods of self-expression and rebellion. B-boys and b-girls announce themselves to anyone within earshot with baggy gear and boomboxes

what?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KVR30YH1L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

explain to me adbuster

-- deej, Thursday, July 31, 2008 3:59 PM

if you're familiar with 'buy nothing day' which is supposed to grind the capitalist consumer system to a halt, i believe they are the ones behind that

haha oh man i just decided to go look at momus's blog

We don't like how they make their great kids great

The Vice Guide to North Korea is a 14-episode account -- made at some risk to the journalists -- of a heavily-guarded journey through North Korea. I found it fascinating, but I did notice some dubious ideology creeping in, especially in Episode 12, A Schoolchildren's Palace, billed as "meeting the country's creepily over-talented future generation".

Here Shane Smith edged towards that journalistic-political cliché I call the "we don't like how they treat their women / children" school. Basically, the idea behind this move is that in any given culture, men are responsible for the ideology, and women and children are helpless victims and hostages. The implication is that, although the men are a lost cause, the women and children could be captured and brought to some other culture, where they'd be much happier.

This "much happier", in Smith's account of North Korean children, involves being a lot less motivated and talented. "One of the most fun-slash-sad times," Smith says in Episode 12, "was to see the best-of-the-best school in Pyongyang." After showing some child prodigies playing musical instruments larger than themselves, Smith decides that "it's so sad because these great kids are learning and learning for the state". But what's wrong with learning -- to exceptionally high standards -- for the state, and at the expense of the state? Are these children really to be pitied? Mightn't they be -- as well as "great kids" -- fervently ideological admirers of Kim Jong Il, believers in North Korea's superiority over South Korea, and convinced that their "creepy talents" could only have been advanced so far in the particular system they were born into?

jesus, i have my own personal issues with feeling bummed-out as what i see as a somewhat nihilstic streak which runs throughout much of "youth culture" nowadays, but talk about some absurd lazy-ass writing

#1 conversational turnoff for me these days when meeting chicks is when they start talking about 'hipsters' zzzzzzzz

happens far too often

It...does?

The half-built condos tower above us like foreboding monoliths of our yuppie futures

wow

has the writer of this article ever actually spoken with actual human beings before? also, i half-suspect that most of the quotes in the article are completely made-up

It...does?

-- Laurel, Thursday, July 31, 2008 3:07 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

It .... does. yes.

“You’re not some club kid in New York in the nineties. This shit is so hipster!”

“He’s 17 and he lives for the scene!”

who honest-to-god really talks like this??

The American Apparel V-neck shirt, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Parliament cigarettes are symbols and icons of working or revolutionary classes that have been appropriated by hipsterdom and drained of meaning.

"I'm going back to the bar, do you want anything?"
"Yeah, get me another PBR, I've almost drained this one of all its meaning."

I don't know. Who talks about hipsters at all? I mean, like, out?

xp hee hee

Doug Haddow

Name:
Doug Haddow
Network:
Shell Oil

lol

american apparel v-necks are symbols of the 'revolutionary class'?

working or revolutionary classes
that's a damn big OR there

I don't know. Who talks about hipsters at all? I mean, like, out?

actually, i totally know people who complain about "hipsters", but i think they are just being lazy in how they encounter and conceptualize other people

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2086/2078024815_2fa68fb9b8.jpghttp://www.catbirdseat.org/catbirdseat/bingo.jpghttp://i34.tinypic.com/v8ly86.jpg

I thought V-necks were symbols of not wanting your undershirt to show.

you'd think a shirt made by a company that uses sweatshops would have more working class cache than an AA shirt

i went to a party with a friend of mine once and as soon as we entered this one girl who lived there squealed at him, "a hipster!" and just physically dragged him off to her bedroom for an hour.

Oh I'm totally lazy. It just seems like a...boring kind of thing that's been done to death, maybe? I mean I guess apart from maybe an eye-roll at the Pratt brats across the bar or something.

Laurel otm! now, rollerderby girls… I FUCKING HATE THEM!!

i think people just like to project douchebaggery onto others and "hipsters" are the easiest target nowadays, like "yuppies" were in the '80s.

rollerderby vs kickball

can't wait for the blipster bingo remix of "lookin' boy"

Yes, I'm behind the times, I just saw that kickball is a weekly thing at McCarren Pool apparently?

xposts
yeah, don't get me wrong, i write off people all the time in lazy, prejudicial ways. i guess everybody does.

but i don't get all irate about people who (gasp) own fixed-gear bikes. i can think of, like, a million things that are actually worth getting upset over

I guess its because most people have been priced away from the yuppie-classics (eg gabbneb) so they only see hipstre yuppies in their social circles / drinking haunts.

My problems with fixed gear riders are practical not ideological. Stop riding two abreast on bike paths!

The latency period is typified by a solidifying of the habits that the child developed in the earlier stages. Whether the Oedipal conflict is successfully resolved or not, the drives of the id are not accessible to the ego during this stage of development, since they have been repressed during the phallic stage. Hence the drives are seen as dormant and hidden (latent), and the gratification the child receives is not as immediate as it was during the three previous stages. Now pleasure is mostly related to secondary process thinking. Drive energy is redirected to new activities, mainly related to schooling, hobbies and friends. Problems however might occur during this stage, and this is attributed to inadequate repression of the Oedipal conflict, or to the inability of the ego to redirect the drive energy to activities accepted by the social environment.

"Yeah, get me another PBR, I've almost drained this one of all its meaning."

looool

should use this irl

if you're familiar with 'buy nothing day' which is supposed to grind the capitalist consumer system to a halt

this is not true btw

cap'n save a dope

I think the same way the goalposts of what defines a "nerd" or "geek" had to be moved once spending all your time online kind of became the norm, at some point the whole "hipster" thing became these weird defanged accusations. OMG YOU'RE WEARING...A SHIRT! YOU'VE HEARD OF...A BAND! YOU'RE HANGING OUT IN......A BAR! FUCKIN' HIPSTER!

on the other hand, what if u want to make fun of ppl who really think that their ironic mustache is cool?

LOL.... SONGS

just dont go too far in the other direction, i mean

I am just pissed that my definition of hipster as a self-identifying term (i.e., that people who use the term are doing so to self-identify as hipsters) never caught on

nb this may be because it was wrong

end up like forksclovetofu

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/179/439843850_4019113577.jpg?v=0

do we even need some snappy term term for people who listen to shitty music and find humor in played out irony, though? just call people out for who they are in specifics.

the term is "ilxors" I think

^^ fire

some of us just think mustaches look good

also some of us dont get off on desperately trying to be smarter and more jaded than everyone else

jk i too am filled with self-loathing

if you're familiar with 'buy nothing day' which is supposed to grind the capitalist consumer system to a halt

this is not true btw

-- J0hn D., Thursday, July 31, 2008 4:27 PM

u mad?

after the nightmares I got from that indie girl comedy mustache thread i have no problem with any mustache as long as it's worn by a man

no am0n I don't actually give a shit it's just kinda the actual objections to buy nothing day are all pretty valid without lying about it for lulz

"they think they're gonna change the world!" no they don't

if making fun of max's stache is rong i dont wanna be right

i got no problem with a stache as long as you're committed to it for life once you grow it, like wilford brimley or burt reynolds or rollie fingers.

lawl i dont have a stache

i have a post-ironic beard tho

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/ross/archives/buy-nothing-day.jpg

beards are sincere

I pray daily for the death of the mustache trend

GOTHICK 4 LIFE

mustaches are warlike

see am0n doesn't that strike you as being more about the benefits to the person who buys nothing, not the posited harm to the corporations? seems kinda painfully obvious to me

i went to a "moustache party" last month. seriously.

i knew no one going in except the person i went with. it was some guy's birthday party, and that was the theme he chose. i had some nice conversations with people there and drank some free-for-all beer that their fridge was stocked with. some band played. someone spilled a box of red wine all over the kitchen floor. there was dancing. it was fun.

Shave Nothing Day

I could get down with that one but only because I'm lazy

in fact if I don't make it to the sink before midnight, today will have been Shave Nothing Day for me for the third day running

i went to a "moustache party" last month. seriously.

i knew no one going in except the person i went with. it was some guy's birthday party, and that was the theme he chose. i had some nice conversations with people there and drank some free-for-all beer that their fridge was stocked with. some band played. someone spilled a box of red wine all over the kitchen floor. there was dancing. it was fun.

-- dell, Thursday, July 31, 2008 3:41 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

great fuckin story kid

I got ten bucks for dell if next time he goes to one of these parties he hangs around 'til everybody falls asleep and then gets real creative with a Norelco

ironic hitler staches for all

xkcd lols vs. hipster lols

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2136/2267248965_7ea04df8f6.jpg

who reads adbusters ?

hipsters

-- am0n, Thursday, July 31, 2008 2:49 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

oscar doesn't adbusters strike you as being more about the benefits to the person who buys nothing, not the posited harm to the corporations?

to a thread filled with decent zings the fail patrol has arrived

'Twas always thus?

I used to read Adbusters back when I was in lol college and all idealistic about shit.

idealistic am0n

I used to read it several years back. I thought it was worthwhile at the time...not sure what the hell this article is supposed to be saying, though.

it's not a terrible magazine and it makes some good points here and there but i don't really read it because most of its good points are also pretty obvious.

the only issue I ever purchased was all about the evils of psychiatric drugs (except for like two paragraphs from Douglas Coupland pointing out that once upon a time, we just locked people up rather than treat them). That was plenty for me.

the reason i asked was because i was curious as to who the writer of the piece was trying to direct "the message " to ? if it is directed at "hipsters" or whatever, kinda just seems like lame oneupmanship and playing exactly right into the kind of attitude he is attempting to excoriate.

i had to get up and get a drink after reading two of the quotes from that article; don't think i could read more. wow.

Great article.

i looked at the first few paragraphs and i'm still sentient. almost.

it reminds me of a girl named jessica i knew in high school. she was fond of making sweeping, unsustainable generalizations about the zeitgeist, à la "the whole culture is just slipping into darkness" or "people don't even know how to be happy anymore."

WTF at that article...

There will always be people who listen to certain bands/go to particular bars/wear certain clothes, not because they want to, but because they are trying to impress other people with how "cool" they are. Fuck them.

like this?
http://www.dickdestiny.com/gaybomb.jpg

The first marginally NSFW hipster thread on ILX?
My, that is a tiny little handbag...

This article was very o_O or whatever, the thing about the keffiyeh does bother me.

Adbusters in general is fifty percent interesting and thought provoking and fifty percent .O_o.

I guess I can't say anything about that adbusters piece that everyone isn't already thinking. I just wish that *cultural critics* who are actually published in magazines would be required to have actually read something about past cultural/countercultural movements before comparing them to some vague alleged current trend.

aren't hipsters just scenesters? It feels like every "movement" needs loads of hanger ons with disposable income and risky fashion choices.

<A href=Damned kids these days!;No, don't you see? Hipsterism is an entirely new, unique and threatening trend, totally unlike all those other youth movements of the past!</a>

It's so not a movement

So basically the only people left who are not considered hipsters now are polygamist cultists, QVC-shoppers and people who considered Bop Hope a real loss.

Even the Amish have beards and Shakers make stuff so they're right out.

^

“These hipster zombies… are the idols of the style pages, the darlings of viral marketers and the marks of predatory real-estate agents,” wrote Christian Lorentzen in a Time Out New York article entitled ‘Why the Hipster Must Die.’ “And they must be buried for cool to be reborn.”

this approvingly quoted article sucked too btw

Is there a way of life (assuming "lifestyle" is an obscenity in this context) that can't somehow be be targeted by people who want to sell stuff?

Nuns?

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6305433909.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

really now.

keep trying deejnuts

the commenters on that are not so bad! like:

Hmmm... "this cursory and stylized lifestyle has made the hipster almost universally loathed." Loathed by whom? Who could possibly care enough to loathe?

This 'critique' is either a clever exercise in the poetics of self-parody or the most stone-unconscious piece of pretension ever. I can't tell which. Its true, Adbusters has always been right near the cutting edge of the thing it most pretends to despise - the (counter)cultural cool - but this piece truly seals the deal. What could be more hipster then slammin' the hipsters - with yer 'black spot' sneakers on and all? Jeez. Its all so silly. Don't you have some real work to do somewhere? How is this different from any other anti-fashion fashion?

I don't know ... almost from the beginning (what has it been, 14 years?) I've so wanted to like and admire Adbusters... but I give up - there's never been any real critique here - no research or argument or evidence - just a lot of slick production, adolescent ranting and sour grapes. What is Adbusters but another elite cul-de-sac for art school types - a smart little circle of folks who admire each other's 'work?' Honestly - what is Adbusters for? I seem to have missed something...

^^^ pretty good zing

i always thought/used hipster as a patronising synonym of trendy, ie a follower, someone who is up to date but only looking at other people's clocks

yes

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/nyregion/08trustafarians.html?_r=1

June 8, 2009
Parental Lifelines, Frayed to Breaking

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
For the past five years, Ernie DiGiacomo has been able to count on parents to guarantee the $1,500 to $2,500 rents he charges for the 15 apartments he owns in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When he called renters who had missed payments, he often heard, “My parents will send you a check.”

But in the past six months, the parents are pulling back financial help, he said, and as a result, he has watched more renters move out.

“Most of them are moving back with parents,” Mr. DiGiacomo said.

Luis Illades, an owner of the Urban Rustic Market and Cafe on North 12th Street, said he had seen a steady number of applicants, in their late 20s, who had never held paid jobs: They were interns at a modeling agency, for example, or worked at a college radio station. In some cases, applicants have stormed out of the market after hearing the job requirements.

“They say, ‘You want me to work eight hours?’ ” Mr. Illades said. “There is a bubble bursting.”

Famed for its concentration of heavily subsidized 20-something residents — also nicknamed trust-funders or trustafarians — Williamsburg is showing signs of trouble. Parents whose money helped fuel one of the city’s most radical gentrifications in recent years have stopped buying their children new luxury condos, subsidizing rents and providing cash to spend at Bedford Avenue’s boutiques and coffee houses.

For 18 months after graduating from Colby College, Jack Drury, 24, lived the way many Williamsburg residents do: He followed his passions, working in satellite radio and playing guitar. He earned money as a bicycle messenger and, on occasion, turned to his parents for money.

But as the recession deepened last fall, his parents had to cut the staff at their event planning company to 30 workers from 50. Asked for his help, Mr. Drury cast aside his other pursuits and started work as a project manager for his parents. But he still plays the guitar in two bands, Haunted Castle and Rats in the Walls.

“My future is in the family business,” he said. “Music is just for fun.”

The real estate market, too, is shifting as wealth evaporates. Ross Weinstein, a managing partner of the Union Square Mortgage Group, has worked with hundreds of Williamsburg apartment buyers in the past two years.

“A lot of the money came from family,” he said. “That piece, it’s gone for a lot of people.”

In the boom years, Mr. Weinstein said, 40 percent of the mortgage applications he reviewed for buyers in Williamsburg included down-payment money, from $50,000 to $300,000, from parents. About 20 percent of the applications listed investments that gave the young buyers $3,000 to $10,000 of monthly income.

But in the past two months, Mr. Weinstein said, he has handled two to three deals a week in which the parents cut back their down-payment help.

The number of sales in Williamsburg dropped nearly a quarter in the first three months of this year compared with the same period a year ago, according to HMS Associates, a Brooklyn appraisal firm. And in three recent cases, Mr. Weinstein said, owners sold their apartments in short sales — selling for less than the bank is owed, to avoid foreclosure — because they were no longer receiving parental help.

Mr. Weinstein has been advising two brothers in their late 20s who wanted to buy a $700,000 apartment with $250,000 from their parents. But their parents’ investment portfolio has lost so much value that they now can give only $50,000. Since the brothers make about $45,000 a year each, they are now shopping for a $500,000 apartment.

The parents still wish they could help, Mr. Weinstein said, but “right now, they’re in a situation in their life where they need to ensure their own security.”

It is an adjustment that many have to deal with. Eric Gross, 26, a construction worker, was going to buy, with help from his father, a $600,000 one-bedroom condo with city views at Northside Piers, a luxury building, he said.

But his father, who works in the auto industry, said he had to reduce his contribution. “He’s pulling back the lifeline,” Mr. Gross said.

So Mr. Gross is scaling back, shopping for a $300,000 apartment, said his real estate agent, Binnie Robinson of AptsandLofts.com.

It can be hard to see the signs of financial troubles in Williamsburg because residents are so loath to show that they had money in the first place. Robert Lanham, author of “The Hipster Handbook,” said in an interview that many newer residents tried to blend in with the area’s gritty history and dressed “half the time like they’re homeless people.”

But parental help was obvious in the intersection of residents with low-paying jobs and $3,000-a-month apartments.

“You can put two and two together, that they have money coming in from somewhere else,” Mr. Lanham said.

The culture of the area often mocks residents who depend on their families. Misha Calvert, 26, a writer who relied on her parents during her first year in the city, now has three roommates, works in freelance jobs and organizes parties to help keep her afloat while she writes plays and acts in films. There is a “giant stigma,” she said, for Williamsburg residents who are not financially independent.

“It takes the wind out of you if you’re not the independent, self-reliant artist you claim to be,” she said, “if you’re just daddy’s little girl.”

The cutbacks for the more privileged residents are a welcome change for locals who have struggled to support themselves without parental help.

Katie Deedy, 27, an artist, works two bartending jobs to shore up her designer wallpaper business. Gazing out from the bar at the patrons playing darts and sipping bloody marys during a Sunday shift at the Brooklyn Ale House, she described how refreshing it felt not being the only local resident trying to live on less.

“If I’m going to be completely honest, it does make me feel a little bit better,” she said. “It’s bringing a lot of Williamsburg back to reality.”

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I knew what this revive was going to be when I saw it.

Do you feel smart?

I am still lobbying for "hep cat". Much the preferred appellation, imo.

does anyone remember what the other thread that discussed this article was?

quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

ws the bartendress/budding wallpaper impresario, i gotta say

From: platypus samurai | Posted: 1/2/2010 09:16:43 PM | Filter | Message Detail | Quote
You can literally go through the part of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and replace every instance of the word "game" with "hipster," and the whole argument will still make sense...it will also shed some light on what a hipster is.

confirm bookmark

isn't that true of many super-words?

Nabisco was being pretty reasonable and lucid (as usual) about the subject upthread, and this is a hard subject to be lucid about.

I was trying to think of something succinct to say about this, and I thought that a lot of the recent confusion about hipsters and the word's definition comes from the fact that the traditional counter-culture v.s. official culture dichotomy no longer exists (and it was through that prism that the traditional meaning of hipster made sense).

"You will always have the hip among you," but the idea of the hipster as some sort of cultural warrior doesn't fit in with the modern world anymore, I don't think. Or not quite like it used to fit.

http://i49.tinypic.com/5ycaiu.jpg

if being hip is a crime then put me in jail man

http://unhappyhipsters.com/

http://webtech.fdresa.org/amiller/images/COOLLINK.gif

MODE NOTE: This URL sets off malware warnings. Stop using this image please.

Uhhh... where are the hipsters?

They're dead. DEAD! They're all DEAD and you KILLED THEM, DEAD!

Maybe they're so sad they couldn't even step into the frame. Or so dead.

Uhhh... where are the hipsters?

these are just pictures of wealthy north americans.

huh.

maybe the hipster is the one making the bitchy comments about the pictures

i.e. the blogger

I feel like hipsters are so easy to make fun of and yet I haven't once seen it done well.

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/ <--- at least not funny/clever like this

I feel like hipsters are so easy to make fun of and yet I haven't once seen it done well.

let's hear you try!

Someone has linked this by now, right?

http://www.latfh.com/

HAHAHAHAHA HIPSTERS

Guess, since people will apparently link to anything that has the word "hipster" in it, maybe you can help me make this a meme

http://hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com/

xp yes that's exactly what I was referring to. Like, this could actually be really funny if you had half a brain and didn't shoot for the most obvious/lowest common denominator

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kwk2ybRzUJ1qzzhzdo1_500.jpg

“What’s all the plastic wrap for? So I don’t burn my chest. Duh.”

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kugejuldVz1qzzhzdo1_500.jpg

“Check out my old school fixie!”

lol@ hipster puppies but like all of you including me get what ur asking 4 when u open this thread tbh

I wonder if there's a corelation between what "level" of hipster one is in the soon-to-be-developed hipster rating system and when you were alerted to the existence of the unhappyhipsters site.

the only thing interesting to me about hipster bashing is that it appears to only recently have become mainstream. like, hipsters were bashing hipsters before hipster bashing was cool. but like actually that is the case.

i have heard benighted med school dorks wearing khakis zinging each other for hipsterdom because say someone wore a bright purple retro nike vest, or had an earnestly held opinion about an "indie" band. and there is often something smug about the delivery that would suggest that the person feels like they are on the cutting edge of takedowns, that there is just no way that anyone would have seen it coming

I think it's interesting how the definition varies, how it's one of those things that the consensus is generally, "I know one when I see one," but is it really? The fact it's so arbitrary is what interests me. The points of agreement and disagreement as to what/who constitutes a "hipster" - there being different levels of hipsterdom - Whiney's idea - I think is interesting.

Psh my dad's been making hipster zings at me for years now. Am like so over it.

You can call someone with a beard and a flannel shirt and an Out Hud 7" a hipster, and you can call a weirdly-haircut head-to-toe tacky/flashy/neon/Urban/AA Misshapes dude who doesn't even know who Out Hud is a hipster, and the two probably would hate each other and have little in common at all.

xp stevie otm

well it's also kinda how i reflexively think about it anyway. again, classmates seem to think i'm a despicable hipster because i own a track bike and played in a band once and am "into" music or w/e, but my immediate reaction is like "jesus i've got nothing on, like, this guy Coyote who has a different pair of glasses every day and is a DJ and parties in brazil and wears neon all the time"

You can call someone with a beard and a flannel shirt and an Out Hud 7" a hipster, and you can call a weirdly-haircut head-to-toe tacky/flashy/neon/Urban/AA Misshapes dude who doesn't even know who Out Hud is a hipster, and the two probably would hate each other and have little in common at all.

― 26 Mixes Focaccia (Stevie D), Saturday, January 30, 2010 4:04 PM (9 minutes ago)

well yeah there's different kinds and they mostly all suck

Teen1: Oh, here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool.
Teen2: Are you being sarcastic, dude?
Teen1: I don't even know anymore.

Psh my dad's been making hipster zings at me for years now. Am like so over it.

Oh so you're the guy behind ShitMyDadSays

what strikes me the most is this myth of hipster attitudes. Most everyone thinks they're these lame ass pretentious trust fundies, and while some of them are, a great majority of them are NOT, and yet everyone pretends they're not a hipster because they don't want people to think they're one.

It's this really bizarre phenomenon of what everyone holds as a definition vs. what the definition actually is being different things.

xp i wish

the word ("hipsters") sounds so antiquated, so 60-ish. there has to be a better word.

hot chipsters

The word hipster has been thrown around so vaguely for so long it just sorta became this meaningless phonetic blob to me, and whenever it pops up it's treated like this king of ba-zings and everyone is so invested in or bothered by it, and I'm over here like you ppl are all fuckin wierd.

king of ba-zings

what does this mean?

i'm not bothered by what it represents. i just think there could be better words for it.

yes, like hot chipsters.

It is a supreme zing, the trump card of zings if you will, xposts to sarahel

You can call someone with a beard and a flannel shirt and an Out Hud 7" a hipster, and you can call a weirdly-haircut head-to-toe tacky/flashy/neon/Urban/AA Misshapes dude who doesn't even know who Out Hud is a hipster, and the two probably would hate each other and have little in common at all.

― 26 Mixes Focaccia (Stevie D), Saturday, January 30, 2010 4:04 PM (9 minutes ago)

well yeah there's different kinds and they mostly all suck

― max ipad (k3vin k.), Saturday, January 30, 2010 4:15 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hipsters suck!!!

mostly! i'm half-trolling because it is FREAKING 2010 IIRC and we're having an earnest discussion on hipsters

but we still don't know what they are it's like the fuckin TAO

Wait for Monday, y'all, me and sarahel are gonna break it down for u

yeah can't wait for that

i'm gonna take the day off for it

in alternating, one-sentence "tweets," plz.

("tweets" are the new thing, apparently)

Monday!!! http://www.jeffpylenz.com/INCREDIMAIL%20VOL.2/HOTLETTERS/jail.gif

this is gonna combine my two favorite things: sarahel's posts and whiney's thoughts on other people who live in new york city

hahahaahahaahahaahahahaahaha

oh man i am counting down the mfing hours

if only it were minutes

it is, there are just a lot more of them

this is gonna combine my two favorite things: sarahel's posts and whiney's thoughts on other people who live in new york city

that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger "iirc"

"look at this fucking hipster" = pics of people at theme fancy dress parties + caption insinuating they might be, idk, gay or something.

how did u figure it out

That the flannel thing has been pointed out as a signifier by mainstream media over the last year is really funny cos I remember seeing form-fitting flannel on lots of vegan/hardcore scenesters, and that was more than 10 years ago.

you must be really hip

I was ten years ago!

Hi I'm a hipster.

nice sunglasses

I don't wear sunglasses, but I have a beard, a cat and I smell bad.

u sound like a hippie!

do you like vampire weekend? are you an ovo-lacto vegan?

no and no.

i work in a record store in brooklyn.
i make fun of my peers.
i post to ilx.

HIPSTER.

i just want to be cool ;_;

dude u are totally cool

but i think i have to be a hipster to be cool.

i WANT to be a hipster.

do i need to get a bike, really? and sunglasses? cuz that stuff is for the birds.

if u walk your cat on a leash, you don't have to get a bike

what if i walk around with my cat around my neck like a scarf?

do i need to start using cocaine???

catscarf is cool

negative on the coke--you're trying to be a hipster, not an asshole

thanks for all yer help que. btw i played pinball last night & thought of you. rocked that dark knight machine haaaaard tbh.

what if i walk around with my cat around my neck like a scarf?

^ would date

too bad i've resolved never to date older women anymore.

btw i played pinball last night & thought of you. rocked that dark knight machine haaaaard tbh.

pinball? okay you are definitely a hipster. haven't played Dark Knight yet

HIPSTER!!!!!!!!!

after i played pinball i un-ironically watched and enjoyed the entire david allen coe DVD they were playing at the bbq spot. hipster??

xp - I am not your type in so many other ways, I am far from crushed at this news.

lol i know sarah i'm just teasing :)

i only date other hipsters. and you are sooooo not a hipster.

do hipsters willfully mix fact & fiction in earnest conversation?

uh ... yes.

i work in a record store in brooklyn.
i make fun of my peers.
i post to ilx.

HIPSTER.

http://blogs.woodtv.com/files/2008/12/high-fidelity-poster-courtesy-touchstone-pictures.jpg

not pictured: beard

john cusack is so not a hipster.

he is just a sad old troll.

Was that a diss on Senor What?

who?

mr que??? no. what???

it is Q like the letter iirc.

ian would never diss an old hipster

sorry for the confusion, I misread something.

old hipsters smokin jazz cigarettes, talkin 'bout gaddis.

i collect old records, watch "weird" "films", i live in silver lake (lol), i ride a bike, i drink microbrews, i have a cat, i sometimes eat vegan, occasional beard...hipster?

conversely: have a memory for baseball stats and play fantasy sports and i don't do drugs or smoke

u had hipster at silverlake dude ;p

it sounds like a fish. "we had some hipster out at the lake. delicious."

ARE YOU A TRIPSTER?!?!?! OMG WTF LOL

http://s.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/terminal01/2009/12/15/15/enhanced-buzz-19011-1260908711-5.jpg

Donald Earl Fite III AKA “The Hipster Fish Killer” is on probation for impaling his girlfriends purple betta fish named DeLorean. He reportedly told police, “If she can't have me, then she can't have the fish!”

i went to art school, i eat vegetarian, i have a moustache (????)

I didn't understand the tripster thing. I thought it was gonna have something to do with either acid or portishead / tricky

god I love(d) Maurice Fulton's MU project. Guys I think I might place v high in the lolhipster rankings but I'm too embarrassed to list the evidence.

Do you have a copy of Animal Collective's Meriweather whatever album on vinyl you can take a picture with?

UGH GOD NO THAT ALBUM WAS SO MEDIOCRE! But I do have like 3 Deerhoof 7"s

lol first post is six years old

the only really good use I've found for "hipster" is as a lighthearted inoffensive substitute for the n-word when rapping along with music

it's good cuz it doesn't mess up rhyme or meter, plus what kind of grinch wouldn't crack a smile at a line like "phony hipsters are outlined in chalk"???

i don't have time to do the rating system today, but want to just remind everyone that hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com is in FULL SWING ayo

whiney did u start this one

http://hipstershavetopee.tumblr.com/

read as: hipster shave toupee

Whiney is this you? this is A+

no :(

I need more photos of cuet dogs in glasses and scarves, guys

hipsterpuppies at gmail

http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=dog+glasses&m=text

http://www.zazzle.ca/funny_dog_humor_gangsta_hipster_dog_shirt-155281952230959865

http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzz/Hipster_Dog_Outfits

hipstersofwallmart.tumblr.com

you need a hipster puppy pic with sriracha in it

Gawker mentions Hipster Puppies

http://gawker.com/5465849/blog+to+book+deal-potential-hipster-puppies-and-snooki+shopping

huge influx of traffic time

guess you're familiar with Gawker now ; )

ok ksh - i'm really starting to think you are Whiney's sockpuppet.

This one's my favorite so far:

http://hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com/post/371162784/cracker-found-out-the-hard-way-that-your-netflix

haha whiney added my coinage of "pupster" to the site :)

is there a hipster kitties site already? I feel bad that I haven't been able to contribute pics to hipster puppies because most of my friends are cat owners.

I've recently discovered how LOL music writing for fashion magazines can be. I mean, I could have guessed, but def the most entertaining shit I've taken in recent memory.

Unhappy Hipsters [Started by smashing aspirant (milo z) in January 2010, last updated 15 minutes ago by jaxon] 3 new answers
Look at this fucking puppy! Look at it! [Started by ice cr?m paint job (milo z) in September 2009, last updated 16 minutes ago by jaxon] 1 new answer

is there a hipster kitties site already? I feel bad that I haven't been able to contribute pics to hipster puppies because most of my friends are cat owners.

― sarahel, Saturday, February 6, 2010 5:36 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'm gonna do kitties in the next few days.

also, yes, mad thanks al for "pupsters"

xp - let us know if you want hipster kitty pics.

i do!

This just showed up in my Tumblr dashboard:

http://meaghano.com/post/378771392/3u-internet

you would not believe the ridiculous fucking dog pictures i'm looking at, i almost need to start a tumblr for the ones i can't use

doooo ittt

WHINEY

coworker just turned to me and said "hey, have you ever heard of this hipster puppies thing?"

u r officially a meme!!!!

roommate told me some girl from missouri just facebooked him it. also Fark had a 220-post clusterfuck bout it today!

he chuckled and said "this is pretty good"

How old is this, like a week? Did you make it before this thread?

It helps maybe that Hipster Puppies is on collegehumor.com

Do people who read collegehumor know who Terry Richardson is or what critical mass is or get any of these jokes?

They probably just like seeing puppies wearing sunglasses.

yeah kudos wgw I've had it emailed slash seen it on other boards

i bet every hipster in nyc is telling their friends about this

i bet every puppy in nyc is barkin bout it

i bet its really cute when they do

did you get any pics of puppies posing with that Animal Collective album on vinyl?

i bet every puppy in nyc is barkin bout it

awww

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/2954/hipsterr.jpg

haha ok i lost it at the circuit bent speak & spell bit

will one of the hipster puppies complain about the locking of his favorite threads on an internet message board?

kinda worried abt how much i hav in common w/ these puppies tbh

Do hipster puppies eat tofu Beggin' Strips?
Do their non-hipster puppy friends know its not original Beggin' Strips, which they already didn't know wasn't bacon?

god, it's kind of hilarious how this meme started out of my anger at kenan and Evan for linking to those two awful hipster sites for the billionth time.

i'm gonna start a thread on 77 to talk more openly about the inside baseball of hipster puppies, but i do wanna say thanks to everyone for helping push this thing along. it really means a lot.

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=78581#unread

especially ksh and s1ock

:-)

Oh cool, so I am a proud parent of Hipster Puppies. I only linked that one Hipster-themed blog cause I didn't think anybody had yet.

I can tell everyone that the really famous hipster puppy blog started cause some guy was pissed at me online!

especially ksh and s1ock

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, February 9, 2010 10:44 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

:D

And the one I linked wasn't exactly celebrating hipsters by the way...

A friend of mine just linked to hipsterpuppies on facebook and two people like-buttoned it.

Oh please, my friends did that like 3 weeks ago. We're all SO over it.

It's still kinda weirdish to me.

http://www.hipsterwifehunting.com/

Top 5 Favorite Albums:
I don’t think in albums. I think in songs.

dealbreaker

rockist ^

#13 with the M0untain G0ats love

if her horse had a horn she'd be the perfect woman.

I’m really mad at you for even asking this question 1) because you just called me a hipster and 2) you said “wife” ! WTF, dude.

blindsided by hipsterwifehunting.com

Bump for Eazy.

dude, if you want to call someone a hipster, just do it, don't passive aggressively bump a thread!

Haha, he was talking about the trend of "hipster"-as-pejorative on Facebook.

Also, we should bump (i.e. dance) in memory of Eazy E, who passed away 15 years ago last week.

from a fatal case of hipsteritis

hipster pox

It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Hipsta

Was Hippie always pejorative in the same way?

I was in a bookstore last night and saw the Look at that F*ing Hipster coffee-table book, with the cover photo of a guy with tattoos, holding a baby and a cellphone, and was trying to figure out why this guy was an object of ridicule in 2010 in the way that the guy on the cover of Lawyers in Love was an object of ridicule in 1983.

i would guess that hippie became a pejorative, but maybe didn't start out that way?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HebHJGR5JjI/SKrh9boFAKI/AAAAAAAAAPM/aODZaMu-FYQ/s400/Blinky.jpg

whoops, wrong thread.

u watch the simpsons--hipster!

online etymology dictionary identifies 'hippie' as originally being a pejorative form of 'hipster'

I was in a bookstore last night and saw the Look at that F*ing Hipster coffee-table book, with the cover photo of a guy with tattoos, holding a baby and a cellphone, and was trying to figure out why this guy was an object of ridicule in 2010 in the way that the guy on the cover of Lawyers in Love was an object of ridicule in 1983.

― can it compete with the wagon wheel (Eazy), Friday, April 2, 2010 10:17 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

narcissism of small differences?

http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/features/4840/why-the-hipster-must-die

I don't think this ever got posted?