I know someone interviewed in this article pretty well, and oh how it's cracking me up ->"If it's hip and trendy, they're NOT interested" (WOW)

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FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

July 20, 2005
latimes.com : Style & Culture

Single page Print E-mail story

STYLE & CULTURE

If it's hip and trendy, they're not interested

In an age saturated with microtrends, some people are turning their backs on cool.

By Christian M. Chensvold, Special to The Times

For Melinda Wilferd, nightlife in Los Angeles was a lot like high school. The 35-year-old ran with a crowd that often went to parties in downtown lofts, "where all the faces turn around and look at you, assessing whether or not you're going to fit in the hipster club." Where if you enjoy watching TV, you're held beneath contempt. And where "they talk about music like it's some revelation."

The pretension and callowness finally got to her, and one night "I told my friends I can't do this anymore." She began exploring wine bars and jazz clubs in search of more fulfilling nightlife — and to get away from hipsters. "Now I'm more interested in what pleases me," says the employee of a major cable network. "I just want my little place in this mad, mad world."

The hypnosis of hipsterism is entrenched among many of L.A.'s urban sophisticates, especially those who work in the trend-driven industries of media, music and fashion. But for many twenty-, thirty- and fortysomethings, the appeal of being cool and edgy is rapidly deteriorating. "The last identity you would want to claim now is a hipster," says John Leland, author of "Hip: The History." "It's the worst of insults."

Just what is hip has become nebulous in a digital age of microtrends, when a cultural blip goes from underground to overexposed in one season. Likewise, the original concept of hip as something outside the purview of the mainstream has been replaced by the hipstream: mainstream cool packaged by corporate marketing departments.

The inevitable backlash — not against the bohemian veritas but the sycophantic consumer of cool — is well underway.

"The whole point of being hip in the pure sense of the word is to essentially be oblivious to it," says Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. "Now the only thing you can describe a hipster as being is a 'hipster' in quotation marks. Almost by definition a hipster is a wannabe."

If hipness is losing its appeal, it may have to do with how difficult it is to stay ahead of the curve.

In a recent issue of his JC Report, a global fashion and lifestyle trend report, Jason Campbell prophesized "the downfall of the hipster." Staying cool, says the fashion trend forecaster, "has become a bit of a joke at this point. It's a rat race that's really difficult to keep up with, and a lot of people are bowing out."

A fashion-designer friend of Campbell's recently confessed that he was so overwhelmed by the endless barrage of new designer denim brands that he vowed to wear only classic Levi's 501s as a form of protest. "People aren't feeling they need to run out and pick up the latest thing that whatever celebrity of the moment has," Campbell says. "They're returning to things that resonate with them and are part of their personal style."

"I think people are exhausted by trends that have the half-life of a millisecond," Leland says. "You live in a state of perpetual whiplash, in which the minute you're up on one trend it's gone and you should be on to another."

Unlike the beatnik '50s, when discovering some gem of cultural arcana involved real detective work, today getting hip to the latest blog or indie rock band is as easy as logging on to the Internet. "We're in a post-hip era, which means everybody's hip," says Leland. "I can't tell you how many churches I've been in where the pastor has a goatee, tattoos and earrings."

So if everybody's hip, then let's be unhip, and indeed, what a very hip idea. Some people are just fed up with the whole enterprise.

Jane Fontana writes "hard, electronic music" for the entertainment industry and spent 10 years living in Hollywood before turning her back on hipster-infested urban life. Last year she bought a cabin in the Angeles National Forest near Tujunga. Though it's only 35 miles from Hollywood, in an industry where people judge your prestige by your area code, she might as well have moved to Idaho.

"If you connect in the hipster scene, you'll make it in [show] business," she says, "because all the people on the business side never think they're cool enough. The hipster scene avoids the search for oneself in a big way. It's not about finding your voice; it's all about conformity."

Fontana, 42, says that leaving L.A. has brought her peace of mind, boosted her creativity and helped her live more authentically. She recently threw a party at her cabin, where the appeal of getting back to nature — and away from Hollywood — was not lost on the hipster guests. The writers, artists and filmmakers in attendance checked their networking compulsion at the door and engaged in genuine conversation, Fontana says. "They felt like they'd gotten away from what they have to be and could be what they are."

Erica Timmerman realized she didn't care about trying to be hip anymore when, at age 30, her doctor told her she had thyroid cancer. The diagnosis annihilated her ambitions to be a walking pop culture encyclopedia or to cultivate a pose of ironic detachment. Cancer, after all, doesn't respond to wisecracks.

"When you think you might die, you look at your life and realize what's important to you," says Timmerman.

The now 40-year-old Silver Lake resident has felt pressure since adolescence to be considered cool. That pressure, along with her cancer, is now in remission. "And I'm not going to let anyone dictate how I'm supposed to look or act, and stop trying to be something I'm not," says Timmerman.

The satirists

Like Silver Lake, its L.A. equivalent, New York's Williamsburg neighborhood has watched itself go from hipster epicenter to hipster punch line.

Twenty-six-year-old "office slave" and aspiring novelist Brian Bernbaum founded the blog hipstersareannoying.com, under the pseudonym Aimee Plumley, while living in Williamsburg. Based on the outcry against his mockery, "you would've thought there was a revolution going on," he says.

Bernbaum was inspired by what he viewed as a pose adopted by hipsters to deliberately obfuscate human interaction. "I felt people wouldn't level with you, that they were giving you their résumé of cool. You could never really get anything out of people that seemed like normal social interaction." Conversations at clubs and parties became "a one-upmanship of pop culture encyclopedias."

Any hip community eventually becomes a parody of itself, says Robert Lanham, author of "The Hipster Handbook" (2002), which many perceived as a marketing gimmick put out by corporate media but which was, in fact, a skewering of Williamsburg hipsters by the 34-year-old humorist and co-founder of freewilliamsburg.com, a neighborhood blog and culture guide.

Lanham's follow-up, last year's "Food Court Druids, Cherohonkees, and Other Creatures Unique to the Republic," takes the parody a step further and includes a chapter on "cryptsters," or aging hipsters. "There's also this new breed of pseudo-bohemians or fauxhemians," says the author, "a facade of hipsters trying to play the bohemian role, but their parents are paying their rent."

Dropping out of the hipster scene has made Bernbaum use his time in more personally fulfilling ways, he says. "And it's a lot cheaper." The downside is that he's floating in social limbo. "The youth of New York is geared toward hipster things. I've just withdrawn from the people I didn't feel it was worth my time hanging out with. But I haven't really found an alternate world of people."

Alternatives

Adrienne Crew stops short of using a term such as "new sincerity" but says she's noticed a growing interest among young urbanites to simplify their lives. Crew, a 40-year-old attorney and "brainiac" writing a novel on African American geeks, is the founder of labrainterrain.com, a blog and calendar listing of intellectual events around L.A.

"I'm seeing these youngsters who are really looking for expressions of unmediated experience, fun that's not created by consumer culture," she says. A growing trend she sees as a reaction to hipsterism is "granny chic," or social groups centered around archaic hobbies. Stitch and Bitch and The Church of Craft are two Los Angeles-based examples of groups that gather to work on quilting, needlework, paper craft and lace making — in unabashed earnestness.

Crew also cites the Machine Project, a group that combines performance art with science, hosting workshops on such topics as how to build a radio. Says Crew, "Every two days I get these e-mails that go, 'Hey, kids, we've got this goofy thing we're going to be doing, so bring anything you want demagnetized!' "

For Leland, cultivating one's inner garden is the perfect antidote to the overexposure of hip. He suggests nourishing "secrets" or "private knowledge" one keeps to oneself, like a diary locked with a key, rather than a blog for the whole world to see.

Bernbaum wonders if conservatism from the heartland may be infiltrating hipster-heavy metropolises, "making people seek out something more meaningful" in their lives.

In hipster and media-driven Los Angeles, it's easy to forget that most Angelenos ages 25 to 40 don't wear checkered Vans with distressed blazers or go to downtown gallery openings or Echo Park dive bars.

Craigslist.org, once an underground website for hipsters seeking jobs and apartments, now boasts an activities section packed with people seeking irony-free social connections in such humdrum activities as chess, badminton, lacrosse, foreign language study, outrigger canoeing and the Hermosa Beach Lawn Bowling Club.

Best get involved now, before they become hip.

― Vichitravirya XI (Vichitravirya XI), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 10:29 (twenty years ago)

The person I know who is now apparently an authority on anti-hip, was actually one of the people thanked and credited at my friend's GALLERY OPENING IN DOWNTOWN on Saturday. OH NO.

I wonder if the aid was non-ironic-organic good ol' fashioned anti-hipsteric altruism....but regardless, the person is nice....but this article is just phunny.

― Vichitravirya XI (Vichitravirya XI), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 10:38 (twenty years ago)

HUEY LEWIS WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 10:40 (twenty years ago)

what a stupid article.

"I got older and stopped caring about things, and I'm proud of that, but sadly I couldn't stop feeling insecure about myself so I now must assume that my lack of hip makes me hip, but I have disdain for hipsters, despite this"

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 10:41 (twenty years ago)

I actually like the term "cryptster," but the best part is that lady (and she's not the one I know) who asserts "Cancer Is My Anti-Hip!," as if it's one of those PSAs on TV where a poverty-stricken tween exclaims, "Homework is my anti-drug!"

― Vichitravirya XI (Vichitravirya XI), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 10:46 (twenty years ago)

Jane Fontana writes "hard, electronic music" for the entertainment industry

"electronic"

― fe zaffe (fezaffe), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 10:55 (twenty years ago)

Hahahaha SHE SO FUTURISTIC!! It's like travelling forward in time to 1983!!!

― Anti-Pope Consortium (noodle vague), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 11:02 (twenty years ago)

go on, mister! show 'em who's boss!

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 11:02 (twenty years ago)

hmm.. after looking at that woman's website, i want no part of "living authentically."

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

Somebody, please, somebody, ANYBODY ANYWHERE STOP STOP STOP Robert Thompson, arrrgh, the go-to guy for popcult pullquote hack inanity.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 11:13 (twenty years ago)

oh haha i've always thought levi's 501s were pretty hip. ah well shows you what i know.

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 11:17 (twenty years ago)

I saw two of the most full-on ravers I know discussing knitting three years ago. When oh when will LA catch up with the Belfast/Stirling axis?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 13:09 (twenty years ago)

people in nyc have been doing stitch & bitch for years... it's very hipster.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 13:11 (twenty years ago)

lauren otm.
m.

― msp (mspa), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

If they were so unconcerned with being hip, would they really do an interview just to declare their anti-hipness?

― Leon C. (Ex Leon), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

Huey Lewis was wrong. It's square to be hip.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)

Study Finds Many Grow Older As They Age (story p.2)

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:01 (twenty years ago)

Mainstream Culture Gains Increasing Acceptance

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:02 (twenty years ago)

ha! totally.
m.

― msp (mspa), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:03 (twenty years ago)

wow. what a blatantly stupid article. thanks vik! it's roffle-tastic!

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:04 (twenty years ago)

"The last identity you would want to claim now is a hipster," says John Leland, author of "Hip: The History." "It's the worst of insults."

yup, pretty much.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:05 (twenty years ago)

of course, it's like the accusation of "politics": "being a hipster" is always somebody else, but never you & your friends.

but yeah, youth-based-subculture-in-being-shallow-and-transient shocka.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:07 (twenty years ago)

I really hate the argument that "not caring about cool is the new cool." Whoa! What a paradox!

No you fucking idiot, if you really don't care about cool, then you really don't care about cool. It's not the same thing as studied indifference.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:12 (twenty years ago)

And in any case, unhipsterism is so last month anyway...

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:14 (twenty years ago)

Washington DC Hipsters

PS.
HUEY LEWIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN RIGHT!

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

It's also amazing that someone who's actually paid to write on this topic treats "what's hip" as though it's a monolith, and describes cool/not cool as a simple dichotomy.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

And there's also a rather shaky assumption that anyone who derides "hipsters" must have no interest in seemeing cool.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:19 (twenty years ago)

As far as I can tell, the stragglers of "gen x" have inherited the rampant self-examination bullshit to the nth degree. I think half the people complaining about people being "hip" and blogging about everything have their own blogs where they bitch about hip people and talk about how great their unexamined life is. I think as soon as you wonder whether what you're doing is hipster or not you lose.

― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:35 (twenty years ago)

I almost just stopped after this: She began exploring wine bars and jazz clubs in search of more fulfilling nightlife. Too much laughter. But I wanted more laughter, more, of the genuine kind!
Everyone, including Huey Lewis, OTM.

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:37 (twenty years ago)

yeah, way to be unhip miss "get a cabin in the woods and invite artists and filmmakers and writers to your parties"

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:41 (twenty years ago)

i'll bet she was so unhip that she played RECORDS and not CDS at the party, stuff like HALL AND OATES and FLEETWOOD MAC and SEALS AND CROFTS

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:42 (twenty years ago)

Anti-hipsters be keepin' it real!

― Baaderonixx cancels each other out (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:43 (twenty years ago)

hee hee. "J. Gatsby: the Original Hipsta"

XPOST

LOGGINS & MESSINA! CHUCK MANGIONE!

― kingfish (Kingfish), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:43 (twenty years ago)

stuff like HALL AND OATES and FLEETWOOD MAC and SEALS AND CROFTS

Are those people all hip now? A dude in the subway was playing "Summer Breeze" the other day. Is he hip?

Oh God I'll never stop being a hipster.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:43 (twenty years ago)

Unlike the beatnik '50s, when discovering some gem of cultural arcana involved real detective work, today getting hip to the latest blog or indie rock band is as easy as logging on to the Internet.

Does this guy really think that a significant percentage of Americans were beatniks in the 50s?

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

LOGGINS & MESSINA! CHUCK MANGIONE!

Now that's not hip. That's about as unhip as walking around with cheetos on your shirt.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

people be hatin people

― Tigerstyle Shamanic Vision Quester (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

I'd just never pretend to not care at all about what's cool. That's just really dishonest when you live in the NYC area.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

That's about as unhip as walking around with cheetos on your shirt.

you take that back!

http://www.t-shirtking.com/graphics/137-00115.jpg

chester cheetah DIED for your sins! but not mine!

― kingfish (Kingfish), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:48 (twenty years ago)

I was walking down a street in SILVERLAKE one time and these two indie dudes drove by, blasting "Summer Breeze" and singing along LOUDLY, so everyone would hear their appreciation. I'm not sure why this happened. I think the song was in a Gap ad maybe.

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:53 (twenty years ago)

The Isley Bros. version is so much better.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 14:54 (twenty years ago)

hurting otm re: isleys.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 15:34 (twenty years ago)

I'd be a jealous asshole too if I was stuck in upstate NY -- OH WAIT!!!

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

Gear posts all OTM

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 15:45 (twenty years ago)

Spencer took me to an Echo Park dive bar. It was GREAT.

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 15:46 (twenty years ago)

Also does everyone else hate the word "trendy"?

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

everybody's

doin' the fish

yea! yea! yea!

everybody's doin' the fish, yea, yea,

yea...

it's not so bad bein' trendy

everyone who looks like me is my friend

please don't hate me because i'm trendy

they're not gonna laugh at me again.

everybody does it

why don't you?

everybody does it...

maybe you should too,

cause you don't wanna be left out

you wanna be cool.

it's not so bad bein' trendy

everyone who looks like me is my friend

please don't hate me because i'm trendy

(i'm gonna do it because it's trendy)

they're not gonna laugh at me again!

everybody's makin' fun of me

cause they say, i'm so trendy

cause i do what others do

they'll make fun of me

they'll make fun of you

i don't wanna be left

out...

i wanna be cool!

(makin' fun of trendy people

is the trendiest thing of all.

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 15:51 (twenty years ago)

we're through being cool
eliminate the ninnies and the twits
going to bang some heads
going to beat some butts
time to show those evil spuds what's what
if you live in a small town
you might meet a dozen or two
young alien types who step out
and dare to declare
we're through being cool
eliminate the ninnies and the twits
spank the pank who try to drive you nuts
time to clean some house
be a man or a mouse
waste those who make it tuff to get around
if you live in a big place
many factions underground
chase down mister hinky dink
so no trace can be found
we're through being cool
eliminate the ninnies and the twits
put the tape on erase
rearrange a face
we always liked picasso anyway
mash 'em

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 15:54 (twenty years ago)

The Isley Bros. version is so much better.

Unbelievably so.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:07 (twenty years ago)

i don't think it's that unbelievable. the isley bros. could make just about any song by someone else better.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

You know what?
The next time you see Nick
Tell him I'm gonna stick some needles in his face
And watch him on his knees
Watch him when he sees that I'm not fooling

'Cause I'm through being cool
And he keeps telling everyone about me
Like how I'm such a fool and that I'm so deceptive

I think I'll make him eat the ground
I think that I will turn around and notice the wind blowing tops of trees
I'll see the way the world begins to need color everywhere
And I'll realize how small I really am

'Cause I'm through being cool
And he keeps telling everyone about me
Like how I'm such a fool and that I'm so deceptive

And then I'll spin right back around
And say, "Nick, why are you such a prick?
Why can't you just marvel in the hopes that make up this reality?
Your world is what you made it
And I don't want a part of it."

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:15 (twenty years ago)

4
3
2
1

So you wanna dump out yo trick bag,
Ease on into a hip bag.
But you ain't just exactly sure what's hip.

So you start to let your hair grow.
Spent big bucks on your wardrobe.
But somehow you know there's much more to the trip.

What is hip? Tell me tell me, if you think ya know.
What is hip? And if you're really hip, the passing years will show,
That you into a hip trip, maybe hipper than hip.
But what is hip?

So you became part of the new breed.
Been smoking only the best weed.
Hanging out with so-called hippest set.
Been seen in all the right places,
Seen with just the right faces.
You should be satisfied,
But still it ain't quite right.

What is hip? Tell me tell me if you think you know.
What is hip? And if you're really hip.
The passing years would show,
That you into a hip trip, maybe hipper than hip.
What is hip?

Hipness is what it is!
Sometimes hipness is what it ain't!

You done went and found you a guru,
In an effort to find you a new you.
And maybe even managed to raise your conscience level.

As you're striving to find the right road,
There's one thing you should know:
What's hip today might become passe'.

What is hip? Tell me tell me if you think you know.
What is hip? And if you're really hip, the passing years would show
That you into a hip trip. Maybe hipper than hip.
WHAT IS HIP?

(Tower of Power)

― nickn (nickn), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:17 (twenty years ago)

we're through being cool
eliminate the ninnies and the twits

I so want to see this video now...

― donut ferry (donut), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:18 (twenty years ago)

put your hand up on my hip, when you dip i dip we dip!

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

your parents paid your tuition and bought you a beret
you go to art school because you're fucking gay
are you in college or 13th grade
think of all the money your parents could have saved

[chorus:]
fag,fag,fag,you go to art school [x4]

[repeat everything]

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:28 (twenty years ago)

This article is asinine.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:42 (twenty years ago)

was this echo park dive bar little joy or the short stop?

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:48 (twenty years ago)

"I can't tell you how many churches I've been in where the pastor has a goatee, tattoos and earrings.": This guy spends his spare time church-hopping? Is that hip or square?

Anyway I like the idea of "a novel about African-American geeks," so maybe that'll turn out decent.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:50 (twenty years ago)

Twenty-six-year-old "office slave" and aspiring novelist Brian Bernbaum founded the blog hipstersareannoying.com, under the pseudonym Aimee Plumley, while living in Williamsburg. Based on the outcry against his mockery, "you would've thought there was a revolution going on," he says.

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:54 (twenty years ago)

blow it out your hairdo cause you work at Hardee's

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

robble

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

I was hipster when hipster wasn't cool.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:57 (twenty years ago)

oh please spencer. ; 0

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

oh please what?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

first they came for the hipsters, and I said nothing, for I wasn't a hipster

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

http://www.hipsterholocaust.com/

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 17:01 (twenty years ago)

http://www.misshapes.com/images/photos/12-11-04/12-11-04_img_023.jpg

― She's built like a steakhouse, but she handles like a bistro! (Adrian Langston), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 17:02 (twenty years ago)

Hath not a hipster eyes?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

What's that guy?

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 18:20 (twenty years ago)

"this mad, mad world" roffle

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 19:07 (twenty years ago)

I'm hip. I'm no square.
I'm alert, I'm awake, I'm aware.
I am always on the scene.
Makin' the rounds, diggin' the sounds.
I read People Magazine.
'Cause I'm hip.

Like, dig! I'm in step.
When it was hip to be hep, I was hep.
I don't blow but I'm a fan.
Look at me swing. Ring a ding ding.
I even call my girlfriend "man,"
’Cause I'm hip.

Every Saturday night
With my suit buttoned tight and my suedes on
I'm gettin' my kicks
Diggin' arty French flicks with my shades on.

I'm too much. I'm a gas.
I am anything but middle class.
When I hang around the band,
Poppin' my thumbs, diggin' the drums,
Squares don't seem to understand
Why I flip. They're not hip like I'm hip.

I'm on top of every trend.
Look at me go. Vo-dee-o-do.
Sammy Davis know my friend.

I'm hip, but not weird.
Like, you notice, I don't wear a beard.
Beards were in but now they're out.
They had they're day. Now they're passe.
Just ask me if you're in doubt, 'cause I'm hip.

Now I'm deep into Zen
Meditation and macrobiotics,
And as soon as I can
I intend to get into narcotics.

'Cause I'm cool as a cuke.
I'm a cat, I'm a card, I'm a kook.
I get so much out of life.
Really, I do. Skoo ba dee boo.
One more time play "Mack the Knife."
Let 'er rip. I may flip, but I'm hip
Better show this to Quincy!
I’m hip
I’m hip
I’m, I’m hip

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 19:08 (twenty years ago)

http://www.hipstersareannoying.com/

This guy's observations are quite tedious.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 19:25 (twenty years ago)

was this echo park dive bar little joy or the short stop?

little joy

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 19:26 (twenty years ago)

A Blog dedicated to all the absurd and annoying things New York City hipsters do, say, wear, and probably, think.

ugh

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 19:32 (twenty years ago)

xpost
I remember that! Sort of!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 19:38 (twenty years ago)

I have photos of the ceiling!

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 19:39 (twenty years ago)

haha this guy has a link to TMFTML's blog, which is linked to ilm/ile! two degrees, people!

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 19:42 (twenty years ago)

a 35 year old, a 40 year old, and a 42 year old in discovering they don't care about hipness anymore shockah

― I know some come from the reality (wetmink), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 19:44 (twenty years ago)

And another thing
I've been wondering lately
Am I crazy
To believe in ideals?
I'm a betting man
But it's getting damn lonely.
Oh, honey, if only
I could be sure what I feel.
What's my scene? (I'm dying to know)
I'll never know.
Well, I concede
I've been caught in someone else's scene (but that's not me).
Where, oh where, oh where can my scene be?
Please answer - me
What's my ..?

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 19:55 (twenty years ago)

Being in your 20s is OVER.

― Boring Satanic Space Jazz (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 20:04 (twenty years ago)

Don't say what you mean
You might spoil your face
If you walk in the crowd
You won't leave any trace
It's always the same
You're jumping someone else's train

It won't take you long
To learn the new smile
You'll have to adapt
Or you'll be out of style
It's always the same
You're jumping someone else's train

If you pick up on it quick
You can say you were there
Again and again and again
You're jumping someone else's train

It's the latest wave
That you've been craving for
The old ideal
Was getting such a bore
Now you're back in line
Going not quite quite as far
But in half the time
Everyone's happy
They're finally all the same
'cause everyone's jumping
Everyone else's train

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 20:05 (twenty years ago)

*applause*

I'd forgotten how dry and ace those lyrics are! thanks rob.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 20:13 (twenty years ago)

Being in your 20s is OVER.

2 months 'til i'm 30.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 20:17 (twenty years ago)

i turn 29 on august 12th! send me gifts and naughty photos!

― kingfish (Kingfish), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 20:18 (twenty years ago)

Oh, I actually thought that hipstersareannoying blogger was really a girl. he was so self consciously bitchy.

― h0t h0t h0rsey (Carey), Thursday, 21 July 2005 01:04 (twenty years ago)

yeah he had me fooled, too. in fact, i'm kinda impressed if that was really a full-on character he had created, rather than more or less his actual voice tweaked a bit to sound female. hmm.

― W i l l (common_person), Thursday, 21 July 2005 01:13 (twenty years ago)

This is what happens to all those fucking anthropology majors that couldn't get a job.

― Mendoza Lineman (Carey), Thursday, 21 July 2005 01:21 (twenty years ago)

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:00 (twenty years ago)

What the hip have to say about it, courtesy of Ivan Johnson, as distributed on GLOOP:

Never send a Square to do a Beatnik's job - he's just fooled by the
Orwellian re-definition of the word.

Actually the "hip" they're talking about is the shitty post-Vietnam
"hip" of consumerist narcissists, not the actually GOOD 'hip' of the
'50s & '60s. "Hip" got re-defined at the beginning of the "Me"
Generation (also known as the Coke & Quaalude Generation) in the mid
'70s to become only the hollow, cynical, worthless shell of what it had
so recently meant.

In the '50s & '60s 'hip' pretty much meant that one understood how the
world really worked, understood the basic concepts of philosophy,
economics, consumerism, ethnocentrism, history, etc., and WASN'T a
self-involved poser or consumerist faux-underground clone.

"Hip" used to describe someone who was 'hip' to the various 'swindles'
of civilization: capitalism, Stalinism, the military/industrial
complex, religion, dress codes, sexism, McCarthyism (hey Nick!), etc.,
and to the wonderful possibilities that world history and culture had
to offer the generally isolated and prejudiced West. I believe that it
also held implicit the idea that the right thing to do for a person in
this world was to struggle against the swindles in some way. In the
'70s that all changed very quickly.

By 1977, what I call the Disco/Cocaine Era culture had begun to
parasitically eradicate the earlier definition. Everyone became more
selfish and star-struck as communes fell apart and giant conglogmerates
discovered they could cash-in on the counter-culture that used to be
diametrically opposed to them. They immediately set about co-opting the
language of the Beat/Hippie radical period to the service of their own
profit; re-defining the colloquialisms through mass-media bombardment
to mean roughly the opposite of what they formerly meant. Wm. Burroughs
correctly predicted the situation.

Punks, who are basically Bohemian/Beatnik/Hippies with new uniforms,
made a valiant try to bring the original meaning back to 'hip' and it
actually worked until roughly 1986 when Moloch co-opted them AGAIN.

The punks' version was more short-lived, I think, because they didn't
have as compelling an underlying philosophy as the Beats and the
Hippies did. Eastern Dao-ish communal/love ideas were at the core of
the earlier movements and appealed to a broad range of repressed kids
with a malleable style that had no closely defined uniform. Anarchy,
belligerence and separatism sort of formed the underpinnings of punk -
a perhaps appropriate, but much less positive philosophical
underpinning that failed to mobilize the mass imagination.

Since the death of punk in around 1986? (or perhaps the Grunge scene as
late as 1992), Moloch has been firmly in control, resulting in the
embarrassing emptiness we all now occupy. The co-optation of
counter-culture themes has become part of the corporate business plan,
in keeping with the neo-fascist push to commodify everything of value
in the human sphere.

So what the media says is 'hip' really is totally 'un-hip' by any
legitimate definition. What can one expect from greedy New York
consumerist fashion people who don't grok the swindle themselves, and
so can't know the difference? (OK, sorry, that's mean. They're not ALL
from New York)

This is but one of the dynamics driving the General Crisis of the Arts
in America. There are NO significant non-co-opted counter-cultures now.
No compelling writers or filmmakers or musicians or PHILOSOPHY. This is
the result of our totalized propaganda state acting in all cases at the
sole behest of capital and commodification, and fundamentally opposed
to any idea that can rightly be called hip in the original definition.

The "hip" this article talks about is the cheap, hollow newspeak
doublethink shell which they have sucked all the valid meaning out of,
and convinced everyone to keep using. The people who ditched the phony
narcissistic "hip" scenes to find a life they are genuinely comfortable
with ARE the hip people! REAL hip people are still hip, there's just a
lot fewer of 'em and nowhere for them to hang out.

I thank my lucky stars that I was priveliged to experience the tiny but
significant island of truth that people like Mark Kreisel, Paul
Greenstein and John Leech made possible by being genuinely HIP.

― Orbit (Orbit), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:44 (twenty years ago)

That's a little rockist.

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:50 (twenty years ago)

That was kind of refreshing, honestly.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:51 (twenty years ago)

I mean he goes a little too far at times, but he does have a point.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:51 (twenty years ago)

Wouldn't rockism be more one of the hollow, empty shells of hipness rather than hipness itself? Whereas anti-rockism seems in part to emerge out of a realization that rockism has long been an empty shell.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:52 (twenty years ago)

no.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:54 (twenty years ago)

I think Ivan's main point is a good one--that the media-defined hip is something that people who are "hip to the scams" avoid anyway, hence the :A Times article misses the point. The don't even KNOW where the LA underground IS any more! Talking about affluent young film execs isn't exactly scraping the boho tradition of the Silverlake area, and it is still there, was NEVER pretentious (that was the whole point) and continues as it was, under the radar.

― Orbit (Orbit), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:57 (twenty years ago)

I am reminded of an old episode of Duck Tales where the villain and Launchpad are presented with 2 doors. Behind one - treasure; behind the other - doom. The villain suggests Launchpad open one. He proceeds to recursively try to predict how the villain will psych him out. In the end, it turns out it was just a simple lie.

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:57 (twenty years ago)

Orbit otm though mostly. THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT CHAKI AND DEAN GULBERRIES.

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 03:58 (twenty years ago)

The don't even KNOW where the LA underground IS any more! Talking about affluent young film execs isn't exactly scraping the boho tradition of the Silverlake area, and it is still there, was NEVER pretentious (that was the whole point) and continues as it was, under the radar.

That's true, but I think it misses the point a little also. The idea of that blog piece isn't just "There's much cooler shit that you don't even KNOW ABOUT!" but that there was originally supposed to be a political and philosophical meaning to "hip" and not just one involving style. Hence the hippest graphic designer working for the hippest ad firm and going to lots of "underground" parties would not in fact be hip at all.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:01 (twenty years ago)

"hippest ad firm"

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:02 (twenty years ago)

The quotation marks were already implied by what I wrote.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:03 (twenty years ago)

Or were meant to be anyway.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:03 (twenty years ago)

Hence the hippest graphic designer working for the hippest ad firm and going to lots of "underground" parties would not in fact be hip at all.

True--and the Silverlake people are doing underground parties, but not working at the hippest places and not hobnobbing at velvet rope events. not shit like that.

― Orbit (Orbit), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:03 (twenty years ago)

how long before they get sick of being anti-hip and go anti-anti-hip? a week?

― Ô¿Ô (eman), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:03 (twenty years ago)

Actually most of the hip people got priced out of silverlake by gentrification of the type of people in the LA Time article-half of them live in Highland Park now.

― Orbit (Orbit), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:05 (twenty years ago)

Will Flavorpill tell me if irony is in this week?

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:06 (twenty years ago)

True--and the Silverlake people are doing underground parties, but not working at the hippest places and not hobnobbing at velvet rope events. not shit like that.

-- Orbit (cstarrcstar...), July 21st, 2005.

I know a bunch of people in Philly who still seem to live a genuinely counter-cultural lifestyle (it's still cheap enough to do so there). The problem, however, is that there doesn't seem to be much philosophy underpinning it, other than selfishness, immaturity and chaos. I doubt most of them ever open a book.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:07 (twenty years ago)

"Special to The Times"

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:09 (twenty years ago)

;)

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:10 (twenty years ago)

Christian M. Chensvold, I'm sure you're a nice guy just trying to make it in the cutthroat world of the ladies' section, but you're on my list.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:10 (twenty years ago)

Doesn't this article come out once a quarter?

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:11 (twenty years ago)

Ugh, I just imagined my last post in the voice of a middle-aged conservative. I think I'll go shoot myself now.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:11 (twenty years ago)

There was some free daily in NY talking about "Williamsburg's Hipsters [pairing] off and mating"

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:18 (twenty years ago)

I don't get all the NYC ire directed at hipsters. 75% of New Yorkers are now affluent trendy fuxors anyway.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:20 (twenty years ago)

that must be some other new york, not my neighborhood.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:22 (twenty years ago)

xpost -- as far as young people moving to the city!

....or money-grubbing assholes. The funniest shit on ILX was when there was east coast west coast beef when someone posted a bunch of pictures from one of those LA sites that posts pictures of people at parties.

Also: CLUB BANG

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:23 (twenty years ago)

HIP

― Dr. Glen Y. Abreu (dr g), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:24 (twenty years ago)

HIP

― Dr. Glen Y. Abreu (dr g), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:25 (twenty years ago)

NO HOORAY

― Dr. Glen Y. Abreu (dr g), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:26 (twenty years ago)

xpost

I had a weird feeling someone would take that personally, and one of my guesses was you. Obv. my number is an exaggeration, but the point is that I find it odd that Manhattanites like to complain about Brooklyn "hipsters" when there are so many other types of obnoxiously trendy people in the city.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:26 (twenty years ago)

LIKE TRUST FUND DIPSHITS WITH MIDTOWN PLACES AND SWEET JOBS

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:27 (twenty years ago)

Who write blogs about hipsters

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:28 (twenty years ago)

you read blogs about hipsters?!?! WTF

― Dr. Glen Y. Abreu (dr g), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:29 (twenty years ago)

"Erica Timmerman realized she didn't care about trying to be hip anymore when, at age 30, her doctor told her she had thyroid cancer."

I have seen writers whipped for less. Whipped until they bled.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:29 (twenty years ago)

(see above)

xpost

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:30 (twenty years ago)

who took it personally??!? i was just saying. the entire problem with articles like these and blogs like that and hell probably ilx in general is how they completely ignore the VAST MAJORITY of people who actually LIVE and WORK in their given cities. surprise, surprise, most of them are *gasp* minorities.

not sayin' you're like that at all, hurting, just that this shit is SO FUCKING TIRED.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:30 (twenty years ago)

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:31 (twenty years ago)

Stence, I was using New York as shorthand for Manhattan. I do realize what you are saying. And I also realize that even in Manhattan there's still public and low-income housing (though it's disappearing) and that there are still people scraping by in the city.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:31 (twenty years ago)

(see above)

yeah why do you read it though

― Dr. Glen Y. Abreu (dr g), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:32 (twenty years ago)

Ugh, I just imagined my last post in the voice of a middle-aged conservative

t/s: reading that in Wm Buckley's voice vs Andy Rooney's voice

― kingfish (Kingfish), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:32 (twenty years ago)

in other words, who outside someone who entirely submerses themselves in this so-called hipster lifestyle sees that many in a fucking day? i don't! i mostly see lots of hard-working working and middle class people, a few hipsters here and there, and LOTS of un- and underemployed teenagers.

xpost - there are PLENTY of poor/working/middle class people in manhattan.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:33 (twenty years ago)

Can we lock this thread before Momus appears?

http://home.ptd.net/~glisman/bubble/images/AniWhale.gif

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:34 (twenty years ago)

you have to sing the Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble theme first

― kingfish (Kingfish), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:42 (twenty years ago)

http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/121980.html?nc=124

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:49 (twenty years ago)

The unifying force behind the American conscience probably is guilt.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Thursday, 21 July 2005 04:52 (twenty years ago)

"I used to be with it, but then they changed what 'it' was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me."
-- Grandpa Abe Simpson

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 21 July 2005 05:04 (twenty years ago)

That's a great link John!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 21 July 2005 05:36 (twenty years ago)

Woops, I mean "Jon"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 21 July 2005 05:36 (twenty years ago)

hah, one last time, OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 21 July 2005 05:37 (twenty years ago)

Momus has the worst tone in his writing.

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 05:58 (twenty years ago)

what i usually gather from momus's essays on things he dislikes: all these things are not me.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 21 July 2005 06:01 (twenty years ago)

I love the poster-girl for non-moronic non-cynicism.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 21 July 2005 13:34 (twenty years ago)

I think "frequent cocaine use" is the elephant in the room for many of these ex-hipsters.

― Boring Satanic Space Jazz (sexyDancer), Thursday, 21 July 2005 13:48 (twenty years ago)

she looks like ironic cynicism to me, I didn't read all the way down though

― carbon (carbon), Thursday, 21 July 2005 13:57 (twenty years ago)

Professor Momus has taught me new today. I will leave him a livejournal comment thanking him for his sage wisdom!

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Thursday, 21 July 2005 14:54 (twenty years ago)

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