1998 hipsters vs 2008 hipsters

'98 http://images.buzzillions.com/images_products/01/34/686_smarty_cargo_pants_reviews_25742_300.jpg

'08 http://racked.com/2007_06_skinny%20jeans-thumb.jpg

98

http://islandsurf.com/images/products/large/03-619_dkgry_LG.jpg

08

http://holycitystyle.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/mens-vogue.jpg

i wish more 08 hipsters wore simple black Ray-Bans, they're downright dignified compared to the neon Kanye shutter shades you see on the dang kids these days.

http://www.kevchino.com/graffix/releases/UNKLE-Psyence%20Fiction.jpg

http://fuzznut.net/images/covers/justice-cross.jpg

also surely there were more hipsters in Chuck Taylors in '98 than there are today

http://racked.com/2007_06_skinny%20jeans-thumb.jpg
'98

http://www.breakitdownblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/retard_ninja.jpg
'08

I love digging through my old 90s highschool clothes. I think to myself, "why does none of htis shit fit? and what the hell did I use all these pockets for?"

http://images.buzzillions.com/images_products/01/34/686_smarty_cargo_pants_reviews_25742_300.jpg

This was cooler in 1998 than it is now, but I don't remember hipsters specifically rocking cargo pants 10 years ago.

What the hell did they wear in 1998? flared jeans?

wraparound shades were never something worn by hipsters, sorry.

^^yeah i think the very definition of "hipster" circa '98 was refusal to wear cargo pants.

xxpost

so how many year until they'll be wearing those cargo pants and wrap around shades?

can we unban deeznuts for this thread

'98 = white belts

thinking about english james lavelle style hipsters, rly

http://www.bassdivision.com/ekmps/shops/bassdivision/images/skint_records.jpg

http://www.podbean.com/image-logos/22023_logo.jpg

Cargo pants and Oakleys were Bro Gear not hipster stuff.

they became bro gear circa 2001. technoish 98 hipsters were well into all that urban outfitters shit.

if you think my idea of 98 hipsters is wrong, then plz feel free to contribute the correct alternatives.

http://www.canada-photos.com/data/media/1/snowboarding_534.jpg

http://www.endurablegoods.com/misspelledyoth/files/pabst_blue_ribbon.jpg

My image of '98 hipster is tied to bands like the Locust, tight pants, white belts, and vulcan haircuts. Maybe that's a sub-category and/or a little later. I must've missed the snowboarding, techno-listening guys.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.kuglstatter.com/us_uk_flag.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.gormogons.com/2008/08/so-wait.html%3FwidgetType%3DBlogArchive%26widgetId%3DBlogArchive1%26action%3Dtoggle%26dir%3Dclose%26toggle%3DMONTHLY-1217563200000%26toggleopen%3DMONTHLY-1217563200000&h=301&w=445&sz=40&hl=en&start=9&um=1&usg=__JoFqf8y6Wakxnnd58SDT_UvcBSU=&tbnid=_P4dPHMnCieZwM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Damerica%2Buk%2Bflags%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN

Really? Three new hipster threads in one day???

1998

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/lb1998.jpg

2008

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/lb2008.jpg

http://www.toadsweat.com/images/Flags_of_US_UK.svg.png

indicative of end times for the term

i hope

those flags are in the wrong order

blame google

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uo_eC6uZluY/Rm7k1ZZQ4NI/AAAAAAAAALE/GTdaZnCt1CU/s1600/prefuse_collection.jpg

yuppise vs. hipsters who would u blap?

sweet i knew if i rode out raybans long enough they'd make it back

oopps i posted that on the wrong thread
1998 hipster vs 2008 histers who would u blap?

Yuppies more likely not to make vegan breakfast the next morning?

more likely to pay for a cab though

I would blap whichever is hotter.

The non-vegan brek was a PLUS, Byron. I'll take the over-medium AND the cab, thx.

*Real* hipsters understand bacon.

There were no hipsters wearing tight jeans or pants in 1998. None. The white belts didn't come until 2000, maybe late 99 earliest.

'98 was still about cargo, techno, a lil leftover-flannel, listening to Air and talking about how dated the Chemical Bros were

but do you remember the short-lasting single striped-sweater fad of winter '96/'97 ? that should be revived

dickes pants and solid color tees

dickies*

^otm

Oooh... there's a fine idea. I think I'm going to make '08 about remembering how great the Chemical Brothers were. About 40 minutes of it, anyway.

corduroys were also still in

surfer/skater look is always in out here but back then it was all over the street

I have no style memories from 1998 whatsoever. I moved to NYC halfway through and was in no position to notice anything.

(the chemical brothers WERE grebt!)

1998 was peak white belt time.

i guess my idea of late 90s hipsters comes from reading select magazine as a 16 y/o and reading the early nathan barley bits in tvgohome.

2nd hand little league tees

like it was really tough for nerdy indie kids to "dip their toes into autistic sounds" before

I agree with the idea that late-90s emo & hardcore have had a big effect on young "hipster" fashion and style in the 00s. I think basically by the end of the 90s the sort of indie anti-fashion group was getting a little older, and you had ... well, more hardcore scenes on the coasts (like San Diego white-belt Romulans), and the development of a midwestern white-belt "emo" style that was like indie-rock's kid brother/sister (in a Promise Ring / chunky glasses / "we looking through the record collection of our older sibling Indie and concluded that Pinkerton was the best thing in it" way). Those things have definitely had a whole lot of visual impact on what we consider hipsterdom, although as you look at younger and younger people a lot of these things become suburban-mall chain-store stuff (Hot Topic, etc.) and don't seem particularly grown-up hip.

Another bit turnaround, so far as I can see = the moment around 2000 where hipsterdom became more party-focused -- i.e., the moment where everyone started saying hipsterdom was staid and boring, and you had electro(-clash) and a lot more fashion and a lot more dance music and midwestern rock guys went eww eww eww for a while but eventually they lost; back around 2001 (in Chicago, anyway) if you were seeing skinny pants and Vans on anyone it was probably a full on electroclasher type, but in a few years that'd be just everyone. So -- and we were talking about this on some thread the other day -- you could easily trace the point where store racks that used to contain fake-vintage distressed t-shirts suddenly had shiny new neon print t-shirts all over them, and this sort of hipster-trash basement-party bright-and-fashiony chic started coming from more and more places: indie rock, hip-hop fashion ... all of this at first under the rubric of being kind of "80s" and self-consciously "fun," but then soon enough just being what it is, now. You could also note the upswing of more fashiony stuff in popular rock, with new pop-emo bands suddenly looking a little gothed out or wearing suits and eyeliner and whatnot, stuff that was surely a bit of reaction or liberation from the anti-fashion feelings of even the late 90s, which were still alt/GenX enough that dudes who weren't club kids or ravers would probably have a hard time wearing makeup without getting a lot of "oh christ stop trying so hard." You were meant to look like you didn't care that much, obviously.

Which is the other thing, though, the big difference between then and now, which we've kinda discussed, but ... no matter how much anyone here wants to say that oh, it's always the same shit, nothing changes, I don't think I'll ever stop perceiving that the very category of hipsterdom grew significantly in its purchase somewhere around the start of the millennium, and became much more flashy and fashiony and of note to a whole lot more people. I think this was largely internet-assisted, too, insofar as people suddenly had access to so much music and pictorial evidence of fashion and so on, and the center of hip attention shifted significantly back in New York's direction, and you had people arguing style more on message boards (and not just with the people immediately around them in their towns), and you could look at blogs that made basically a part-time job of documenting what was allegedly hip, and ... how could this not laser people's attention in on this kind of consumption? For better or worse. Nobody I knew was going on a shitload about hipsterdom in the late 90s; it was just ... you know, artists, indie-rockers, people who were into stuff. The hipster category has totally metastasized over the decade since. Burt's right to point out that there's always historically been some category of hipsterdom, that even the word itself goes back for decades, but he totally leaves out the gaps between his examples, which is exactly the point -- he leaves out the way that category periodically reconfigures itself or grows self-conscious and tries to submerge itself, or whatever. We can all trace a kind of hipsterdom to some explosion-point in the 60s, obviously, and we can talk about definite forms of hipsterdom in the 80s (say, that sort of New York art-scene hip), but we're kind of missing the point if we don't try to sort out, e.g., what reconfiguring what going on the 70s, the way hip was surely much more diffuse and worked in different streams and types and was ... moving from one place to another, you know?

holy shit

i didnt read that but its otm

I did and it's OTM.

Oh crap P.S. everyone HERE is a great big mid-to-late-90s hip fashion thing we have totally forgotten, and it wasn't just ravers nosiree: SHIRTS WITH RACING STRIPES. Internet is kinda selectively down over here so I can't find a picture of one of the Split shirts I wore all the time early in college, but maybe one of y'all can.

any multi-paragraph hipster analysis = tl;dr

― A bold plan drawn up by assholes to screw morons (dan m), Thursday, September 18, 2008 4:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

People who like to go see bands play at night wear unusual clothes.

Or really: shirts with racing strips, ringer t-shirts (both often long-sleeve), baseball-style shirts with three-quarter sleeves, and shirts like this one:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/5/8649709_9b0d439836.jpg?v=0

Which is pictured on Graham Coxon because I seem to remember him and Damon Albarn both wearing loads of said type of pretty mid-to-late-90s shirt

dude people have been wearing shirts like that as long as those kinds of shirts have been around which is basically since like 1975.

Argh "people" have been wearing EVERYTHING ever since it was invented -- we're talking about moments when specific items seemed to have some purchase among those we're considering "hipsters"

Answer to original question: I would prefer 1998 hipsters because that's 10 fewer hipsters.

http://www.billrotelladrumbeatings.com/rimshot.gif

and i would arugue that the word "hipster" here means "someone who goes to shows at night"

P.S. A lot of 90s hip-type fashions were staples in the late 70s, because a whole lot of GenXers went to a whole lot of thrift shops and basically just dressed in stuff from when they were kids, much of which we've mentioned -- dusty-colored corduroy flares, western shirts, three-quarter-sleeve baseball shirts, iron-on t-shirts with late-70s kid-culture detritus -- and then people started selling new versions of those things

P.S. No shit

someone give this man a phd

Whole thing feels like a pretty US-centric narrative. 1998 felt like the winding down of dance music as a 90s-defining thing (see the pants at the top). The whole 70s / ironic Tshirt indie thing was more marginal, and felt like a '93 type thing. Disagree entirely that 08 hipsters are more of a part scene: more conscious fashion, but less drugs, less mayhem.

the ironic, secondhand t-shirt: indie staple for nearly 20 years. It is as specific to 1998 as boot-cut jeans and Converse.

nearly twenty years? so you mean, since... the 90's?

Since '92 for me, at least. And I have to imagine the cultural weather that brought the trend to my relatively small Michigan hometown started earlier, elsewhere.

O wait, that was a zing. I get it. s' cool bro.

when did this shit start?

http://www.myclubbing.net/uploads/events/1173910732hed-kandi-launch-party.jpg

http://weblogs.cltv.com/entertainment/tv/metromix/SNF.jpg

The elephant in the room

xpost

what wrong with hedkandi?

I guess but I mean the cartoon super model raver chick art.

http://commercial-archive.com/d138bfd7bb6f0663dcc71c6b82557c00/b/playboy.jpg

kinda reminds me of this.

I'm more concerned about the one who's missing a nose. What kind of message is that to send to teenagers?

"Turn your contrast down?"

Hed Kandi Graphic Design is so awful

"Coke will ruin your septum"

i'm pretty sure i was a hipster in 1998 (i was 23, going to tons of shows) and i dressed pretty much like classic period shirley feeney. dresses for the important occasions, tight sweaters and lots of handbags and accessories. nothing was new and when i went out no one was wearing the same thing i was wearing. (people were dressed similarly sometimes, but i would have been horrified if someone had been wearing the same outfit...but that wouldn't have happened because all of my clothes were secondhand)

more like this
http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/laverneandshirley.jpg

sort of like this but less cheez
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51l-crB%2BBFL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

in the winter
http://images.zap2it.com/20070511/laverneandshirley_240.jpg

that episode of the OC

It is as specific to 1998 as boot-cut jeans and Converse.

Dude, if you think any of us are hoping or attempting to specify hip trends that existed solely during the year 1998 and then vanished between Christmas and New Year's, you vastly overestimate our ambition

Dear ILX,

I formally apologize for having my head up my ass. I swear I'm not a moron, just a space case. Thank you for your continued tolerance of my over-obvious observations.

your friend,

pbx

you vastly overestimate our ambition

And our long-term memory.

i was 13 in 1998 and i was wearing "husky" jeans

so i think we can eliminate those as hip

I would go with 1998 hipsters, because 2008 hipsters are hipsters right now, while many 1998 hipsters have moved on to better lives.

You know, it's the same exact people ... yes, they're in their 30s and still doing this shit.

You have to forgive him, there are parts of Brooklyn that actually do have this Children of Men quality where you can make yourself forget that live human births occurred after 1986 and before 2003

i was 13 in 1998 and i was wearing "husky" jeans

― THE GAMBLER (max), Thursday, September 18, 2008 2:35 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i was 15, ditto

the reason ppl can afford fashion now is that no one has to pay for cds

fuckin $20 albums

Actually I take that back, his neighborhood at night always leaves me plenty aware that kids born after 1986 now think they deserve more bar space than me

deej makes a good point
i spent a lot of money on music and long distance phone calls in 1998
less on my clothes

Hed Kandi Graphic Design is so awful awesome

― I know, right?, Thursday, September 18, 2008 2:16 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha deej otm.

it's true tho, i always used to wonder how my true-blue indie rock loving friends managed to afford to keep up with everything

Whole thing feels like a pretty US-centric narrative.

i'd rather have a us-centric narrative than anything involving cargo pants + oakleys hipsters

Possibly from the creators of Juno and Fuckface's Ultimate Playlist.

JUST saw this preview, wtFFFFFF