No Need for Hipster Hate

Last Thursday, Harvard Facebook pages were abuzz with news of an anti-hipster protest in front of the Science Center. The protest was staged on the premise that hipsters tend not to vote, or, for that matter, do anything of value to society. With hipster culture on a wry upswing in young urban circles, it seems that most culturally conscious people have hostile opinions toward hipsters. Hipsters are fake, hipsters are self-indulgent, hipsters are hypocritical, hipsters smell bad; the criticisms range widely. But this notion that hipsters are a threat to American cultural life can be easily put to rest. Today’s hipsters make up a diffuse bloc that identifies in every imaginable direction, and hipsters have even been shown to be making positive contributions to mainstream culture.

To understand the hipster non-threat, it is important to understand just what the label means. In the 1990s, social commentators began to use the term to apply to the type of people who listen to independent music, ride fixed-gear bicycles, and eat organic foods. This early conception differs little from the 2010-era hipster, a much more culturally prominent being.

But something is amiss with this definition. What do independent music, bicycles, and organic food necessarily have to do with each other? Nothing necessarily. Scott G. Lief of Washington University in St. Louis, a sympathizer, explains that hipster culture “hasn’t created anything … [it] reappropriates meaning and significance from once-mainstream trends.”

A more evocative 2009 piece in Time gives a physical account: “take your grandmother’s sweater and Bob Dylan’s Wayfarers, add jean shorts, Converse All-Stars, and a can of Pabst and bam – hipster.” The average Harvard student might also mention Urban Outfitters and Vampire Weekend.

The mélange of different ideas and images in the hipster culture all point toward an obvious conclusion: Hipsters, whatever they are, do not share a concrete set of values or even have a well-defined membership group. According to Lief, the truest hipsters are supposed to be the ones who do their best not to self-identify at all.

In this sense, the hipster movement is arguably more a way of categorizing alternative trends than it is a cultural movement. There are no self-identified hipsters at the helm, and more importantly, there is no helm at the helm. It’s difficult to imagine that a diffuse quasi-movement whose identity is built more on ironically rebelling from the status quo could substantially change the order of American culture. Indeed, the majority of hipsters are not particularly bound to their behaviors by a hipster identity. Like most subcultures in American history, the hipster culture’s majority of subscribers are engaged mostly out of boredom and discontent with the mainstream.

But unlike other recent subcultures—emos, goths, punks, and Miley Cyrus fans—most hipsters have a weighty selection of other strong affiliations in mainstream society. They generally tend toward being political liberals, secular humanists, urbanites of a particular neighborhood, or students of a particular university. Few would deny that these identities are a lot more important than hipster, especially in a culture that discourages brazen pronouncements like “I am a hipster!”

Finally, hipster culture’s non-threat is best established by the fact that it has made some positive contributions to mainstream society. Whatever the reader personally feels about cardigans or bright-colored hoodies, they’ve swept youth fashion while at the same time loosening traditional taboos on which gender is supposed to wear what. Bands often associated with hipster culture have made a valuable contribution to the American music scene. With Vampire Weekend contributing African jams and educated lyrics and Ratatat redefining the role of electronics in music, hipster cultivation has enabled the kooky creativity of the independent music scene to reach the ears of national, even mainstream audiences.

So for all the talk of a hipster threat, however occasionally ironic, the case is reasonably clear that hipsters are not a menace to an American culture. Whatever one thinks of their aesthetic, they’re in no rush to overthrow the mainstream order; they need its existence to distinguish themselves. And let’s face it, if they’re not motivated enough to vote, how are they going to overthrow anything?

In the spirit of tolerance, turn down the Flo Rida and turn up the Animal Collective. And as painful as it might be, try for a day to put away the Brooks Brothers and instead throw on something just as expensive that looks like it’s been eaten. It’d be terribly ironic.

Joshua Lipson ’14, a Crimson editorial comper, lives in Matthews Hall.