TOO HIP TO BE A HIPSTER? SO IRONIC Do you fall between the ages of 18 and 36? Can you appreciate the taste of a decent coffee? Drink something other than a VB, have facial hair, and enjoy going to music festivals? Chances are you're probably a hipster. Even if you're not, you still might actually be one without knowing it.

1. T O O H I P T O B E A H I P S T E R ? S O I R O N I C
NEWPORT
INTERNATIONAL
GROUP:
LIFE AND STYLE

2. Do you fall between the ages of 18 and 36?
Can you appreciate the taste of a decent
coffee? Drink something other than a
VB, have facial hair, and enjoy going to music
festivals? Chances are you're probably a
hipster. Even if you're not, you still might
actually be one without knowing it.

3. Yes, yes, yes. We're all tired of all this talk of
hipsters. If it isn't writers telling us why we
should hate them with articles like this, or
telling us why we should love them with stories
like this, they're being mocked in advertising
that tells us how to be an individual (by all
buying the same thing) in campaigns like this
one. The hipster, as a concept, has been
done to death. And we're all sick of it.

4. Well, apparently.
Apparently because, despite all of this, the
fact remains that we are still the ones who
keep talking about them. Whether it be
accusing someone of being one or denying
that we are one, the word hipster is now
thrown around so frequently to describe
everything from fashion choices, music and
even types of beer that it would suggest that
there are actually more things 'hipster' than
there are things that aren't.

5. Dr Anna Hickey-Moody is a lecturer on
Gender and Cultural Studies at Sydney
University and is currently working on a paper
that looks at the evolution of the
contemporary hipster. According to Hickey-
Moody the image of the hipster, and what
they represent, has been embraced by a
range of retailers and brands in order to cash
in on their supposed aesthetic
elitism, effectively turning the image of the
hipster into a marketable product.

6. “The hipster counter-culture has become
increasingly commodified,” says Hickey-
Moody. “A modern version of the 19th
century Dandy, they have built an exclusive
club based around the idea of thinking for
yourself and are supposed to be connoisseurs
for style … and brands such as American
Apparel, Urban Outfitters [or General Pants in
Australia] have developed themselves as
hipster labels.”

7. Much like the word 'bling' was appropriated
by the white middle-class from urban rap
music, the term 'hipster' has, due to its
overuse, now lost its punch. The fact that we
are even writing about them as a topic in
what would no doubt be considered
mainstream media suggests that they have
not only become part of the mainstream, but
might actually be the mainstream.

8. Christiaan Van Vuuren, one half of "The Bondi
Hipsters", has gained a cult following on
YouTube (language warning) by portraying a
stereotype of the hipster male. But when he
was asked to define what they are, even he
was hard pressed to come up with an
answer.
“I don't actually know any more,” says Van
Vuuren. “It [hipster] feels like one of those
terms that only uncool Dads should be
saying, because it's been so overused in the
media!”

9. Van Vuuren, along with friend and fellow
actor Nick Boshier, gained international
infamy for their videos portraying an extreme
parody of the hipster image, ranging from
their distaste for anything that was
considered popular to their rather ambiguous
sexuality. But what the videos also succeeded
in doing was to make the term a household
word.

10. “They're everywhere now,” explains Van
Vuuren, “and they are probably hungover.
Look in any café in Bondi, Surry
Hills, Paddington, Newtown, Stanmore, Enmor
e [or Carlton, Fitzroy, Northcote and Brunswick
if you're from Melbourne].” On a side
note, online retailer The Iconic has also
jumped on the hipster bandwagon, now
using the pair's characters Dom and Adrian
as part of their latest advertising campaign.

11. The whole point of a hipster was, at its
core, not just about being original, but about
existing outside what was popular with the
masses. As more and more brands and
marketers begin to cater to the hipster
aesthetic, the reality is that it's those people
who aren't buying into this image that now
represent the minority who allegedly think for
themselves.

12. “Technically, hipsters are still about
independent thinking,” explains Hickey-
Moody. “And while this 'lifestylisation' should
craft a thinking individual, it often it shapes a
person who buys brands because they match
a look rather than because they are meeting
an individual need.”
Which means that you could almost say that
not being a hipster is the new hipster. Which
is, like, clearly very ironic.
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/life/8864330/Too-hip-to-be-a-
hipster-So-ironic
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