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counter-culture or mindl

By Leah Batstone
The Concordian
(Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — What do
you think of when you hear the
word “hipster”? For hipster haters,
it is an arrogant trend follower,
who loves sarcasm and drinking
Pabst Blue Ribbon while wearing
black thick-rimmed glasses with no
lenses. It is clear to see that it has
become an overused word that has
lost its significance and impact due
to mainstream popularity.

Dr. Zeynep Arsel, who jokingly
calls herself a “hipsterologist,” is an
assistant professor in Concordia’s
marketing department. Her
doctoral dissertation looked at “the
intersection of indie culture and
mass mediated hipster narrative
and the consumption patterns

that emerge as a result of this co-
optation.”

12

She explained how marketers
began pegging people with the
term hipster. “We're talking about
"90s. This was where indie music
was very exotic and interesting
and nothing like anything out
there. Marketers were trying to
understand, and I was looking at,
the media discourse about indie
music. Gradually, journalists and
marketers started to label and
categorize people who are in this
indie culture as hipsters. I don’t
know what the challenge was with
[labelling] indie, but it was sort of
a production system rather than a
lifestyle,” she said. “Using hipster
helped them understand what indie
was about.”

Arsel explained that marketers
“cool-hunt” for subcultures and
new styles in areas where the
culture is merely emerging. They
“find stylistic cues, fashion, and
make them mainstream.” This

happened with hipsters, who were
originally discovered in the New
York City borough of Brooklyn,

and Williamsburg, one of its
neighbourhoods. These individuals,
who were 18 to 35, were edgy and
had interesting taste in music and
fashion.

Hipsters aim to stand out ina
crowd, yet they all look the same.
The hipster style is a mix of all other
counter-cultures and actually shows
little originality: oversized glasses
of the ’80s, unflattering sweaters
from dad’s closet, and beards from
the Paleolithic period.

Stereotypically, hipsters
are young people who believe
in forward thinking, helping
the environment, and think of
themselves highly. Hipsters live and
dress like aspiring artists, but spend
copious amounts of money on the
latest Apple technologies.

It’s easy to list the stereotypes,

 

but there is more to the hipster label
than what mocking photoblog Look
At That Fucking Hipster tells you.
Despite popular belief, hipsters
aren’t just attention seekers.

“T have a lot of disagreement
with people who talk about
hipsters, and say, ‘hipsters are
trend-seeking people.’ In most
cases, hipsters actually really like
the music they listen to and like to
dress a certain way,” said Arsel.

She also sees people stereotype
others as hipsters when they only
borrow from the counter-culture.

“In every group, there
are always the people who
are hardcore, and people who
paraphrase and emulate. There are
always people who are the tail end
of the moment,” said Arsel.

Glancing around any campus,
it appears that hipsters are
everywhere, but most of these
people are hipster emulators.