The word "hipster"
hogginthefogg
6,098 Posts
Didn't this term originally refer to people who were actually cool? It seems like it's increasingly difficult to nail down a definition these days, except that it's a pejorative (and it rarely refers to black dudes). It also seems like no one would ever self-identify as a hipster, especially if they're, you know, a hipster.Discuss.
Comments
I believe some in the media have now eliminated the transitional period, and started calling them 'Yupsters'.
Yes.
(2006 is the 50th anniversary of Howl, btw.)
now....i don't know.
Black males are universally known as "thugs" or usually described as being "ghetto", regardless of background, tastes, income bracket or personality type.
My understanding of hipster as it was originally used is essentially a white person that hoped some some Black cool would rub off on him through proximity.
besides, bashing hipsters to me is like bashing boy bands in the mid 90s
as in
1) what is the point
and
2) who cares?
So was it coined by white people, or appropriated by them? The label scan I posted above is by a black duo from NY (where I assume the word originated). Of course, I have know idea how long the term had been in use by the time the single was cut. Nice sweet soul flip, btw.
This is what I was waiting for someone to say. Thank you.
scraping the bottom of the barrell here.
I think Ms. Damn had it right when she said "who cares"
can y'all go without finding a group of people you must push yourself to feel superior than?
Perhaps, although I don't think that's a very good description of what we have here on SoulStrut.
I think of a hipster as somebody with a superficial interest in a lot of different things, a set of interests which constantly shift according to fashion. By contrast, most people on SoulStrut have an obsessive interest in a relatively narrow range of things. That approach is certainly open to critique--one might call a lot of the people that post here, including me, fetishists--but I think it's something distinct from hipsterdom.
revealed:
from Wikipedia.org:
Original hipsters
In the purest sense, the original hipsters were the hip, mostly black performers of jazz and swing music in the 1940s and 1950s, at a time when "hip" music was equated with African-American-originated forms of musical expression.
Although hipsters could be black or white, the term later and more predominantly came to be used to refer to whites who were aficionados of the music, groupies and members of the so-called Bohemian set, or Beat Generation. Because the jazz scene had long been integrated, hipster culture, too, became integrated before much of the rest of society. The use of the term "hipster" for whites who had an affinity for the avant-garde and for African-American culture was popularized in Norman Mailer's 1956 book The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster. Hipsters sometimes were referred to as beatniks.
Hipsters were cool. That is, they exhibited a mellow, laid-back attitude that is still called hip. Many also were users and popularizers of recreational drugs, particularly marijuana, amphetamines, and to some extent heroin, which was epidemic for a time among bebop musicians such as Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.
I implore everyone to just stop using it
I agree. Except when dicussing this record.
to this:
In just over 50 years!
"Did you get my Myspace bulletin about the Bloc Party aftershow?"
hipster = youthful tightly clothed white supremicist
this thread and any other thread in which any of you fucks are trying to feel superior to others based on physical appearences is most defintely
but couldn't you use poseur? what happened to that word. now people say hipster to describe a poseur in addition to the many people saying hipster to describe every other person on earth and it's just so vague and generic to me.
poseur seems like it would be a lot more specific to what you just described.
Every single post you make is an attempt to look superior to everyone else.
You are the only narcissist I've ever heard of who refuses to look in the mirror.
trying to attack me as your defense to making a post about why people listed as hipsters either have racist undertones or something inferior about their personality is also very much
if I've made posts that make you think I am superior to you I would say that you have issues.
Seriously though I act the fool all the time and find those who look down their nose at others to be very misguided and easy to hate. I came from nothing and stay able to laugh at all.
Do you think I went on blind date acted the fool and announced it on here to show my superiority?
GET OVAH YASSELF
I'm gonna jump in the fire with Guzzo and cosign on this. One of my biggest pet peeves.
hey, this one time i think marcosa called me a hipster and id never been called one before. anyways, i thought you would all appreciate how like totally superior marcosa thinks i am compared to you.
I really like this word and I think it's time has come to make a comeback
Can we get a "poseur" graemlin?
How dare you. Some of my best friends are Hipsto-Americans.
But foreally... That is not what my initial post either said or implied. You're the one seeing "racist undertones" in it. It was an invitation to discuss the evolution of the term "hipster," a term whose meaning seems to have changed considerably over time. I made the post because of Aser's recently revived thread and how the term gets thrown around a lot, even though 1) it seems like it's hard to define (beyond being negative) and 2) it doesn't mean to mean what it once did.
I see that your mind garden is in full bloom. Ah, Spring.
yeah i agree. i don't see what's so inherantly racist or smug about starting a thread about the word hipster. frankly, i am glad to see this brought up andn that there are people in here who agree with me that it's overused to the point of being generic and meaningless. also, i didn't get any holier-than-thou tone from hoggy's initial post...
what's the hell?