What's a hipster?

[paulfish4570]

mark and rockit: you guys seem to have a good handle on it. well done.

 

[gns]

you gotta be real careful in Los Angeles. Everywhere. I walk miles and miles and it can go bad, real bad, anytime, anywhere, in an instant. The place that freaks me out the most is Hollywood Blvd. in front of the Chinese Theater. I've live here 30 years, mind you and that place terrifies me. So many people wandering around with tons of money, confused looking for something that isn't there. That place is gonna break bad one day. Mark my words.

...Nathanael West's, Day of the Locust.

 

[JoeV]

I agree with the notion that the term "hipster" is frequently used as a put-down. But I admire younger folk who actively seek to find value in the artifacts of older culture. It certainly beats the false pretension of my generation's youth, when everyone had to have long hair and bellbottom denim in order to be "counterculture."

Myself, I have a long beard and like film cameras and manual typewriters. But what keeps me from being a "hipster" is that I can't fit into those skinny jeans!

~Joe

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Here is one ex-professional photog in Milton. He worked as photographer, not PJ for central media in Moscow during USSR. He left two decades or so ago and came to Canada. Strated his own photography. Two studios, freelancers working for him. Five hundred weddings, boobs&buttoms sessions and so on. All taken with film.

He left it all one day. And now using Canon SL1 cheap DSLR just for fun and family.

Every time he see me with ANY film camera he calls me the hipster.

And according to some comments above, I'm. Love film and vinyl hard way. Takes time and effort. I serviced not only film cameras, but turntables 🙂

 

[Hjortsberg]

...Nathanael West's, Day of the Locust.

Thanks for bringing this up. I need to read this. I greatly enjoyed What makes Sammy Run.

 

[megido]

Was HCB a hipster of his time?

Ha, I was going to pose the very same question.

In the traditional sense, yes I believe so, although he probably wouldn't have thanked you for calling him one.

 

[Roger Hicks]

A hipster is one who, in the guise of setting a trend, follows it.

At least that's the way it looks today.

Cheers,

R.

 

[goamules]

Beatniks, Mods, Rockers, Hippis, when you're an angry young man, there's no better way to prove you're an individual than to dress and act exactly like everybody else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3h--K5928M has a lot of that, circa 1964.

 

[Pherdinand]

Hipster, just in my definition, is a young hippie of the 21st century with a thick bank account and way, way too overpriced accessories that he does not use to 10% of their potential.
Be it camera, laptop, or even clothes🙂
And indeed half of them are easily recognized by the weird beard. The other half are girls.

Hipsters are very, very boring in a discussion.
Your story was fun to read so you are definitely not a hipster.

PS i don't hate hipsters. I just could not care less.

 

[megido]

What one sees in the Who clip are Mods (or Modernists as they preferred to be called then) who have not yet been catered for by boutiques etc. There is a certain sartorial individuality which is born out of making do with what was available.

 

[photomoof]

Hepcat comes from hepatitis, an affliction spread among heroin addicts by sharing needles.

That was a joke right? 🙂

hep (1)
"aware, up-to-date," first recorded 1908 in "Saturday Evening Post," but said to be underworld slang, of unknown origin. Variously said to have been the name of "a fabulous detective who operated in Cincinnati" [Louis E. Jackson and C.R. Hellyer, "A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang," 1914] or a saloonkeeper in Chicago who "never quite understood what was going on ... (but) thought he did" ["American Speech," XVI, 154/1]. Taken up by jazz musicians by 1915; hepcat "addict of swing music" is from 1938. With the rise of hip (adj.) by the 1950s, the use of hep ironically became a clue that the speaker was unaware and not up-to-date.

 

[skopar steve]

I'm shocked this is a photography forum, and nobody has posted an image of a perceived "Hipster".

 

[photomoof]

That is most definitely NOT a hipster, as used in say Williamsburg or Bushwick NYC.

 

[filmtwit]

It's amusing.

Dang, guess I should start signing myself as clueless in Ne. Hipster central. 🙂

I've heard of Portlandia but never watched it.

 

[OurManInTangier]

There is a few versions of hipsters.
People who use film cameras instead of digital.
People with beards or hippy clothes.
Basically liking things that aren't mainstream so to speak, indie music or something really unknown to people. That's a hipster.
Male & female of course

Isn't that just the definition of a teenager? 🙂

 

[shadowfox]

Hipsters are young people, aren't they?

At 44, I can't belong to that group anymore even if I wanted to 🙂

 

[jsrockit]

I'm shocked this is a photography forum, and nobody has posted an image of a perceived "Hipster".

Haha, here's my bike pic (many years ago):

Your guy is more of a hippy...

 

[back alley]

i thought they were made by hyundai or nissan...

 

[goamules]

I was in Asheville, NC a month ago. At the counter in an art gallery, the young, hipster girl saw my old camera and said, "oh, that's a cute camera!" with a somewhat dismissive grin. I said, "excuse me...?" She backpedaled, and tried another: "So, are you enjoying being a tourist here?". I replied, "actually, I was born in NC and my family lived right down the road since the 1700s....you?" "er...I'm from Vermont, my family just moved here..." So I guess actually being a photographer, with no hip beard, and over 50 means I'm out.....

NC has become very different from when I was raised there. Then, there were Freaks, Preps, Rednecks, and Jocks. Asheville looks to be all Hipsters, for anyone under 40 from what I saw. Same as every generation, you have a "uniform" you must wear, and your politics and hobbies all have to "conform." If you are truly unique, you are misunderstood and shunned. I remember in the 1980s the one or two goth girls were totally ignored or made fun of. Think of Allie Sheedy in The Breakfast Club. Now, you BETTER dress that way, or Hip, or you are ignored or made fun of.

 

[MrFujicaman]

They're annoying people who've driven up the price of Leica's they only wear as jewelry, have fouled up men's clothing sizes to where, I who wear a size XL, have tried on XXXL shirts that wouldn't fit, wear Howard Wolowtiz (Big Bang Theory) looking pants and are generally highly over impressed with themselves.