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[Bobby Isosceles]

Actually, it says complaining, not making fun. No one gives a damn about hipsters except hipsters themselves.

That's like saying "no one gives a damn about White Supremacists except White Supremacists themselves." Both hipsters and racists are unbearably irritating individually or in small groups, and a danger to the fabric of society en masse. In fact, given that apathy is a traditionally hipster ethic, I'd argue that the lacksadaisacal attitude of "if you worry about it, you must be it" is very hipsterish. That's the same sort of paradigm that dissuades any serious thought, with a second-grade playground mentality rivaling the idiocy of Aristotle of "If you think about it you must BE IT LOL TAG UR IT HAHAAHAHAA". Moreover, I'm not willing to take any sort of moral proscription from some upstart web-comic named "Cat and Girl" which simply reeks of affected hipness and marketable ennui.

[JorgeFabregas]

Of course it's a hipster statemet. It's an observation that one arrives at by being among them. Hipsters are too harmless to be relevant to mainstream culture or to matter to anyone besides themselves. Moreover, where does hipstertude end and mainstream culture begin? It's completely ambiguous. Very few people cop to being hipsters because they don't indentify with being one full-tilt. It's a fractured identity. A hodge-podge aesthetic rather than an ideology. It also provides completely contrary scripts. It's acceptable, as a hipster, to both hate the OC or love the OC. Moreover, one scores hipster points by deviating from the scripts entirely. As in "Yeah, that new Justin Timberlake album is really great. I enjoy it in a completely unironic fashion" (thus proving that the other things I enjoy I really do enjoy and I really am a hipster because I don't like the things I like only because other hipsters like them!). Or something.

So are hipsters more of a threat to civilization and rational thought than any other fashion or sub-culture, again? Because they enjoy irony?

[Ben-San]

I guess I'm late to the party, so what exactly is a hipster in this context? I know that Bobby doesn't like them, and apparently they don't like anything except for not liking things?

[Bobby Isosceles]

Of course it's a hipster statemet. It's an observation that one arrives at by being among them. Hipsters are too harmless to be relevant to mainstream culture or to matter to anyone besides themselves. Moreover, where does hipstertude end and mainstream culture begin? It's completely ambiguous. Very few people cop to being hipsters because they don't indentify with being one full-tilt. It's a fractured identity. A hodge-podge aesthetic rather than an ideology. It also provides completely contrary scripts. It's acceptable, as a hipster, to both hate the OC or love the OC. Moreover, one scores hipster points by deviating from the scripts entirely. As in "Yeah, that new Justin Timberlake album is really great. I enjoy it in a completely unironic fashion" (thus proving that the other things I enjoy I really do enjoy and I really am a hipster because I don't like the things I like only because other hipsters like them!). Or something.

So are hipsters more of a threat to civilization and rational thought than any other fashion or sub-culture, again? Because they enjoy irony?

No. Because hipsters, without fail, reduce great ideas to kitsch and schlock. "Pop culture" in general implies a certain attention-deficit, and that's why we can't seem to get our heads out of materialism and mocking materialism and fixating on materialism and do something. Why is it that primitive goatherds could conceive of such concepts as the number zero in mathematics and postulate on the nature of mind and body, and we still quibble over evolutionism versus "intelliigent design"? When our scientific principles, our benchmark of progress as a species, is under threat by throwbacks, what do the hipsters do? LOL HERE IS A FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER LOL BUY MY FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER SHIRT HAHAHA FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER COFFEE CUPS 4 U LOL. This kind of idle "laugh at it, it's ironic" statement does NOTHING to stem the reactionary tide that threatens to choke our society and is effete to the highest degree. HAHA I AM MOCKING YOU. Meanwhile the creationists and reactionary right are VOTING and preventing scientific progress from being imparted to our children. This will irrevocably impact society once we have to wonder: can we stop aging, cure diseases, with stem cell research? Not if we are mired in theology from the Second Great Awakening, and don't try to approach this with logic and empiricism. Meanwhile you've got she-male nimrod Xeni Jardin bitching about how the ineffable blogosphere is surviving the evolutionary shitstorm and LOL SOMEONE MADE A FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER OUT OF DUCT TAPE ITS CULTUREJAMMING HAW HAW HAW.  All the while our culture is steadily eroded.

THIS is how hipsters damage society.

[Bobby Isosceles]

I guess I'm late to the party, so what exactly is a hipster in this context? I know that Bobby doesn't like them, and apparently they don't like anything except for not liking things?

Weezer
BoingBoing.net
Interpol
Suicide Girls
Dickweeds who use social networking software to garner as many friends as possible
Morons who make duct tape wallets
etc

[Ben-San]

Weezer
BoingBoing.net
Interpol
Suicide Girls
Dickweeds who use social networking software to garner as many friends as possible
Morons who make duct tape wallets
etc

I assume that there is a wealth of encoded information there but I still do not understand it. I have only heard a couple of Weezer songs and they were okay. Boingboing.net I am sort of aware of as a page that has some random stuff, and Suicide Girls as kind of a goth-girl porn thing of some kind. I know of Interpol only as the International Police Organization and I am pretty sure that's not what you mean. I have no idea what the duct tape wallet thing is about and "dickweeds who use social networking software" only tells me that we are talking about lonely presumable-dickweeds.

You are giving me a stream of encoded symbols which I have no frame of reference to understand. Assume that I have been living under a giant rock made of comic-book back issues, Dungeons & Dragons, and Japanese animation for the past six years because in a certain sense I have. It's as if I were an aboriginal man from a lost island who asked what a red octagonal sign meant and was told "Red light! Cop with his hand up!" instead of "the red sign means stop moving", or as if you were trying to program in a high-level language without an appropriate compiler.

I really am curious about this hipster thing and would like to know what all the fuss is about.

[Bobby Isosceles]

Weezer
BoingBoing.net
Interpol
Suicide Girls
Dickweeds who use social networking software to garner as many friends as possible
Morons who make duct tape wallets
etc

I assume that there is a wealth of encoded information there but I still do not understand it. I have only heard a couple of Weezer songs and they were okay. Boingboing.net I am sort of aware of as a page that has some random stuff, and Suicide Girls as kind of a goth-girl porn thing of some kind. I know of Interpol only as the International Police Organization and I am pretty sure that's not what you mean. I have no idea what the duct tape wallet thing is about and "dickweeds who use social networking software" only tells me that we are talking about lonely presumable-dickweeds.

You are giving me a stream of encoded symbols which I have no frame of reference to understand. Assume that I have been living under a giant rock made of comic-book back issues, Dungeons & Dragons, and Japanese animation for the past six years because in a certain sense I have. It's as if I were an aboriginal man from a lost island who asked what a red octagonal sign meant and was told "Red light! Cop with his hand up!" instead of "the red sign means stop moving", or as if you were trying to program in a high-level language without an appropriate compiler.

I really am curious about this hipster thing and would like to know what all the fuss is about.

On the one hand it's awesome that you are mentioning programming concepts and various geek-culture buzzwords, and on the other hand I'm disappointed that you haven't contacted Wikipedia. Which leads me to believe that you're trying to quiz us on whether we know what we're talking about. In which case, come out and ask! We're bitter, hateful, argumentative fucks, but we're honest about it.

If you've clicked on the wikipedia link, please scroll down to "Hipsters Come Lately" and read from there, since I'm sure you have little interest in 40's and 50's culture.

[Ben-San]

On the one hand it's awesome that you are mentioning programming concepts and various geek-culture buzzwords, and on the other hand I'm disappointed that you haven't contacted Wikipedia. Which leads me to believe that you're trying to quiz us on whether we know what we're talking about. In which case, come out and ask! We're bitter, hateful, argumentative fucks, but we're honest about it.

If you've clicked on the wikipedia link, please scroll down to "Hipsters Come Lately" and read from there, since I'm sure you have little interest in 40's and 50's culture.

Actually, Wikipedia had sort of escaped my mind. Looking at the article now, I have a slightly better idea of what is meant but not much is made clear. I already knew about the 40s and 50s hipsters but it was pretty clear that you weren't talking about them.

I'm not sure what buzzwords you mean. If it's "encoded meaning" that would be because I am mildly interested in linguistics, plus I read "Gödel, Escher, Bach" years ago and bits of it stuck to me. If it's "a rock made out of comic books, Japanese animation, and D&D", that would be because I haven't left the house on a regular basis since 1999-2000 due to severe depressive fits and panic attacks, so my main pop-cultural inputs have been filtered through my dorky hobbies, the occasional movie, and PBS (WHYY Philadelphia-Delaware being the only TV station I receive clearly). I don't like talking at length about being a social/emotional cripple, but I would like to make clear here that I am not a hipster taunting you (which seems to be what you are assuming) but somebody who is so goddamn far out of the loop that he has no idea what the hell you are talking about.

[antioch]

Weezer
BoingBoing.net
Interpol
Suicide Girls
Dickweeds who use social networking software to garner as many friends as possible
Morons who make duct tape wallets
etc

 As a list, this is decent to sum up web-enhanced hipsterdom. I would like to petition for the removal of duct tape wallets, however. If someone needs a way to carry money and has a roll, they can make a wallet. And it would look cool, all grey and post-apoc. Sure, they'd only lose about 5 minutes/dollars picking up a cheap one at the store. But one can escape the cycle of buying and planning to buy for a few minutes (and maybe that can lead to a different lifestyle all together). One can stop checking their social net bots and DO something. So from my perspective, Duct tape wallets don't fit here. ULTRA PSEUDO-URBAN DEFLATION, GO!!!
Handicraftz 4 lyf.

[CortJstr]

I actually never even encountered the non-50's use of hipster until I started reading Toothpaste for Dinner a couple months ago now it seems like I can't avoid it. And man, that guy hates hipsters (and people who go to grad school). Interestly enough considering some of the points above, in one of his comics he basically says the worst thing you can do to a hipster is to call them one.

I posted the Cat and Girl link after having seen it on Slumbering Lunggiraffe. But now that I've gone through their archives a bit it makes no sense. That strip is so steeped in hipsterness that it crushes even Diesel Sweeties and Overcompensating in sheer hipsterosity.

[Bozack]

Jesssuuuuussssssss. Chrisssssttttt.
This. Is. The. WORST. Argument. Ever. In high school, I went to an art camp where we took a class, for three hours twice a week, where a bunch of teenagers argued about what ART was. AND THIS IS WORSE THAN THAT.
Look, I don't like the imaginary hipsters either, with their Trucker hats and PBRs, but you have to realize that they don't exist. Nobody identifies with "hipster" because "hipster" is a derogatory term*, and easily can contain anyone you want it to contain. I'm 19, I live in a cheap, shitty apartment in an slowly gentrifying ethnic neighborhood, I work at a bookstore, I own a guitar but can't play it, I have a "UAW- Indiana's Best" t-shirt despite never belonging to the Indiana UAW shirt and I have longish hair, I guess. I wear ##### until they fall apart and t-shirts until...well, I never stop wearing t-shirts. If I just  told you all of this, hell, if I wasn't familiar with the situation,  we could reasonably assume "hipster." I don't think I'm a hipster, but if you extend the boundaries enough, you can catch anyone.
The current hipster backlash, which is now actually just a huge hipster-bashing mandala, with hipsters bashing hipsters for bashing hipsters for bashing hipsters, is just a cultural choice.
Are hipsters destroying society? No, of course not. Jesus. And all of the flying spaghetti shit? Yeah, I think that's idiotic, but I'll bet that anyone involved in that went to the polls on election day. I'm not sure what else, exactly, the hipsters should mobilize to do to convince religious conservatives that evolution is awesome. For some reason, I don't think that the 700 Club gives two shits what some kids in Brooklyn think, and it's pretty obvious that the President doesn't. When you come up with some striking new game-plan that hasn't been tried, something other than "trying to get everyone to vote," give me a call- I'll put it up on craigslist and give hipster high command the go orders.
Name me a single time in history when life has not be "materialistic." People usually seem fixated on material goods because, throughout history, those without any tended to die- I think it'll be pretty hard to train people, in general, to somehow abandon animal nature and become glowing beings of pure reason.
Anyway, I find Cat And Girl funny, I liked Pinkerton when I was in 9th grade and find the songs nostalgicly good, I read boingboing daily (they also tend to have a ton of social advocacy information, and also, technically, it started as a 'zine in...the late 80's, I think. Maybe they were slackers? Who then went into larval stages during the Clinton and emerged hipsters in '99?), and I think most everything else on that list sucks donkey balls.

*

Interestly enough considering some of the points above, in one of his comics he basically says the worst thing you can do to a hipster is to call them one.

[misterqueue]

Sigh.. and all this started with a simple and supposedly funny ironic question I already knew the answer to.

Look, I, like Bozack, hate nearly everything else that is brought up here, so does that still make me a "crap dude"?

jeezus.. you people.. (well SOME people)

[AlohaDawg]

...Meanwhile the creationists and reactionary right are VOTING and preventing scientific progress from being imparted to our children. This will irrevocably impact society once we have to wonder: can we stop aging, cure diseases, with stem cell research? Not if we are mired in theology from the Second Great Awakening, and don't try to approach this with logic and empiricism. Meanwhile you've got she-male nimrod Xeni Jardin bitching about how the ineffable blogosphere is surviving the evolutionary shitstorm and LOL SOMEONE MADE A FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER OUT OF DUCT TAPE ITS CULTUREJAMMING HAW HAW HAW.  All the while our culture is steadily eroded.

THIS is how hipsters damage society.

Something like 84% of Americans believe in God. It's hard to believe 16% of the nation is driving ALL the science and empiricism, etc. A broadbrush approach to categorizing people like 'hipsters' (whatever they are) and the Right (oooh, scary for Halloween) is a far bigger problem for me.

I know plenty of Christians who are scientists and Physicians and other sorts of people who function in empirical or mosty empirical worlds - AND believe in God - AND reconcile their theology with their faith. And very, very few of them teach strict creationism and the rest of them pretty much think those that do are kooks. (Also, IMHO, the whole 'intelligent design' thing is a silly attempt to reconcile to things that can't be reconciled because the humans on each side don't want reconciliation)

'Hipster' is just the current term for a historically repetitive phenomenon.  What's happening is what always happens - young people tend to reject establishment and bend social mores. The tend to tune out and/or drop out. They usually don't have wealth, property or other interests to protect legally or politically except for somewhat abstract 'causes'. They seize onto 'flavor of the day' issues and causes but tend to have a short attention span. There are some exceptions.

If anything, I think what a 'hipster' is is an unapologetically self-ironic person who likes to take shots from the sideline but refuses to get in the game.

[Bobby Isosceles]

...Meanwhile the creationists and reactionary right are VOTING and preventing scientific progress from being imparted to our children. This will irrevocably impact society once we have to wonder: can we stop aging, cure diseases, with stem cell research? Not if we are mired in theology from the Second Great Awakening, and don't try to approach this with logic and empiricism. Meanwhile you've got she-male nimrod Xeni Jardin bitching about how the ineffable blogosphere is surviving the evolutionary shitstorm and LOL SOMEONE MADE A FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER OUT OF DUCT TAPE ITS CULTUREJAMMING HAW HAW HAW.  All the while our culture is steadily eroded.

THIS is how hipsters damage society.

Something like 84% of Americans believe in God. It's hard to believe 16% of the nation is driving ALL the science and empiricism, etc. A broadbrush approach to categorizing people like 'hipsters' (whatever they are) and the Right (oooh, scary for Halloween) is a far bigger problem for me.

I know plenty of Christians who are scientists and Physicians and other sorts of people who function in empirical or mosty empirical worlds - AND believe in God - AND reconcile their theology with their faith. And very, very few of them teach strict creationism and the rest of them pretty much think those that do are kooks. (Also, IMHO, the whole 'intelligent design' thing is a silly attempt to reconcile to things that can't be reconciled because the humans on each side don't want reconciliation)

'Hipster' is just the current term for a historically repetitive phenomenon.  What's happening is what always happens - young people tend to reject establishment and bend social mores. The tend to tune out and/or drop out. They usually don't have wealth, property or other interests to protect legally or politically except for somewhat abstract 'causes'. They seize onto 'flavor of the day' issues and causes but tend to have a short attention span. There are some exceptions.

If anything, I think what a 'hipster' is is an unapologetically self-ironic person who likes to take shots from the sideline but refuses to get in the game.

Taking shots is okay if you're willing to at least get shit on a little bit as people rebut. Taking social issues and wearing them glibly in the name of fashion is unforgivable. Blaming it on the youth is a cop out if the youth don't grow out of it and start living for themselves and not for their fashions and fads.

[Bozack]

I thought I asked a question.
Bobby, define "hipsters" for the class.