I’m glad this “hipster” thing is dying down, at least in its current incarnation, which is a total fucking joke. It used to mean counter-culture, and it has largely become anything but that this time around.
Don’t worry. It will reappear anew in the first half of every decade as a reaction to the previous 5 years, as it has done since the 1950’s. Hipsterdom in the early part of each decade becomes slightly corporate and marketed outward towards the latter half. I’m not too clear on the 60’s and 70’s but I’ll write what i write. let me demonstrate a couple of things:
late 40s/early 50s
- Beat poets convene in New York; later to San Francisco. ‘Howl’ and ‘On The Road’ are published.
late 50s
- Beatniks become a in-joke, with caricatures of bongo slapping black turtlenecked coffee drinking thinkers appearing in numerous movies; such as Funny Face (1957), and Bell Book & Candle (1958), not to mention The Wild One (1953) which already preempts the classification of “hipster” / motorcycle / beatnik lingo.
early 60s
- The Merry Pranksters were a group that lived communally in California. they experiment with LSD and acid far more than the beatniks of New York, who are far more into “uppers”. This lends to large acid and LSD taking parties. furthermore, they travel across the country in a multicolored school bus to attend the World Fair in NYC in 1964, turning on many, many people along the way to LSD, acid, and marijuana.
- Thanks to the ideals of soul searching that the beatniks presented, more and more people are conscious of the growing social trends of yoga and coffeehouse culture. With beatnik figureheads like Alan Ginsburg adopting these eastern philosophies often the two are mixed and what emerges is essentially the “hippie” in the classical sense.
- Bob Dylan gives The Beatles marijuana and acid upon their first meeting on August 28th, 1964.
late 60s
- Andy Warhol, while successful during this period, begins to focus less on making actual art and more on the concept of art. His celebrity begets creativity and he becomes more obsessed with the cult of personality than the cult of art. He stops directing any of his own films and leaves 99% of the work of the art making up to the employees of The Factory; his art house.
- Hippies become caricatures, with movies, books, cereal and shaving cream marketed towards their needs, it becomes a commercial sector.
- The Beatles turn their fans onto drugs, sparking a whole bunch of people to take drugs that can’t exactly handle them.
- The anti-war movement is mixed up with the drug culture. to make a generalized statement – if you were against the war, you were to take drugs and affect the counter culture mentality. Many, many people take drugs that ultimately shouldnt have, as it leads to – at the tail end of the 1960’s – a large amount of people that can’t deal with being on drugs going bat shit crazy.
early 70s
- With hippieism effectively over, the art community after having experienced the eye opening late 60’s turns to Hollywood and puts out a slew of great movies – such as Harold & Maude, The Godfather, and A Clockwork Orange. This is in part due to the ‘hipster bombshell’ of the late 60’s, that audiences are ready for that and do not want to be mollycoddled into the focus-group mentality of the elder Hollywood hierarchy.
- People in general start to want to experience new things, with the “cool crowd” gravitating towards the sounds of the Black and Hispanic and gay crowd – namely, disco. in 1970, David Mancuso, a New York DJ, opens the first disco club in his apartment which he calls The Loft. this leads to a heavy onset of dance culture.
late 70s
- Disco becomes a huge business and what started out as music for the NY art scene becomes seen by the masses as a “fad” and by the close of the 70’s, a huge embarrassment for music in general.
- People get way too stoned for about five years straight. pet rocks, anyone? Why are people giving housewives cocaine? Eventually the “free love” trickles down to suburbia and “swingers parties” become a huge thing – ruining quite a lot of marriages along the way.
early 80s
- Punk hits California in a major way and Black Flag tour, turning a lot of bored teenagers with stuck-in-the-70’s parents onto the angst of punk.
- Skateboarding, having started in the late 70’s, gains favorably in the punk crowd.
- Heavy metal hits the US with a particularly strong following in LA.
late 80s
- Metal becomes glossed over and over produced.
- Skateboarding becomes commercial with the advent of Vision Street Wear who effectively sold skate clothes to Macy’s, etc, much to the anger of original skaters who become disillusioned. As the sport evolves away from the Vision Street Wear ethos it thus becomes way, way more street and technical and thus away from the vert skating heyday which peaked in 1987’s Bones Brigade skate video “The Search For Animal Chin” (which is awesome, by the way).
- Punk retreats. Where it eventually becomes…
early 90s
- … grunge, which started as a reaction to the overproduced metal while taking with it the ethos and DIY aesthetic of punk rock, especially 80’s Bay Area punk (such as Flipper and Dead Kennedys) and the east coast punk sound (of Minor Threat and The Misfits). Lollapalooza kicks off, as well.
- Dance music has a renaissance in Europe and “rave” culture becomes an underground phenomenon. Dance groups/bands that the mainstream hasn’t heard of become top 10 hits overnight when 10,000 people snap up the songs they’d heard the night before in the club, sending it to the top of the charts instantly. KL7 and The Prodigy become stars within weeks.
- The “indie” rock sound breaks out just in time, with bands like Pavement putting out brilliant albums out of nowhere. The Seattle influence begets leading the way back to coffee shop culture, and soon coffee shops are opening up everywhere. By the mid 90’s coffee shops are de rigeur and a whole new breed of DIY, open mic culture brings with it a slew of creativity. Stand up comedy thrives, with comedians such as Bill Hicks, Kids In The Hall, and Janeane Garofalo setting new standards for the Generation X crowd.
late 90s and beyond
- In 1995, Coca Cola discontinues its “OK Cola” franchise, which had aggressive courted Gen X’rs with its ironic detachment. If you want to know the year irony died, it was 1995.
- Grunge labors on but dies a miserable death in 1997 when Creed release ‘My Own Prison’, which already aped Pearl Jam, who had already started to kind of suck.
- Independent coffee shops become deserted with the rise of Starbucks coffee in the mid 1990’s. “Poetry jams” become a joke.
- Indie rock gets good, then great, then Natalie Portman plays Zach Braff “New Slang” by The Shins in that fucking Garden State movie and all hell breaks loose. suddenly everyone adopts the sweaters and the tight pants and the “feelings”; all misappropriated from the ironic use of those same things in the mid 1990’s.
- Urban Outfitters expands exponentially from around 6 stores in 1996 to around 60 by 2003. Their profits during this time period jump around 79% each year, with irony and kitsch being made readily available. Ironically, CEO Richard Hayne is a conservative right winger who voted for George W Bush twice and has heavy ties with Texas oil. After infamously pulling items encouraging same sex marriage (namely ‘i support gay marriage’ shirts) from Urban Outfitters, Haynes has stepped largely out of the public eye. I wonder if people knew who controlled the company if they’d still shop there?
- Woodstock ‘99 includes riot and rape, a far cry from the peace-niks and free love mentality of ‘68. I guess they shouldnt have had Limp Bizkit and $8 water.
- American Apparel starts to sell LA hipster street fashion back to itself at double the price. However, the company DOES have good ethics in terms of its factory workers rights. I cant fault that.
- Fight Club – which was a great book about anti consumer culture and preached brilliant counter culture values – becomes a great movie. Then it becomes a line of tshirts and a shitty video game starring Fred Durst. sigh.
- “Hipsterism” becomes an affectation meaning no more than the clothes and income and literally just a fashion statement, bringing us to where we are now – where the counter culture has become the current culture. There is no REAL counter culture anymore, other than… shit. I don’t know. I cant think of one at all, and that in itself is pretty sad. While there has been a large number of what would be considered “hipsters” going into public planning jobs working for a greener future (which is an admirable and noble and respectful thing), nobody is really doing anything to go against the grain, so to speak. We’ve all become our own grain.
And who will deter it? Its about time for a new shake-up… I can almost guarantee it will come soon – we’ve about reached breaking point. I had fun researching this very, very brief and probably somewhat one-sided view of the meaning behind the word “hipster”. And who knows… just as I when I was typing it up, maybe you’ll think twice the next time you want to call someone a hipster. Are they really doing anything? In my humble opinion, the word has no meaning anymore.
(Photo By: Infrogmation, Digital Sophia, and Alexcon)
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Comments
Karl
May 6th, 2009 - 9:21:42 AM
lots of niche culture these days (noise, dubstep, etc) but nothing prevalent throughout. the berlin scene maybe? not sure i'd consider a lack of a prominent counter-culture a bad thing though. sometimes pop culture is more fun anyway
Will
May 6th, 2009 - 12:24:12 PM
Cool article. (Would make a great graphic!) Some thoughts ... the beatniks were fueled primarily by 'uppers', as you mention, one of the most popular being benzedrine, which was manufactured by the military to keep their soldiers alert during WWII. Wars in general tend to produce 'counter-culture'. Prior to WWII, you could look at the "lost generation" of expatriate authors, like Hemingway. As for counter culture now? Well, if Obama and his emerging 'great society' are the new culture, then the new counter culture is going to be whatever is most frightening and weird by comparison. Mini-Reagans? Fascists? Or a new generation of dropper-outers? Or, nothing at all. Without war (and the need for ironic detachment), hipsterism is just as likely to remain a commercial exploitation.
Laurent Blondeau (evidencesx)
May 7th, 2009 - 1:03:14 PM
Great piece of time...I'm wondering about modern hipsters and how many of them are on social networks...In the end, life is whole lot of circles, that come back after fashions...
viktor
May 7th, 2009 - 1:32:07 PM
Ned, I'm a huge fan of your writing, so I make this comment with only the utmost respect - apostrophes replace missing letters and numbers so that 1960s (plural) becomes '60s. /nerd Bad ass article otherwise, bro!
Jo Jittyq
May 7th, 2009 - 3:15:28 PM
Wow, most impressive dude. Well done! R www.privacy-web.net.tc
Bob
May 7th, 2009 - 3:20:27 PM
Wow, and not one mention of the current hipster irony - $1000 fixed gear bicycles. Not store bought ones, but buying an old school bike at ridiculous prices off CL and customizing it.
e
May 7th, 2009 - 3:20:43 PM
Pinup is next...
Somebeetch
May 7th, 2009 - 3:24:01 PM
Phew...good thing this is only an opinion piece.
Makkkko
May 7th, 2009 - 3:33:42 PM
I'm pretty sure LSD and Acid are the same thing. Great article, though.
bacon
May 7th, 2009 - 3:35:15 PM
Um burners even though burning man has been going on forever; mixture of hippie punk ravers with a DIY attitude and o yea fire lots of fucking fire
Dave
May 7th, 2009 - 3:36:44 PM
Decent article but the blurb about the beatnic's isn't 100% correct, yes they were into "uppers" but they also did a lot of other drugs. Their drug "guru" Burroughs was a heroin addict and also the beatnic's were into a lot of hallucogens, it's just acid didn't become popular 'till the 60's. Ginsberg's second part of Howl was all about an experience he had on peyote. Also acid and lsd are the same thing.
.....
May 7th, 2009 - 4:17:26 PM
This is total bs, this guy comes out with few words and every 3 uses the word drugs. At least take the time to literate yourself and not just share ur stupid opinion that let's everybody know how dumb people might be sometimes
Roomtone
May 7th, 2009 - 4:20:15 PM
Besides listing Acid and LSD as two things. Besides listing the KLF as KL7. You seemed to have forced history into your own time line. Punk was not the early 80's. It was the late 70's. Hard Core, as practiced by Black Flag was the 80's, but that was already wave two of Punk. Disco was still soul for dancing until the mid 70's when it became it's own thing. Modern "dance" music in the form of Rave and Techno had it's breakthrough in the mid 80's and this culminated with the Summer of Love in '89, not the early 90's. Indie rock was also late 80's as pioneered by Sonic Youth, Replacments, Husker Du, etc. Not early 90's. It was the early 90's when the establishment decided to take notice, which by your definition would mean it was over. Hence the name "the Year Punk Broke" for '92. Not devised, "Broke". I could go on. The fact you are looking for the next scene and don't see it in front of you means, by definiton, you are getting old. Welcome to the club. But, trust me when I tell you there is a lot going on right now. The general public (or you and me, even) may not see it for a couple years or more, but trust me..it's there. (I can name quite a few interesting things happening here in LA, for example)
bodiddly
May 7th, 2009 - 4:45:55 PM
if by LSD and acid you mean pure sandoz LSD vs. the acid made by chemists and sold to on the street you should probably clarify that shit. homebuah.
Ned Hepburn
May 7th, 2009 - 4:46:19 PM
Roomtone: you're right. thanks for noticing the errors... i knew i had KLF mixed up and gave it my best shot. and yes, there is a lot going on. i just think its hilarious that people say "hipster" anymore: its totally lost its context.
Jo
May 7th, 2009 - 4:51:21 PM
You theory is deadon (though somewhat redone and redone, I wrote about the commercialization of grunge in college in '96 based on an essay I had read about the commercialization of the hippy movement). However, you details...yah...not so much. Every punk fan knows it was a 70s thing. LSD is Acid. Beatniks were into chemicals, not just uppers. Should have stuck to higher-level theoretical and less on hard core facts about which you seem somewhat fuzzy. My 2cents anyway.
roomtone
May 7th, 2009 - 5:04:51 PM
Re: Hipster losing it's context. I would agree. Hipster as a definition has become a joke. Much like the word hipster did the first time around in the 50's. But, it's just a label. No one called the punks hipsters, they were punks. Same goes for Hippies (as opposed to hip-sters), Ravers, and whatever you would call Disco fans of the 70's. But, even though the label no longer has it's uses (for now, anyway), there are other groups with similar 'undergound' ties. Like the "burners" someone else has already mentioned. Burners are going strong and creating things people can't even imagine right now. Yet, they have a concrete lineage to all previously mentioned scenes. Burners are poets and artists, tend to have hippy ideals and like jam music, dress like disco queens in a Mad Max movie, use their culture to try and educate while employing a large DIY ethic, like punk did, and dance all night to the banging sounds of Techno and all of it's children (Dub Step being the biggest one right now). Add this to the large scale art and architecture (yes...architecture) coming from that scene and you have something completely new. Long live the fiery death of wooden men....
sussed
May 7th, 2009 - 5:16:08 PM
Ya forgot to mention the beloved British 'Mod' from the early 60's ...who affectively appropriated American black music culture (jazz & blues etc) dressed it up in forward thinking men's fashion from Italy and the US and then basically repackaged it, sending it back to the us in the form of the 'British Invasion'.
Nathan
May 7th, 2009 - 5:21:37 PM
Obviously this is not 100% accurate, because it distills all these periods into caricatures, but I think it gets the general drift right. I found it helpful to see it put in a historical context like that, as I've been depressed by the idea that we are in a unique period where 'coolness' is branded, commodified and sold back to people as something to be purchased on daddy's credit card. I started identifying myself with the alternative/art scene when I started high school in 98 or so, when it did have a certain diy/conscious-living/questioning authority value system. But living in NYC and seeing every other random college kid now buying thrift-store pants for $90 at Urban Outfitters and spinning the latest electro LP bought at said store, it's obviously become a parody of itself. It's become devoid of meaning and purely an aesthetic/commercial phenomenon. I offer a couple potential movements filling the values-void, many based on my own current interests: - The new rationalism. Reason/science based rejection of religion/superstition as necessarily anti-modern and poisonous to society, and the consequent restructuring of ethics established through secular philosophy - The digital rights/piracy/net neutrality movement as exemplified by the likes of Reddit and 4chan. As western culture shifts to the web, lines will be drawn and the protection of the web from powers that be and commercial corruption will be increasingly viewed in ethical terms - Buddhism/eastern philosophies popularized by the likes of Eckhardt Tolle, which emphasises emptying your mind, living in the moment, and true self-esteem based on contentment with the now - Moving back to more natural systems and rhythms, even in an urban context. Questioning the basis of food production/consumption established by 20th century agribusiness. This probably fits into the wider eco-conscious movement
Stu
May 7th, 2009 - 6:14:16 PM
Bob Dylan didn't give the Beatles acid. He gave them weed before they began Help!, but they didn't start doing LSD until the period between Rubber Soul and Revolver when George and John were both dosed by a dentist friend of theirs, the subject of the song Dr. Robert.
dee
May 7th, 2009 - 6:35:00 PM
im sick and tired of the damn emo kids. i miss grunge. maybe im getting old since i hate these young kids and their lame ass pop culture. My style is not dictated by a band or what I see on tv. I wear what I want and I refuse to pay 30 bucks for a fucking tanktop just cause its got some doodles on it. I cant wait to see what 2010 brings. Im hoping music gets good. Im hoping counter culture doesnt become a merchandising tool for fat cats to exploit... but i know i probably hope in vain. damn these emo kids, why are you pretending to be sad emo kid? what statement are you trying to make? are you fucking soul searching or just copying the million drones who look and act exactly like you? great article man
Ariel
May 7th, 2009 - 6:56:50 PM
Ned, Ned, Ned, this is ex drunk, drug addled whiny art-fag Ariel reporting, you know the one from the Columbia dorms who use to get trashed and play tick tack toe on his chest with razor blades in a petty attempt to get attention. To say the least, having known you, I'm not surprised you've revoked your past as hipster numero uno. I will say this though, the problem with the hipster phenomenon isn't exactly the movements, it's the fashion statement associated with those movements and their evolution with in a mall-culture society. If there was any thought or sincerity with hipsters then they would have been dead on the spot, the hipster exists solely as a image, not a concept. Hipsters don't read books because of the ideas, they read them because it makes them look smart, they don't listen to bad eighties music because they sincerely like or admire it, they do it because it makes them seem quirky or at best worth a quick laugh. And I don't need to comment on the fashion, because that would be beating a dead horse. In fact the hipster isn't much different than the Jones, only there it has more leeway with half assed individualism. If someone has to like something ironically, then I get the impression that they really don't like it. And lets not forget popular psychology and it's influence on the advertising industry, but it would take book to properly explore that, but here's a good place to start: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151&ei=JY8DSpypNYa6rwLBorGvCA&q=century+of+the+self&hl=en Oh and just for the record I've renounced all of the nasty things I've said about the alligator hunter.
Television SPY
May 7th, 2009 - 7:24:53 PM
Great article, they've definitely packaged and sold rebellion over the years - but none moreso than now. In the 50's and 60's it was a bad thing to be seen as a hippie, socially it was looked down upon to be rebellious. Contrast that nowadays where rebellion is packaged and processed and sold to youth and young adults. Buy X and and be Unique, Drink Z and stand out.
fud
May 7th, 2009 - 9:03:11 PM
you're all a bunch of fucking morons
read a goddam book maybe?
May 8th, 2009 - 12:11:22 AM
This article had so much promise, until it turned out to have been written by someone who seems to have absolutely no clue about anything counter-culture at all. Your thesis is flawed as fuck. While I do agree that all counter-culture is eventually co-opted and turned out in high-gloss corporate carbon copy, the fact that you totally skip over the origin of punk in the mid-70's, don't know that acid is the same fucking thing as LSD, use Janine Garafolo as an example of cutting edge hipterism in the 90's, and signal the death knell of grunge being in '97 (WTF???) pretty much proves you're a corporate version of someone pretending they know anything about true sub-culture. Do some fucking research next time that involves more than googling shit and looking up the results on wikipedia.
Ned Hepburn
May 8th, 2009 - 12:15:07 AM
i know punk started in the 70's... it didn't quite hit the suburbs (in america, at least) until the 80's, IMHO.
Dustin
May 8th, 2009 - 5:58:49 AM
Like any brief history, it's not complete. The sub-culture is decidedly not the caricature you made of it in your attempt to explain how it becomes caricaturized. There is more than one type of personality rebelling each decade, as the counterculture is usually about free thought and therefore has a lot of variation. Thus it can't be a target market. Also, about the late 60s "A lot of people taking drugs they can't handle" freaking out. A few people might have been unable to handle LSD (which is synonymous with acid) but the main thing that caused psychotic episodes and freak outs from psychedelics was the fact that the government made it illegal. This makes for drugs like PCP being sold as the safer acid, as well as people being arrested during what would be a peak joyous experience, and what becomes a nightmare of getting put in a cell while on LSD. Because as Timothy Leary said before they put him in prison for suggesting that they keep LSD regulated in the medical community so that the black market problems that arose wouldn't arise: It's about set and setting. If the setting of your acid trip is a bunch of assholes hitting you with battons, you will be re-imprinted to think that reality is as such. THAT's why people have nightmareish flashbacks, not because LSD is inherently scary.
Nataliedee fan
May 8th, 2009 - 7:32:39 AM
Please credit Natalie Dee (nataliedee.com) with a link back to her site, it's all she asks of people who use her comics, as you did here (Hipster vs Natural Hipster)
Syndrum
May 8th, 2009 - 4:26:27 PM
what about today's weirdo "emo"s with their ass-tight ankle hugging jeans and rooster inspired hairdoes.. kinda like the goth's meet peewee herman!
Mary P.
May 9th, 2009 - 2:28:58 AM
I believe that nerd culture was/is the counter culture of the Oughts. And as with the rest of the counter cultures, it is now "cool" to be nerdy/geeky, and therefore a new counter culture must emerge for 2010...
ppc keyword tool
May 12th, 2009 - 1:51:22 AM
i really wonder why some people care so much about what kind of pants other people are wearing.
Carter Paige
May 13th, 2009 - 6:16:30 PM
Lets be clear: this is a history of post WWII white teenage America. In no way is it inclusive or accurate. entertaining as hell though!
linkz
May 14th, 2009 - 10:48:22 AM
obviously, the hipsterjoke thing offended you
private label rights membership
May 14th, 2009 - 1:57:34 PM
well when there are no more ghettos maybe thatll happen.
VioletLove
May 14th, 2009 - 10:27:16 PM
Posted by Nathan: "I offer a couple potential movements filling the values-void, many based on my own current interests: - The new rationalism. Reason/science based rejection of religion/superstition as necessarily anti-modern and poisonous to society, and the consequent restructuring of ethics established through secular philosophy - The digital rights/piracy/net neutrality movement as exemplified by the likes of Reddit and 4chan. As western culture shifts to the web, lines will be drawn and the protection of the web from powers that be and commercial corruption will be increasingly viewed in ethical terms - Buddhism/eastern philosophies popularized by the likes of Eckhardt Tolle, which emphasises emptying your mind, living in the moment, and true self-esteem based on contentment with the now - Moving back to more natural systems and rhythms, even in an urban context. Questioning the basis of food production/consumption established by 20th century agribusiness. This probably fits into the wider eco-conscious movement" All I have to say is right on Nathan!! And please do not forget the huge pro marijuana/end the drug war/civil and gay rights movements going on right now! We are living in some pretty exciting and progressive times ;->
jenniewhite
May 19th, 2009 - 3:45:23 PM
I've been confused with the "hipster culture" from the moment I met my friend from L.A who had it down pat. I'll admit to trying to fit in, unsuccessfully. Great article, you've helped me understand it better. I liked the Urban Outfitters piece the best, I had no idea a right-wing conservative dude owned it. Thanks for clearing some things up for me. Great blog!!
Matt
July 16th, 2009 - 11:21:47 PM
Being a hipster means dressing cool, hating on everything (especially hipsters) and saying you are NOT a hipster. Maybe we can get a counter-culture that is more... positive. :)
Derek
November 3rd, 2009 - 2:58:11 PM
If you ask me, and that is only if you are asking me.. The current counter culture is the people who live their lives to survive. Scratchin and surviving to keep their kids in clothes and school. Theyre the counter culture because they don't get caught up in marketing or anything like that. They buy what they need because they need it, not because it's cool, and not because it is ironic. They're their own original people... they just don't get to acknowledge it because they're busy working... because they need to... because they arent doing it to be cool... I don't see how irony can really drive such a big group of douches... I grasped irony when I was young, everybody did, it's nothing new or special...