February 20, 2008
Why Does Everyone Hate Hipsters Assholes?
The main theme of the seminal grunge documentary Hype! is how something that by its very nature was anti-commercial became commercialized.
One thing that particularly struck me about Hype! was the grunge scene's intense resentment against the greater culture for appropriating the look and style elements of their subculture. Anti-fashion became the fashion. It lost all meaning. It fell victim to something I call the “Punk Rock Quincy” phenomenon.
That feeling of resentment strikes a chord with me, because I notice that people who came of age in the 70s and 80s punk rock movement seem to universally hate “hipsters”. And that sentiment seems to be seeping into the general zeitgeist.
By "hipsters" I am not referring to the radical college kids, the animal rights activists or the anarchists in their mohawks and Black Flag shirts. Because whatever it is, at least they stand for something.
And I'm not talking about everyone who lives on the Eastside and shops at Wacko and eats Yuca tacos. Those tacos are good, and people have to buy their hot rod and bondage literature somewhere.
Hipsters are the ones walking around Los Feliz and Silver Lake with two-toned pink and black hair. The ones wearing expensive “alternative” fashion. Hipsters go to the latest, coolest, hippest bar. They listen to the latest, coolest, hippest band. But they don’t seem to subscribe to any particular philosophy or to have an allegiance to any particular genre of music. Whatever it is, as long as it is the latest and the coolest and the hippest, they have to have it. They are like soldiers of fortune of style.
I look at the hipsters, and I think, “Well, I like that haircut. I like those pants. I like Coop’s devil girl and Bettie Page and and tikis and tattooes. I like Eames chairs and Millie’s omelettes and funny blue-tinted drinks.” So why do I resent these people for liking them?
My friend Janet says that one reason it pisses her off is because that look used to be a code. It meant something. If you saw someone walking down the street dressed the same way you were, with the same haircut you had, you immediately knew that they listened to the same records that you did.
Now that look has become generic and meaningless. People with blue hair listen to top 40. People spend hundreds of dollars trying to look like they shop at the thrift store. They have appropriated the style, yet discarded everything that the style stood for. Another friend, John, complains about the younger generation taking over his neighborhood while ripping off a lifestyle they don't really understand, "...I should be glad that I still have the opportunity to chase them off my yard to keep them from stealing my teeth or something. Not that they'd know how to fucking bite anything with them".
I guess what it comes down to is that once upon a time, we had really good cake. It was good and it was good for you. We were waging a war agains Reaganomics, nuclear weapons and the Star Wars defense system. We had a solid left-wing agenda. We had seen the scars of Viet Nam and learned from them. We were picking up the mantle that the hippies dropped when they all bought yuppie “Beamers” and became "the man".
We had the Minutemen. We had the Descendents. The Ramones were all still alive. The fashion was fun, and goofy, and like bandannas in our back pockets, it let us know who each other were. It helped us find each other in a hostile society.
It was fucking cake, and the blue hair and the cartoonish clothes were just icing on the cake.
I think the reason people hate the hipsters so much is that they only have the icing. And who wants to just sit down to a big bowl of icing? It makes your teeth hurt.
Photo by Markltb via Flickr
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The 'hostility' the greater public has towards hipsters stems from the disdain hipsters exhibit towards the rest of us.
Cultural snobbery is annoying.
Good point. The other day one of my Silver Lake friends said when she walks down the street they sneer at her, like "What are YOU doing here? You're not dressed right"
No, no, no...the real reason why there is such a backlash on Hipsters is easy. Its the classic, "I want to be one of them but never will" mentality. So natch, you have to hate on them/us/whatever. Honestly, ive never met a hipster who likes The Decemberists, right? If you hate Hipsters, chances are you are a Decemberists fan. And in my opnion Hipsters dont go to the new hip trendy bars. I mean, thats a Hollywoold thing. Real hipsters dont go west of Vine.
OH my god what a lame topic and argument. Live how you want to live.
lolz. you hipsters love writing satirical stuff like this. ironic sincerity, i love it. "The fashion was fun, and goofy, and like bandannas in our back pockets, it let us know who each other were. It helped us find each other in a hostile society." solid gold! A++++
One of my peeves is going to an amazing concert at a smaller club and being surrounded by overly skinny mofos who -- even at the most electric parts of the show appear to be asleep standing up. No foot-tapping, fist pumps, or smiles. Perhaps no blinking or breathing either.
I don't feel sorry for the apathetic, I just wish they didn't have to try so hard.
PS, where'd ya get that shirt?
Ok- Decemberists commenter... Non-hipsters wouldn't give a crap what kind of music you liked. Thats the thing.. Hipsters have a distinct line of whats 'right' to like and what's 'wrong.'
Dare I say hatred for hipsters is only outmatched by hatred for emo kids.
:)
old
At least Emo kids all actually like emo (well I hope so anyway).
From a socio-economic point of view, it's easy to hate hipsters because they tend to F**k with a neighbourhood once they move in: prices go up, rent goes up, neighbourhood people move out.
From a strictly personal point of view, I think it's just incredibley difficult to like people who are fundamentally all about image and surface appearance. I mean, people who talk about "Hollywood types" all dressing and acting the same have obviously never been to The Little Joy on a Friday night...
You hit the nail on the head, Andy. They are just trying too hard to be cool. It seems like it takes so much effort.
I like this syllogism:
ive never met a hipster who likes The Decemberists, right? If you hate Hipsters, chances are you are a Decemberists fan.
Hipsters don't like hovercrafts
You hate hipsters
You like hovercrafts
Hipsters are not giraffes
You hate hipsters
You are a giraffe
It's the same reason people who have been through college already find first-year college students annoying.
And really, at least Emo kids are a movement. They have a music, a philosophy, a purpose beyond buying their style of the week, and looking down their noses at whoever isn;t up on the trend.
No Emo kid has ever given me shit. They sit in the corner, write tortured poetry, listen to music, hate their parents and sulk like teenagers are supposed to do.
As someone who has lived in Echo Park and Silver Lake for over 5 years, I see my fair share of "hipsters" everyday. Yes, there are plenty of people who fit the annoying picture that Elsie has painted here, but there are also many who dress the part (style, music, movies, etc.) and actually are not the elitists that many of us claim they are. Just as often I find people exhibiting their own brand of cultural elitism when they paint all "hipsters" with broad strokes and dismiss them as "superficial", "vapid" and "pretentious" simply because they look like they would be. Truly a case of the pot calling the kettle black if I ever saw one.
I'm sure if most of you saw me on the street you would call me a "hipster." I used to care about that kind of thing, but I gave up trying to be the most unique person in the room a long time ago.
I live in the Valley, where our hipsters are tanned with breast implants and platinum extensions.
Smokes:
I am definitely not including everyone who lives in a certain part of town or dresses a certain way, as my Yuca and Wacko references attest to.
I am talking about people who dress cool and act cool for the sake of lording their superiority over the less-hip. The people who have no movement, no philosophy, no literature, no art, no politics and no music that drives them. They appear to be driven only by the desire to be cooler than you.
And truly thoughtful, artistic people can't help but be unique. It's not a pose. I'm sure you are still the most unique person in the room.
In the Valley we can wear shorts and get away with it.
"I am talking about people who dress cool and act cool for the sake of lording their superiority over the less-hip. "
These people aren't hipsters, they are called a*$holes. Every subcultcha has them. Including goths, rockabilly, salseros, emos, skaters, surfers, portos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, d* ckheads.
In my opinion, if you use hipster as a pejorative you are probably one yourself.
I think hating hipsters is part of being a hipster. Being a hipster is all about seperating oneself from the popular culture, right? So if being a "hipster" is becoming the norm, then hating them separates one from it, doesn't it?
I don't know. All this label bullshit tends to always be stupid. Who cares if the person is a "hipster" or a "emo kid" or a "sports fan" or whatever. As long as the person is nice and has some decent characteristics, it really doesn't matter what label some asshole gives you, right?
Oh my, the generalizations.
Just because the Ramones or Reaganomics aren't around doesn't mean there's a lack of purity or movement or "good cake." The state of the country today is as infuriating as ever and on the brink of a major crossroads in history. 20 years from now, we could very well be talking about how the new kids could never know what a "real movement" is about because the war in Iraq is over, the Bush's are gone and Bright Eyes has stopped making music. It's just ridiculous to try to compare the generational issues and rank their corresponding populations' sincerity.
Also, you just ASSUME that the kid with the asymmetrical hair at the hip bar doesn't have a belief system or allegiances? As someone who claims to have been part of the Descendents' crowd, you should know better than to fall prey to lumping people together like that.
It seems to me your real issue is with "posers" which is a completely separate issue from the "hipster culture" as you describe it.
"My friend Janet says that one reason it pisses her off is because that look used to be a code. It meant something. If you saw someone walking down the street dressed the same way you were, with the same haircut you had, you immediately knew that they listened to the same records that you did."
This - this is what I agree with. I agree with that.
I second *both* of the previous comments by debaser and Ross...
There is a snobbery inherent in looking at someone with blue hair or thrift-store clothes and assuming that they are what we are labeling the bad definition of "hipster" (valueless, all-surface, trendy). How do we know that they aren't cool, artsy and unique? If you don't take the time to know someone, can you really tell how original they are just by looking across the room at the Echo?
Having said that, yes, it does come down to the feeling of not being able to trust the outward signs of dress and hair to identify a fellow fan or someone who thinks the way you do. But then again, take a moment and think about how that sounds. It'll start sounding kinda silly and, well, pretty high-school.
For Christ's sake, why not just knock-off the judging and get to know people regardless of whether they dress in your definition of cool or not. That goes for hipsters and hipster-haters.
Only "lames" hate hipsters. And like the author here, these people can't seem to understand or agree what constitutes a so called "hipster".
I say there is no such thing as a "hipster", but I would also have to define a "hipster" at this point as someone that seems hipper than you.
This part here:
["My friend Janet says that one reason it pisses her off is because that look used to be a code. It meant something. If you saw someone walking down the street dressed the same way you were, with the same haircut you had, you immediately knew that they listened to the same records that you did."]
This is utterly stupid and wasn't even true in 1982 or 1969. What bunch of crap fashion is fashion... always has been always will be!
p.s. I grew in LA I'm in my mid 30's I was in a scene or 12 in the 80's yeah I was a teenage punkrocker as well. Oh and I lived on the eastside in the mid 90's before all you jerks ruined it.
p.p.s. You can all go home now.
Well put Damien z and debaser. You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover (unless you're just judging the cover...). I'm sure we all can site examples of both "hipsters" that have admirable characteristics and "non-hipsters" that have condescending attitudes or bad characteristics. It all depends on what is inside, not the style that one dresses as or the haircut that one has.
I mean, really, it would be equally stupid to hate someone just for dressing like a hipster as it would be to trust someone just because he was wearing a suit, right?
ETHAN said:
"... but I would also have to define a "hipster" at this point as someone that seems hipper than you." And he is RIGHT! Thats basically it in a nut shell.
EthanAlexander's post #25: Only "lames" hate hipsters. [burn!] I was in a scene or 12 in the 80's [you can't even count them? wow!] yeah [um, I think you're just shouting with joy here]I was a teenage punkrocker as well [as well! when will your accomplishments stop?] Oh and I lived on the eastside in the mid 90's before all you jerks ruined it [I am humbled by your real estate history]
I guess we should all go home now.
so a hipster walks into a bar and says "oh no! this bar is full of hipsters"
I can't go home cause it ain't 5:30 yet, so I just have to add that this is awesome:
"These people aren't hipsters, they are called a*$holes. Every subcultcha has them. Including goths, rockabilly, salseros, emos, skaters, surfers, portos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, d* ckheads."
The real term to me would be "scenester", because someone who adapts a look just to be trendy fits into any of those categories. But how do we know just by looking at someone whether they did that or didn't? Maybe we should just talk to them.
Jesus Christ!
I'm too fucking old to be a hipster.
I am not saying that the "good old days" are the only time when music has been relevent or a political movement has had power. Debaser, I specifically said that there are movements today - the young anarchists for example, who stand for something.
What has gotten people up in arms is that people make being hip the be all and end all. The only point is looking cool. It stops there. Yes, it is annoying they have appropriated something that used to be meaningful to us. But that is not the only issue.
Of course it would be ridiculous to judge someone only by their supposed hipster status. I am not talking about them.
I guess as Mike put it best, I am really talking about assholes.
So let's rename this post.
What has gotten people up in arms is that people make being hip the be all and end all. The only point is looking cool. It stops there.
But what if "just looking cool" is part of a greater existential philosophy that acknowledges that dyeing your hair and wearing certain clothes for a "cause" is just as pointless as dyeing your hair and wearing certain clothes for "no good reason at all". And in fact, maybe doing it for no good reason is more respectable than doing it in some vain delusion that doing so will "save the world".
dewd, fredcamino, you need to cool out man. imagine if we didn't color our hair to fight Reagan! can you even imagine?! these, for lack of a better word, assholes, are just... doing it to do. wtf! how dare they scandalize such a noble calling as dressing outrageous. it makes me so mad sometimes is all, makes me all up in arms and $ht.
and nvr frgt, f#k tha man.
I don't know what you're all on about.
I LOVE assholes.
"Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one"
Hipsters hate making their own marshmallows.
I grew up in mid-city Los Angeles after the LA riots. I remember the demographic of a very polarized city. It wasn't cool then to live in Los Angeles, because people from other States were afraid of 'crime' associated with the city. I notice as the year goes by, gentrification was profoundly embedded with the influx of upper middle class college graduates where some eventually transformed into a hipster a-holes. These hipster a-holes are not only found in Silver Lake area, but other parts of the city, even in adjacent county.
Most of the people who don't understand clearly weren't around when people would call you out in McDonalds for having orange hair and you would have to fight some jock over the fact that you were a punk. It stood for something. We were trying to change society, and part of it was by scaring middle-class America and reflecting the ugliness we saw in the world back at them. Maybe we were idealistic, but such is youth.
Ethan: You say you were in a scene or 12? Really? That simply proves the point that people are jumping from scene to scene with no true allegiance.
Fred: But what if "just looking cool" is part of a greater existential philosophy that acknowledges that dyeing your hair and wearing certain clothes for a "cause" is just as pointless as dyeing your hair and wearing certain clothes for "no good reason at all". And in fact, maybe doing it for no good reason is more respectable than doing it in some vain delusion that doing so will "save the world".
That is probably the truest and most profound argument so far. Now if they would just stop being so smug about it.
EZ Finn: Ok, I take the hint. I'll back out of the debate and go make some marshmallows. I'll stick to restaurant reviews from now on. Or maybe stick to some less controversial subject, like punching nuns and eating babies.
Hipsters are the people who are on that chick Ellei's site. The one she trumpeted the other day. You know, the site where she takes pictures of her friends being drunk at the Chromeo show and takes eleven million pictures of herself with socks on her arms and jumping around. And then she writes a blog that reads, like, for every single entry, "Last night was so totally out of control. Wasted again and crawled into bed at 5 a.m. after eating Taco Bell." You know, the stuff that the rest of us stopped doing at age 22, but that people in Hollywood continue to do until they hit 35. Oh, and she sells silkscreened t-shirts of robots and pastes her stickers everywhere. Kind of like that cobrasnake guy, only without Cory Kennedy and with fewer photos of Steve Aoki sticking his tongue out and making a v with his fingers.
Hipsters also suck because they like to act like they are so totally beyond "typical" people in L.A. and thus they refuse to enjoy nature or go to the beach. Instead, they like to pretend that they are in solidarity with "white trash" in suburban American, even though they are making fun of white trash in aping white trash. So even though hipsters live twenty minutes from the beach, they like to go to the Standard and hang out on blue astroturf and take lots and lots of posed pictures of themselves that they then post on their Myspace pages, drinking Colt 45, and wearing trucker hats and boy scout uniforms and facial hair shaved into intentionally pornarrific designs.
Hipsters love photos of themselves. Lots and lots of photos of themselves. Posed photos of themselves, preferably at the Sears Portrait Studio with "funny" props. They like to pretend that they live in a Wes Anderson film. Then they post said pictures to flickr and their myspace pages, so that everyone can enjoy how creative and witty they are. And also to hipster photoblogs.
And then some fucking moron walks around with antlers taped to a motorcycle helmet and he calls himself The Bantler. And hipsters deem him totally fucking brilliant.
This is why hipsters suck.
hipsters are the new jocks
it don't take much to realize that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R86rwAd7o94
I want to see Paris Hilton and a bunch of so-called hipsters have a TreePeople Planting Day together.
All of this is why I hate all labels put on people.
Elise's definition of "Hipsters" remind me of the kids during Junior High School that had to buy the latest fashion, most expensive brands and dress specific ways -- AND THEN tried to make other kids feel bad for not dressing/acting that way.
Simple insecurity.
Only a true old-school punk rocker like Elise would be able to FEEL the disrespect of people appropriating a "uniform" that once actually meant something, for the sole purposes of being a "hip asshole."
I liken it to someone wearing a t-shirt with a photo of Pol Pot because they think it's cool, without having never seen the words "Khmer Rouge" or "Killing Fields" put together. Or people who wear Navy SEAL hats without having a clue as to what it stands for, or what you have to go through to have the right to wear the SEAL trident.
I do agree, thought, assholes are assholes no matter where they are. And they are ruled by ignorance and insecurity. No matter which neighborhood they invade next. It has to be exhausting to live your life at those superficial and hateful levels. I truly pity hipster assholes. No shit.
I miss the 90s, when life was simpler, and we could all agree to hate on hippies.
It just blows my mind how everyone came out of the woodworks to be voicing this topic on LAist, which basically doesn't have to do anything with the city at all! You can find this kind of bullshit in SF, NYC, Seattle, Toronto, etc. you name the place, it's goddamn GENTRIFICATION.
Nothing has changed since I've left for college (Ivanhoe/Starr King/Marshall alum), it's the same crap you would see over the years and grew up around.
This is what American youth culture/society is, it's defining yourself, whether it's going to turn you into an asshole or not, because we have egos the size of Kilimanjaro. Now a days, that category you call middle-class America, the ones you were
the majority of them are these so-called hipsters/scenesters.I spent 2 years studying abroad and it surprises me how a lot of people in foreign cultures don't get all yuppie just because you think you're hotter shit then them. They don't because in true fashion, they just don't give a fuck.
I think i'm just basically pointing out the obvious here.
Something does not have to be exclusive to Los Angeles for it to be discussed. That would make for some very boring dinner parties.
What I hate, is hate. As long as it does no harm I'm all for letting people do their own thing... even if that thing happens to require you to shed your individuality in conforming to a certain look, style, attitude.
Elise, no hint intended. I was just trying to throw silliness into a silly thread. I am forever in your debt for that recipe and will strive to include marshmallows into all future postings. Whatever you write, I will read.
Wow, great post Elise! You've created quite an argument here. I think alot of this so-called "hipster movement" is basically youth being youth. We were all young once and trying to find ourselves. To quote one of the forever hippest of the hip, that good old frog named Kermit "it's not easy being green"!
Wow, great post Elise! You've created quite an argument here. I think alot of this so-called "hipster movement" is basically youth being youth. We were all young once and trying to find ourselves. To quote one of the forever hippest of the hip, that good old frog named Kermit "it's not easy being green"!
Funniest and most on-topic comment was definitely from Zach:
In the Valley we can wear shorts and get away with it.
It's funny because it's true.
"Hippies" (and all the other radicals and freaks who currently get lumped under the "hippie" banner, despite the fact that many of them openly despised "hippies" back in the day) were always a very small minority of the population.
They got a lot of press, and they loom large in nostalgic reminiscence about the era, but they were always heavily outnumbered by the clean-haircut, Father-Knows-Best, ROTC-joining, white-bread-eating, patriotic Kill-a-Commie-For-Jesus types who wanted nothing more than a nice house in the suburbs and a good job at a defense plant.
Those people always aspired to be Beamer-driving yuppies. They were the culture that the "counter-culture" was rebelling against.
In latter days, as "hippie" styles, originally adopted as symbols of rebellion against conformity, morphed into meaningless fashions that became just another somewhat more colorful brand of conformity (the same process you witnessed in the symbols of punk rebellion morphing into hipster fashion), many of the fashion trappings of "hippies" were adopted by the Beamer-driving yuppies.
But they were never hippies.
I remember those people from high school. They voted for Richard Nixon, they made fun of dirty smelly hippies (even though most of them had never seen a real hippie except in Time magazine), and they used the school woodshop to make lathe-turned clubs with which to beat the commie-pinko "outside agitators" they feared were coming to invade their patriotic suburban idyll.
They weren't the "older generation". They were my own fellow 17-year-olds, who never knew that I was spending my weekends getting tear-gassed in antiwar protests. If I'd told them, they probably would have beaten me up, too.
They were never hippies. They were Faithful Followers of Fashion, nothing more.
When the fashion was to be short-haired patriotic Republicans, that's what they were. When hippie threads became fashionable, that's how they dressed. When disco became fashionable, that's where they went.
The hippies didn't all buy Beamers and become the Man.
A few did, sure. But not most of them.
Their once-radical ideas became mostly mainstream; they ceased to be a counter-cultural rebellion against the dominant culture, and became part of the dominant culture - but nowhere near the largest part.
Their ideas are no longer new and exciting and revolutionary, so they just don't get the kind of press coverage they used to.
Time magazine never calls any more.
The Beamer-buying yuppies were mostly the same majority of conformist materialist fashionistas they always were.
They were never hippies.
Oh EZ, no offense taken.
Everywhere I turn, people are ragging on hipsters, including other comments in other posts. So I figured, why not ask myself "why?" "why the hate?" and just stream-of-consciousness it.
Then wow, what a reaction!
Marshmallows were sounding like a very good idea at the moment.
I saw marshmallows at the Cheese Store (no hipsters there, no siree) but my friend told me they weren't that good. Of course she had tried coffee flavor.
Great topic. One thing I don't like is that Hipsters make fun of music I actually truly enjoy. Indie 103 will play 90's hip hop and it seems to be a tongue in cheek type of thing. I actually do LOVE cheesy soft rock and old school RnB and Journey other forms of music in a SERIOUS way, while Hipsters only seem to appreciate in an ironic sense.
I am obsessed with early rap! Check out the Sugarhill compilation. You'll go nuts.
Do watchyalike.
Sugarhill, baby! Elise ... werd!!
LA Mapnerd:
I seems like we have the same issue, different generation.
My generation felt let down by the baby boomers who had insisted they were going to change the world and eradicate war. Then there we were, stuck with Iran-Contra, Central America, and what we perceived to be a real threat of nuclear war.
And when we looked around, that radical generation was busy buying espresso machines and living the life you see in American Psycho.
We felt like they had become the exact people they were claiming to fight. You have to admit, the 80s was a decade of hard-core selling out for the general population. Maybe those were the ones just following the fad.
That does not mean everyone sold out. Some of us got involved with groups like the Animal Liberation Front, and made contact with Zendik Farm and the Rainbow Gathering. In the 80s we could still go to Grateful Dead concerts and see people who had buses, not beamers.
We felt like we were continuing the movement. But we felt that trying to show society its possibilities through peace and flower power had not been successful.
So we were going to try the opposite tactic. Like PETA throwing paint on fur coats, we were trying to throw ugliness in societies' face. Look what society has become. Look at what WE have become. We used images like Eddie Adam's Murder of a Vietcong by Saigon Police Chief", photos from the Killing Fields - we wanted society to look at itself, to see what it had done and to stop Reagan's nuclear obsession before it was too late.
I often wondered in the late 80s when certain factions of punks started wearing fringe jackets and American flags if that upset the radical hippies the same way some on this appropriation of symbols affects us now.
"Hipsters" don't really exist any more. True hipsters are now referred to as "elites." These are the people that know who Zadie Smtih is and look at you weird when you think that "The Times" refers to the LA Times.
At this point, the term "hipster" generally refers to the emo/top40 set. As stated above, they wish to look the part of the alternative intellectual, but are generally vapid and inconsequential individuals. These are the people who shop at Urban Outfitters because they want to look ironic. A telling characteristic is that when asked, they can't really define the term "irony." How ironic.
Twenty-year-long "generations" aren't one big mass of identical like-minded people.
That was my point. This whole faux-nostalgia image of an entire generation of idealistic starry-eyed world-savers is just so much bullshit.
There was no "radical generation". There were a few thousands of radicals, lost in a sea of millions of yuppie-wannabes.
The whole Boomer/GenX/GenY/GenNext thing is just another set of divide-and-conquer tactics, anyway.
If "this generation" can blame "that generation" for the world's problems (and vice-versa), we'll all spend less time looking at who's really to blame.
And the people who really are to blame for most of the world's problems would really like to keep it that way.
And, yeah, it's true - despite the starry-eyed dreams of a few naive idealists back then, we didn't manage to change a society dominated by its military-industrial complex into a peaceful, free utopia in the space of a single generation.
Personally, I never thought we would, and I thought the people who thought we might were... well, starry-eyed dreamers and naive idealists.
But then, I was never a hippie, either.
Sadly, idealism seems to be something you outgrow, like climbing trees.
Thank goodness for those few tree-living idealists still left out there.
Qwerty:
You ready for some serious irony?
Not "rain on your wedding day" Alanis Morisette irony, which is actually just misfortune, but some actual irony?
That shirt in the above photo is from....
URBAN OUTFITTERS!!!
Don't you love it?
I wish the whole Mod vs. Rocker thing would come seaside and back in fashion. Now there's a subculture war that would top anything today.
I was (and still am) mostly a pragmatist.
I wasn't trying to end all war forever.
I was out there throwing tear-gas grenades back at the cops because I really, really wanted my government to stop dragging my friends off to be killed and maimed halfway around the world in order to "defend democracy" - when they weren't even allowed to vote.
And throwing them in prison when they refused to go.
"That's right, kid. We all took a vote and decided that you need to go kill some people for us. Be careful though, they'll probably try to kill you, too. But, hey, that's democracy. No, you don't get to vote - you're too young to vote. Now step lively, or we'll throw your ass in jail."
When they stopped doing that, I stopped getting tear-gassed on a regular basis. ;-)
I've spent a lot of time since in the political trenches - and in other, sometimes darker places - where high-minded idealists often seem reluctant to tread.
I'm not trying to save the whole world - I'm just trying to change my little part of it in ways that will leave it better than I found it.
To me, politics is the art of the possible. It seems to me that Idealism is forsaking the Good while rhapsodizing about the unattainable Perfect.
I mean, I was good - really good! - at making stirring speeches about high-flown ideals that would bring the crowds to their feet cheering; but I found I accomplished a lot more real change with a hammer, or a shovel, or a bucket in my hands.
So I don't really mind people outgrowing their idealism, especially if it means they'll get down off their soapboxes and pick up a hammer every once in a while. :-)
I'm right there with you, MapNerd.
And I have a lot of hammers.
Very good comment from thedarkocean re: early 90s rap and "irony". Read the comments on any Nathan Rabin article on hip hop on avclub.com. Why is hipster culture SO white?
Nice one, thecoloured. A new mods vs. rockers war would be a good opportunity for me to take a side and thin out my record collection. Bring it.
Here's an event I can recall that pretty well sums up my disregard for the kind of people I think you're talking about.
I was listening to KXLU one day, about a week after the fire in Rhode Island that killed 21 people at a Great White show. The DJ had played some horrible lo-fi track that had flames or burning or something in the title, and the guy dedicated it to the "victims of the so-called tragedy last week... I think the world will survive with a few less cosmetology students and auto mechanics in it..."
The suggestion that loss of human life is not an actual tragedy because the victims didn't listen to the right kind of music was so offensive to me I've hardly tuned in since.
the sneetches had this down to a science back in 1961
Jesus fuckin' christ... don't any of you remember the 90's... when these kids were all wiggers wearing silver chains and pants halfway down their asses and upside down tennis hats and listening to eminem nonstop. It really wasn't that long ago.
Um...
I could be totally wrong about the people that you're trying to talk about here, but I'm pretty sure that you're referring to 'scenesters'.
I'm pretty sure.
Hipsters ride bikes, read books, have messy brown hair, wear loafers, funny colored hoodies, and listen to indie music.
'Scenesters' are the obnoxious ones.
At least that's my understanding of it.
Not that any of that matters,
everybody poops.