Serious Question Lindsay Harris Friel 3/17 '17

What's the criteria for hipsterdom? 

Vince and I went to our favorite pho place for dinner tonight. Toward the end of our meal, a young couple came in with their toddler daughter. They told the waiter they'd never had pho before. The woman said she hoped it had noodles. They were sitting behind me, so I couldn't see them. Later Vince referred to them as "that hipster couple." I scoffed and said we were way more hipster than they are. 

He said, "I don't know, the guy had a beard, funky glasses and an old man sweater, and she had tattoo sleeves." 

I said, "You're a musician, I'm a playwright, we have a podcast, and our dog is named after someone who tried to kill a sitting President. We're way more hipster." 

But now I wonder, what construes being a hipster after age 40? 

PS., I don't really think we're hipsters. 

MORE
3/17 '17 11 Comments
You know, it's funny - I would have SO said that they were hipsters. What's more, I get actually _annoyed_ by the hipster cliches like full (well manicured) beards on dainty little men and all that jazz.

All of which just clicked in my head as "way to judge folks on their appearance, asshole".

I need to check myself more often. I sometimes fear that spending as much time on my own is causing me to live in a vacuum.

/end RandomAside
Matt Lichtenwalner
Is being a hipster how one looks or what one does?
Lindsay Harris Friel
I think it comes out of a confluence of looks (by which I actually mean "appearance," because that brings in the dimension of intention), ideas about culture, economic class (no, really), and a naiveté about what "DIY" really means, relative to capitalism. I've had this...irritation...about "cool" people since forever: they think they are bucking some system, some set of trends, while somehow they also all end up dressing the same and consuming the same things.

Or I'm just a curmudgeon. You decide. ;)
Sharon Crowley
I'm just happy you chimed in. :)
Lindsay Harris Friel
YES! The 'cool factor' has a lot to do with it for me. I've shunned lot's of 'rebels' for the very fact that they weren't (in my very opinionated eyes) actually rebelling.

When I look at neatly trimmed beards on skinny, handsome white dudes who are trying (again - my projected opinion here) to look like manly lumberjacks, I find myself sneering in disdain.

I shouldn't. I don't (generally) know the person in question. They might be the most badass individual I've ever met. I have no data.

But that 'cool factor' probably started when I was in high school (and was the one getting his books knocked out of his hands by the 'cool' kids) and I suspect it's deeply ingrained at this point.

Still. I'm an adult and need to think these things through more.

I also need to stop making random threads about me. (Sorry for that - this just got me to do some self analysis by 'thinking out loud'.)
Matt Lichtenwalner
Scientists say all the threads actually are about you, Matt.

The planets also revolve around you, it's just not obvious because you travel so much.
Thomas Boutell
You're alright Tom. I don't care what the hipsters say about you. ;P
Matt Lichtenwalner
I'm torn between "hipsterdom is the last gasp of mean spirited gaydar, running on fumes now that gays are mainstream" and "a hipster is someone who won't own their enjoyment of something other people like." But the latter is just a condition of teenagerhood really.
Thomas Boutell
We talked about hipsterdom in my Visual History class at Temple, but like other things running on fumes, this may have been a tired prof's attempt to get young people interested in late Jacobean fashion. His point was that sometimes people add too many quirky visual elements to something purely to add interest, while exhibiting disdain for the conventional.

I agree with you. I also think there's an activity element of hipsterdom, it's not purely visual. See: Portlandia, "Nina's Birthday."
Lindsay Harris Friel
"Nina's Birthday" is now the 3rd Portlandia skit I've ever seen. Oh my god, I love Fred Armisen just a little bit more which I didn't think was possible. Thank you. (Also: ((shudder)).)
Jill "xtingu" Knapp
i really hate the anti/hipster meme. i don't really get either. people have always been all the archetypes of today yet in this neo-fascist post reagan fucktop world we're in now, all people can do is rag on people for being artsy. omg omg omg.
Jixel