To begin with, I hope you realize the obvious "Anti-Christ" reference. I understand that "Christ" and "Vice" is a forced rhyme, so I felt it necessary to explain. Furthermore, I am poking fun at myself as a hipster by suggesting that Vice is my Christ.In the past, Adbusters has come close to critiquing me: their harsh words for Zionism hits close to my Jewish roots (though I am by no means a Zionist), and my avid consumerism is frowned upon by their leftist contributors. However, this is the first time I feel as though an Adbusters article is actually directly about me. In true narcissistic fashion, I love reading about myself, even if it is a negative rant about my insistence upon being "lost in the superficiality of [the] past" and my inability to "create any new meaning."
Douglas Haddow's article "Hipster: The dead end of Western Civilization" does have its merit. Haddow immersed himself in hipster culture enough to identify the obvious trends: fake glasses, flannel, fixed gear bikes, Pabst Blue Ribbon, indifferent dancing, rejection of being labelled a "hipster." However, I do not find it to be a piece of cutting-edge journalism that reveals anything that is not already well-known. Thanks to the internet, trends and scenes spread like wildfire. Hipsterdom is already past its peak (this happened long ago, probably around the time Kanye West recognized a new market of white kids to attempt to appeal to and thus latched onto that Daft Punk "sample"). Everyone and his/her cougar mother owns a pair of wayfarers, has bookmarked hipster blogs, and listens to/pretends to like electro by now.
Haddow sets up the opportunity to actually dissect what he calls a counter-cultural movement, but instead never delves deep enough into any point he starts. According to Haddow, by sporting vintage clothing, drinking cheap beer, and partying in post-industrial locales, hipsters uphold "shameless cliches of a class of individuals that seek to escape their own wealth and privilege by immersing themselves in the aesthetic of the working class." Well Mr. Adbuster, what exactly is wrong with that? Your publication is based upon redistributing wealth to reconcile the marginalized sides of the great poverty line divide. Instead of delving into the rationale of hipsters and their decision to reject the wealth of their upbringing, Haddow constantly changes the subject with topic sentences that are stereotypical attacks:
- "This obsession with 'street-cred' reaches its apex of absurdity..."
- "Lovers of apathy and irony, hipsters are connected through a global network of blogs..."
- "With nothing to defend, uphold or even embrace..."
- "An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization"
I myself am not motivated by money. I simply wish to earn enough to live comfortably. As a result, cheap beer and used/vintage clothing fit comfortably in my lifestyle. It certainly helps that my consumption of used clothing and certain cheap alcohol sits upon the apex of the alterna-cool aesthetic, do not get me wrong. However, my general apathy is not so much a choice as it is a product of societal conditions.
Each preceding generation has seen its fair share of rebellion. This generation--my generation--has little to rebel against. Or, in the case that there is something to rebel against, we possess the hindsight to realize that there is little we can do to alter the preconceived notions of affluent socio-political fraternities that shape government policy. Remember the mass protests against the Vietnam War? Yeah, our parents were a part of those. Based on that model, there is little we can do to stop the "war" in Afghanistan.
That being said, this generation either realizes that there is little we can do to alter current circumstances, or perhaps we don't want to alter current circumstances. Haddow claims that hipsters have "nothing to defend, uphold or even embrace"--maybe this is because there is in fact very little to defend, uphold or embrace. Social conditions are not perfect, but there certainly is a decent amount of equality in society and there are political institutions in place to ensure this. The generation gap is smaller than ever before--our parents were bigger drug users than we are. Based on that, although they may not condone our dabbling in narcotics, they certainly do not condemn it. So, what is left to rebel against?
Furthermore, remember the grunge "movement"? What the fuck did that stand for exactly? It certainly was not born in the womb of an angry flannel-clad co-ed protesting the Gulf War. It certainly did not stand for Native rights. It was a generation of disillusioned youth who could not find a half-decent career path to reluctantly drag their feet along.
Finally, the ultimate hypocrisy of this article is that it panders to hipsters and is cashing in on the very scene that Haddow demonizes. Generally, Adbusters issues have an overall theme that is clearly depicted on the cover: Media Democracy, The Reconquest of Cool, Big Ideas of (insert year). This issue is not the hipster issue. There is just one article on hipsterdom but the cover would make one think otherwise. Considering Haddow's claim when discussing party photogbloggers that hipsters will "crawl out of bed the next afternoon and immediately re-experience the previous night's debauchery...wading through a sea of similarity to find their own (momentarily) thrilling instant of perfected hipster-ness," he is well aware that hipsters are self-obsessed. Thus, hipsters will flock to purchase a magazine that dissects their scene. Case and point: me.
