On a Post-Hipster Consensus

I have been noticeably tardy with posts despite being added to this blog a good month ago. A combination of poor summer timing, on-again-off-again travel arrangements and a new apartment have cunningly conspired to give me ample non-writing excuses. But no more! Back in Providence, I shall hopefully be balancing cultural commentary and sex columns...

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One of the defining hallmarks of a hipster is the denial of the hipster identity. To be able to conform to any single identity seems to be a betrayal of the hipster ideal and the search for an authentic culture. Hipsters crave authenticity because for the longest time, the pre-hipster demographic believed themselves starved of a semblance of authentic culture. They knew they were rebelling against something - society, culture, identities, whatever it is someone young does not want to be a part of - but it gets so much harder to know what one stands for.

So the endless ironic appropriation - the working class hallmarks, of PBR, the sudden appreciation of flannel and 'ugly' sweaters, love of the 80s - all contributing towards a sense of what one is through what one is not. An identity, an authentic hipster, via Occam's Razor.

And within that, denial of the hipster within. It's practically zen.

Into that void steps the post-hipster. It's fine and well to be moppy and ironic about a set of standards that through the dissemination of gossipy trust-funders who flit in and out of Brooklyn to the more bastardized marketing of Urban Outfitters and American Apparel, a sense of hipster identity has been created. The 'hipster', for better or worse, can be identified. Fellow hipsters congregate, wordlessly but drifting with a deep psychic connection, with thin cigarettes dangling out of the corners of their pursed lips while other Normals point, stare and mumble/laugh under their breaths: "look at this fucking hipster".

The post-hipster recognizes this and like the young grasshopper accepts the way things are. The post-hipster is, for all intents and purposes, a hipster. Witness the scarves in summer and the ball/soul-crushingly tight pants. However, the post-hipster strips away the irony. There is no need now to distance oneself from labels and tags - the authenticity that the hipsters have long sought to develop by douche-ily appropriating the 'real' from the parole of other 'authentic' cultures and adopting them ironically has been, paradoxically, reinvented as a sort of authentic identity. Believe or not, some people actually do enjoy the aesthetic of the Brooklyn set and want to party like Lady Gaga's 'Just Dance' music video - for the sheer sake of it. There is no more irony because the nirvana of the real authenticity has been created.

The hipster look and lifestyle is not just a mish-mash of other styles being cannibalized by ex-prep school types; it has been subtly reinvented and reinvigorated through the continuous wringer of fashion and tastes. All the irony that has been invested into this damn foolish pretend stuff has been washed out and all that's left is some sort of light humor. Perhaps in a way, this hipster end product is not the authenticity that the original irony-peddling set tried to create but it is still in a way a sort of creative culture.

So the post-hipster can be proud to self-identify. It's not just some dopey imitation wrestled off an Urban Outfitter's catalogue, but a true appreciation of what the jaundiced early 2000s has created.