Hipsters Were Hipsters Before…
Let’s start this off with a truth: Hating on hipsters is very cliche nowadays. If I go on stage and tell a hipster joke to a group of people, I will feel bad about myself for having told it. So many comics do them that it has become a tired act. There are even hipsterish things I catch myself telling on-stage.
I try to stop myself from saying them, but it happens because one major rule I have is not lying about the person I am. I even caught myself saying this on the phone today: “I mean, I don’t really watch TV at all. I just don’t see the point.” I finished that sentence and almost gave myself a swirley in the bathroom.
There are 2 basic types of hipsters that I’m sure could extend into way more:
- People that genuinely love things that aren’t popular yet.
- People that love things that aren’t popular yet for that reason alone.
These categories don’t include how you dress, how you wear your facial hair or how you talk. I want to separate it largely because many will put themselves into one and side and refute the other. I put myself in the “People that genuinely love things that aren’t popular yet” category. It’s not intentional that I want to be like that, it’s just I want to experience as much as I can. I want to hear music that’s great, watch movies that make me think, and TV that doesn’t take 22 episodes to get me into it.
“Jeff, you’re a hipster, but you don’t dress like one.” – Actual thing I’ve been told from a hipster.
It’s true, I may not dress like one, but I am one — sorta. I enjoy music and movies that I have to see alone because they aren’t mainstream. It goes back to 1999 when I saw Donnie Darko and it blew my mind. You’ve heard of it now because most of the people in it are now all over the place and popular in the wake of it, but Donnie Darko is a hipster indie movie that exploded on DVD after it failed to make its mark in the theaters. Once I saw it, I showed it to everyone I knew. They had to see it!
I aim to change your perception of one side of the hipster hate. They find good stuff and try to show everyone this new stuff and hope to get it popular. It’s just that some hipsters get mad that their favorite stuff is now mainstream. You’ll hear things like, “They used to be good, but then they got all mainstream.” Yeah, it sucks that the band you loved actually got successful which was what they set out to do when they started. 1,000 people singing your lyrics in a crowd are better than 15 people barely paying attention to your band at a bowling alley.
The bad part about liking things your friends don’t know about or liking things not many have heard of means you’ll be going to events alone. A lot of people don’t want to put in the time to get into new music because they like the music they like. There’s no room for a new band with a big discography to sort through. You’d have to listen to it all a few times to get into it and we’re in a culture where standing in line for over 5 minutes for a latte is unbearable, pumping gas takes too long, and even plot summaries are too long to read.
Good hipsters try to bring the underground content that no one really has picked up on yet. They want people to get into new music, movies, fashion and other cool things.
Chances are you haven’t heard of the band White Denim. You probably couldn’t name a song by them, but if you gave them a shot — like I did — you’d be flabbergasted that they aren’t headlining a stadium tour around the world. Check out this song by them called “At Night In Dreams.”
The opening riff hooked me from the start, but then the listenability of every song on their albums made a huge fan. It’s sad when you hear a great single on the radio, check out the album, and realize the only good song is the album. Great singles are like fast food: They’re great for a moment, but become sickening after a while. A great album is like a home cooked meal: It’s satisfying and you would definitely try it again.
I’ve listened to them for the past 3 months and I’m obsessed. If you go beyond this song, you’ll experience a band that experiments with dub, psychedelic rock, blues, punk rock, progressive rock, soul, jazz, experimental rock with home-based recording, jamming approach, intense looping work and unusual song structures. In other words: A band that mixes multiple genres into their music that makes your brain hurt.
I have tried to get other people into them, but so far it hasn’t worked out so well. I offer them to people, but get other peoples opinions on other bands like it’s going through on ear and out the other. It’s like a famous exchange in the movie Fight Club:
The problem with the bad hipsters that they love things that aren’t popular yet are that they’re basically assholes. If you like a mainstream band, you’ll get this valley girlesque snicker like you’re wearing shoes from last season. It’s strange. Sure, if someone goes to see a Transformers film and says it’s good, I say go ahead and pile on, but, hating on someone for their tastes based on the popularity of something is incredibly annoying.
Then there’s the irony part. Most people don’t know what irony is, and usually say something is ironic when it’s really just a coincidence. Irony is the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. Still confused? Of course you are. That’s why it’s misunderstood.
An example of dramatic irony would be watching a film where two people are planning to get married, but the audience knows the man is planning to run away with another woman. That’s irony. The Titanic was advertised as 100% unsinkable. What happens? It sinks on its maiden voyage. Irony!
The problem with hipsters is they live on irony: They drink a beer called PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) on purpose. They know it’s bad beer, but they drink it ironically. They go out of their way to look like they don’t care about their appearance, but they spend hours on it. They listen to music they know is awful, but keep listening because the band hasn’t “sold out.” I could go on, but you get the point.
This is a stupid thing that’s happening: Pointing out hipsters is becoming its own cliche thing. Like I said before, if I or anyone I know goes on a comedy stage and starts with, “Frickin hipsters, have you seen these people around with their scarves and rimmed glasses. Man…” I will immediately roll my eyes because it’s so overdone. When something becomes part of culture, there will be critics of it. Where there are critics of something, there will almost certainly create critics of those critics. It then expands to the point where no one knows what they’re arguing about.
If you like what you like, that’s fine. Do your thing! But don’t be a self-important jerk because others may not be enjoying what you enjoy. If you have something you love that others haven’t heard of: Introduce them to it!
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.