Hipsters hallow a hollow counterculture

opinion@dailylobo.com

I bought some so-so items on clearance at Buffalo Exchange a few months ago, and upon eyeing them, my sister Jacey declared me a hipster. For people who are baffled by the hipster trend ­— people like me — this is an insult. “Take it back,” I said.

Jacey identified my clothes as hipster, but I think of hipster as encompassing a lifestyle and a culture rather than the parts of a whole. Hipster is an attitude, and all physical evidence is the result of this attitude. Some call it apathetic; I see it as making an effort to appear effortlessly cool.

I used to call hipsters “pretentious hippies,” but this really cuts the culture off at the knees. Hipsters dabble in all sorts of countercultures, and it’s funny to me that in the pursuit of uniqueness, they’ve done nothing but use inspiration from what has already been done. Of course, recycling and other Earth-friendly practices are among their favorites, one of the similarities between them and me that makes me doubt we are really so different.

Shoot, even caring about differentiating myself from that crowd is evidence I am one of them. They look up to the people who started countercultures because those people were able to make a name for themselves in their time without conforming to more typical methods of getting ahead in society.

However, hipsters are not like those countercultures, because they haven’t forged a new path. They’re looking for pieces of the past to recreate something fresh. Creativity and all manner of artistic endeavors are points of pride to hipsters, something with which I can identify. So they generally reject anything mainstream — Why did the hipster burn his hand on the stove? Because he touched it before it was cool — and because so many follow this alternative path, they’ve created a second sort of mainstream. Thus, their hair and clothing choices get weirder as hipsters look for ways to bump up their quirk count.

I hear plenty of conversations between hipsters. One talks about her day, detailing anything wacky she did or found or bought, the kind of situations satirized by one of my favorite hipster blogs, Bon Iver Erotic Stories. Meanwhile, I can see their counterpart waiting for a break in the conversation to share his or her own gleeful moments of spontaneity and originality, barely listening to what the other has to say.

I still haven’t gotten tired of the comparisons between hipsters and homeless folks — how can you not poke fun at someone who wears a knit cap two heads too big in the middle of summer? I rip on hipsters a lot, but mostly with the intention of provoking conversation that might help me better understand what is going on. And it’s not all bad; jokes like “How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb? An obscure number you’ve probably never heard of” make me happy the hipsters remain, as do blogs like “Look at This F***ing Hipster,” the collection of hipster photos that comes closest to capturing the wide spectrum of hipster varieties.

I’ve tried the obvious sources for answers, like the definitions of “hipster” on UrbanDictionary.com, but nothing tells me why they’re here. They’re not about rebelling against authority, exactly. Rather, they are most concerned with individuality, which is a stronger tie between them and me than any cheap shirt I buy at a thrift store.

During the past year, I’ve wondered about what it means anymore to be an American — a member of the U.S., not the Western Hemisphere — and in asking people, the answer that strikes me the most is that everything has already been done. This explains the rugged intellectualism common in hipsters. The world is pretty competitive these days, now that the bachelor’s degree is as significant as a high school diploma used to be. It’s no wonder hipster hubs are often in major cities, as these are the places where individuals practically have to be another creature to stand out in a sea of thousands or millions of people.

At the core, I can see the resemblance. I want to feel significant — who doesn’t? And in a society that values physical appearance almost as much as Apple products, it’s not hard to see why the culture is the way it is. However, I don’t think I’ll ever understand why anyone would try to be different. Everybody is different, naturally. Come on hipsters, aren’t you all about that natural stuff? You just have to be, didn’t they teach you that in your meditation and yoga sessions?