What Is The Obsession With Hipsters
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I'd make a poor hipster. I don't like PDR, and the only way I could wear skinny jeans is if I wore them as a loin cloth!
For the record, I hate skinny jeans and sagging pants. What ever happened to buying clothes that just fit good?
I go to a college where there's a small amount of hipsters; they all try pretty hard to look, err, hipsterish. I have yet to even see a single person on campus smoking a pipe; I don't see this coming soon, but it might. Call me judgmental, but I hope they stick with clove cigarettes.
Also, I saw a hipster wearing a turban the other day. Nice.
Also, I saw a hipster wearing a turban the other day. Nice.
The use of capitalization in the edited version of this thread title is not academically correct.
I must confess to not having any idea there was an actual definition for hipster. I just thought it meant one of the cool kids not any kind of cultural whatever. Obviously by my not knowing, means I am 180* from that definition. I'm ok with that.
Granted, I cannot comment on what it means to be a "hipster". My mother used to call me a "beatnik" when I was ten years old, and that was 35 years ago. The funny things is, I don't know if she really knew what it meant. It surely wasn't Kerouac's ideal. "Beatnik" for my mom was the equivalence of loser. But that doesn't matter. Oh shit... Beatnik might be the next cool thing. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut so I can cash in. But I digress...
I am new to the pipe community so I can't comment on the apparent "Hipsterapocolypto". I live in the Florida Keys and hipsters don't exist, except for tourists. The parallel I see is what I do for work and the new blood being poured into the sport I make my living at. It's fly fishing.
I have been fly fishing for over thirty-five years. The sport has had it's highs and lows. It is what I know and how I make my living. Presently, it's on a full on resurgence. But now it comes with a price...
Unfortunately my friends, information and "knowledge" is at our fingertips. Things that are precious to us and what we have spent years learning are by the pushes of a few keys, open to all. Everyone now is an "expert" with a little time online. It makes me nauseous when some joker that has been fly fishing for 6 months or less is suddenly an "authority" on YouTube, and I understand the same feelings that this community has with newcomers that are overnight "experts".
And while I can't comment on the "Hipster Invasion", I know enough from my own passion that the "wheat will separate from the chaff".
In other words, the posing douchebags will eventually gravitate to another "hipster" interest and weed themselves out. The fuckers that didn't belong, won't last. Just my 'dos centavos'.
-Pete
I am new to the pipe community so I can't comment on the apparent "Hipsterapocolypto". I live in the Florida Keys and hipsters don't exist, except for tourists. The parallel I see is what I do for work and the new blood being poured into the sport I make my living at. It's fly fishing.
I have been fly fishing for over thirty-five years. The sport has had it's highs and lows. It is what I know and how I make my living. Presently, it's on a full on resurgence. But now it comes with a price...
Unfortunately my friends, information and "knowledge" is at our fingertips. Things that are precious to us and what we have spent years learning are by the pushes of a few keys, open to all. Everyone now is an "expert" with a little time online. It makes me nauseous when some joker that has been fly fishing for 6 months or less is suddenly an "authority" on YouTube, and I understand the same feelings that this community has with newcomers that are overnight "experts".
And while I can't comment on the "Hipster Invasion", I know enough from my own passion that the "wheat will separate from the chaff".
In other words, the posing douchebags will eventually gravitate to another "hipster" interest and weed themselves out. The fuckers that didn't belong, won't last. Just my 'dos centavos'.
-Pete
A similar thread popped up a while back in another forum I frequent focused on Triumph motorcycles. It sort of resolved itself with concluding that the general distaste for people identified as hipsters by the legitimate communities they operate on the fringe of (British/vintage motorcycles, pipe smoking, photography, brewing -- what have you) is based on a feeling that they haven't earned the right to associate themselves with that community because they are only participating in it for vanity and in doing so are somehow degrading that communities legitimacy. Pipe smoking begins to be seen as a novelty instead of a genuine interest because it becomes watered down by hipsters. So we as a community get defensive of our craft.
I think the pipe community has been far more welcoming of people on the fringes of interest in the hobby than the vintage motorcycle crowd and it has led to growth in the industry that benefits all of us. As others have said, hipster interest in subcultures have led to a sort of rebirth in good cafe's, craft beer, analog photography and a whole host of others.
Just look at Portland - arguably the hipster mecca. In 2014 it was ranked as the most livable city in the US and ranked 23rd in the world.
I think the pipe community has been far more welcoming of people on the fringes of interest in the hobby than the vintage motorcycle crowd and it has led to growth in the industry that benefits all of us. As others have said, hipster interest in subcultures have led to a sort of rebirth in good cafe's, craft beer, analog photography and a whole host of others.
Just look at Portland - arguably the hipster mecca. In 2014 it was ranked as the most livable city in the US and ranked 23rd in the world.
I have a goatee and walk around smoking a bent, have not seen another pipe smoker around where I live and back around Halloween some young idiots drove by laughing asking don't I think I'm too old to do the Halloween thing, I'm only 47 so they must think pipes are just for old men. Like I said, idiots....
I confess I haven't read all the comments, but what is an hipster? Could someone provide a definition.
OK, I read a lot of the comments. It seems that if you have a pipe, a beard, long hair, a flat cap and a Leica you are an hipster. Apparently I am one. Well, one of those things will have to go. I might have to sell my Leicas. Or would I rather keep them and get rid of the tweed caps? I am keeping both. The children may call me what they wish, as long as they don't call me Santa Claus.
I got my left ear pierced in Tyler (Texas) mall in ~1981. You were not supposed to get the right ear pierced because that meant you were gay, and being considered gay was the worst thing you could be considered in small town Texas at age 15. It didn't make any difference, because every old person in that mall (age 20 or above, to be precise) figured I had to be gay when it was getting done. However, to me, it was cutting edge and punk. And I wanted to be both.
For about a year, or maybe 6 months, I was cutting edge with that earring. But, I just happened to catch the wave early for once, and by the time I was 16 and 17, every guy I knew in high school had some sort of earring. Metal guys, Van Halen guys, surf guys punk guys, even a few country guys. By the time my senior year was over, I had ditched the earring and never wore one again.
My son, when he was about 13 wanted to get his ear pierced. Everyone was against it but me, but I was trying to get him to mohawk his hair if he wanted me to sanction it. Go all the way. He refused to mohawk his hair. Eventually I backed off and told him to get it pierced, but none of those plug things. It wasn't, for me, the "look" of the plug or the statement, but the eventual damage it does to the earlobe. If he wanted to jack up his earlobes for good, he could do it at 18.
Right before he went into the Navy, he mohawked his hair. Now he collects tattoos I don't understand and listens to music I think is just plain bad. I am sure my mother feels the same way about me.
I had a moment once. It was this...
When I was in my senior year, I was riding in a car with a bunch of buffoons like me, and we were listening to the Animals album by Pink Floyd, and specifically "Dogs'" was playing. It was mid song, and there is sort of wailing almost siren like effect. We had the stereo at max, and I looked at the car next to us at the light and an old man was looking back at me with a look of total disgust at what he was hearing. The old "I got shot in the ass by a Nazi in the Battle of the Bulge for this?" look.
20 years later I am sitting next to some moron pumping bass to idiot gangsta rap, and giving him the same look.
Somewhere a Hipster is laughing.
For about a year, or maybe 6 months, I was cutting edge with that earring. But, I just happened to catch the wave early for once, and by the time I was 16 and 17, every guy I knew in high school had some sort of earring. Metal guys, Van Halen guys, surf guys punk guys, even a few country guys. By the time my senior year was over, I had ditched the earring and never wore one again.
My son, when he was about 13 wanted to get his ear pierced. Everyone was against it but me, but I was trying to get him to mohawk his hair if he wanted me to sanction it. Go all the way. He refused to mohawk his hair. Eventually I backed off and told him to get it pierced, but none of those plug things. It wasn't, for me, the "look" of the plug or the statement, but the eventual damage it does to the earlobe. If he wanted to jack up his earlobes for good, he could do it at 18.
Right before he went into the Navy, he mohawked his hair. Now he collects tattoos I don't understand and listens to music I think is just plain bad. I am sure my mother feels the same way about me.
I had a moment once. It was this...
When I was in my senior year, I was riding in a car with a bunch of buffoons like me, and we were listening to the Animals album by Pink Floyd, and specifically "Dogs'" was playing. It was mid song, and there is sort of wailing almost siren like effect. We had the stereo at max, and I looked at the car next to us at the light and an old man was looking back at me with a look of total disgust at what he was hearing. The old "I got shot in the ass by a Nazi in the Battle of the Bulge for this?" look.
20 years later I am sitting next to some moron pumping bass to idiot gangsta rap, and giving him the same look.
Somewhere a Hipster is laughing.
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