BY JEREMY HAAS
It’s a word most high school students have heard by now. It’s derogatory, and it’s mysterious. “Hipster” is a phrase used to describe a large group of kids, but its true meaning is unknown. This word, with no official definition, is normally used to describe a person who feels a constant need to seem underground, unique, and non-conformist. However, in their struggle to be different, a hipsters are actually creating their own group of attention starved try-hards.
What specifically constitutes the hipster persona is confusing. It’s a counter-culture of epic proportions, but what makes up that culture is mysterious. This mystery is what a stereotypical hipster strives on. Many genres of music can fit the typical hipster sound, yet bands you would think the mold fit are way too “mainstream” for a hipster and this changes on a daily basis. The whole idea is really hard to grasp but then again, that’s what they go for. According to a few popular Internet memes, like the hipster dog, “It’s too underground for you to understand.” That is what a hipster lives for, to be looked at differently, uniquely, and underground, but at what cost?
You will probably react to a hipster in one of two ways; sudden ridicule said out loud or thought to yourself. The question on whether hipsters do what they do for attention or for being themselves is easily guessed, but never confirmed. Many people will explain that their skin tight jeans and itchy, outdated shirts are forms of personal expression. They will say that their seventy dollar “vintage” jackets were purchased from a thrift store. People do this for attention, and it’s sad that a hipster would try to convince anybody otherwise. This is a perfect example of the despicable denial they take part in. It’s just an insatiable hunger for attention.
Hipsters like to think that they are impressive for how unique they are. It is quickly turned into a competition of who listens to the most obscure music and who is the most oddly dressed. In this constant contest of who can be the most self-centered pseudo-bohemian, one must ask them self “Am I a hipster?” Well according to the unwritten rules of being a hipster, if you deny your status as a hipster then you are a hipster. Still, what if someone isn’t a hipster? Do they deny being a hipster to follow the single rule? Nobody knows the answer to these questions because being a hipster is a total paradox. It’s probably best to just keep out of the world of underground music and fashion all together; and just take up football.
Attention can be a great thing. Positive attention can make anybody feel good, positive attention can give somebody some much needed popularity. For a lot of people, however, any attention is positive attention. Hipsters are, for the most part, misguided attention seekers. The failure to differentiate between types of attention cause them to do whatever it takes to be looked at. The point is; people should like what they like without the ulterior motive of getting attention. A hipster isn’t a person who wears obscure clothing and listens to underground music but rather someone who does so to be noticed.
The hipster struggle to refrain from conforming to anything as an attention seeking tactic ultimately lands people in a situation opposite of what than they intended; part of a group, unnoticed, and predictable.
