By Sarah Jost
In the 1950s, the Beat Generation renounced a focus on material possessions 
and conformity in favor of a life of bohemian creativity and experimentation. A direct result of the seriousness and repression of the World War II era, the Beat Generation had its roots in a literary movement begun by writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs that emphasized collaboration and spontaneous prose.
In the mid-1960s, the Beat Generation gave way to the Hippies, who maintained some Beat philosophies, such as an openness to 
experimentation with sexuality and drugs and a rejection of material ownership. The Hippies, however, were spurred by the Vietnam War, the draft, and the civil rights movement. Hippies championed peace, love, and freedom. While the Beat Generation had its roots in literature and collaboration, the Hippies’ foundation was built on folk music and communal living, which developed into such icons as Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, and large music festivals.
In the late 1970s, as the Vietnam War came to an end and the civil rights 
movement had seen its biggest victories, the Hippie culture began to give way to the Punks. Disillusioned by the wars and civil rights injustices of the previous generations, Punks were anti-establishment and, in a shift from the Beats and Hippies, focused on the individual rather than community. Punks were angry, and that was reflected in their loud, aggressive music, moshing, and torn, harsh dress.
Since then, significant countercultures have been dwindling as consumer culture pervades all walks of life. While individuals may embody aspects of the various aforementioned groups, there have been no movements of similar magnitudes in recent decades.
And now we arrive in the present, and the Hipsters. Over the past five or so years, the Hipsters have become an ever-growing, more well-defined group. Unlike previous generations, however, it seems as though Hipsters don’t stand for, or against, anything at all.
Though it differs amongst individuals and social groups, the base definition of a Hipster simply details their aesthetic: thrifted, retro, and often dirty-looking (if not actually dirty) attire, a my-friend-did-this-while-we-were-wasted-last-night haircut (even if it was done at a salon), a waifish body, and often an ironic tattoo, usually done only as an outline.
While the other movements discussed also had unique fashion distinctions, fashion is pretty much the Hipsters’ only distinction. Yes, they love indie bands, but only until other people start to know who they are, then they’re all, “Arcade Fire who?”
The Hipsters are instead unique because of their complete lack of care or concern
about anything or anyone outside of themselves and their aesthetic. They’re too cool to care. Perhaps this is why Hipsters are so elusive. You may be thinking, What? Hipsters aren’t elusive, I see one everywhere I go! But has anyone ever actually met a self-identified Hipster? No. The word Hipster is shameful and embarrassing, hopefully because people realize that being a Hipster essentially means that you are a shallow, superficial trendster with no empathy or motivation and are really no better than the pop culture you so despise. I would bet good money (wait, no I wouldn’t. Chocolate. I would bet good chocolate) that no one has ever in the history of humankind admitted to being a Hipster. As soon as you admit it, you can’t be one anymore.
So, what’s the deal, Hipsters? Why don’t you care about anything besides the band you just discovered online with all the handclapping and the fixed-gear bicycle you found at the dump? It’s not as though there’s a dearth of things to care about. We’re in our 7th year of war, oil is seeping into the Gulf of Mexico, the polar bears are drowning because all their ice is melting, cows, pigs, and chickens are being tortured in factories, anyone who is not a wealthy, white, straight man is being discriminated against, and 25,000 people around the world die every day from hunger-related causes.
Hipsters, I get that your torn vintage shirt is so cool. I love that new band too (but they’re not on the radio yet, so don’t worry, you can keep liking them.) I dig your ironic humor and tongue-in-cheek 80′s reference. But please, please, please, take all of your creative energy and put it towards DOING SOMETHING for this world. It needs you, and now. Don’t let the revolution die with you.
Author’s note: You can find a 2012 reanalysis of hipster culture and its effects on mainstream society here.
Ah, hippies. Changed the world. Then came families, careers, loans, mortgages, suburbs. Now aging boomers. Still with a social conscience. But now tend to be individually active rather than united in action. Much of the power was in numbers. There’s a lot of us. I yearn for this peaceful, accepting, non-violent force to counter tea baggers, haters, dividers. End this war too. You’re right. Historically it’s been the young people who steer our society in a better direction. Where are we?
Voting for the conservatives (starting with Reagan) that got us in this mess. The Boomer generation is the most self-obsessed and self-lionizing generation in living memory. They would do more good to the revolution and movement for social justice by bowing out gracefully than by trying to get back in. Your generation screwed it up, now we’re trying to fix it. Please, stay out of our way.
Ah, Hippies, pushed for a social revolution and then left the current generation with so much debt and lack of defined social thought, “because, like, who are we to judge man..?” Before pointing fingers at a generation coming into their own, think about what the “greatest generation” felt like when they won two world wars and then their kids started listening to rock and roll and doing drugs… and then look back at yourself. At least there are a group of people in this country who reads, and care about the world and the direction it’s heading.. To bad the last generation which cared about social progress was too tuned in turned on, and dropped out before fulfilling the goals they claimed to represent. Maybe hold the judgement and hold your tongue when you feel like it’s your place to critique.
As for me, I’ll take a hipster over a sloppy hippie any day.
Hippies: Can’t say enough bad things about ‘em.
The Codger
http://thecodger.wordpress.com/
Like what? -Geo
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Hipsters don’t care about anything but themselves because humanity has learned that it is impossible to change society.
The conservative forces are too large and too strong, so why bother.
From the Manifesto: Let us not wallow in impotent cynicism, which is what you’re left with when you let passionate anger sit out in room temperature for too long without doing anything about it.
‘Humanity has learned that it is impossible to change society.’ To that I say: French revolution, women’s suffrage, black civil rights, gay rights. While our society is far from perfect, especially still in my aforementioned regards, it has certainly changed. How can you not see this? Or have you forgotten that things used to be much, much worse?
To all the hopeless defeatists out there, I say to you: there is still hope, even for you. You can either give a crap about what you believe in, or you can give up. The protest will never die, so you can either join in or give the protesters one more party to go up against. And if you do the latter, then whatever it is you used to believe in will get that much further away from you. -Geo
Well obviously hipsters today care about more than just themselves.
Just look at all the hipsters who march in gay rights marches.
French revolution, women’s suffrage, black civil rights, gay rights were not achieved by the Beats, the hippies or the punks.
It is very debatable whether the hippies peace protests had any effect on ending the war in Vietnam.
And the author says about punk -”Disillusioned by the wars and civil rights injustices of the previous generations, Punks were anti-establishment and, in a shift from the Beats and Hippies, focused on the individual rather than community. Punks were angry, and that was reflected in their loud, aggressive music, moshing, and torn, harsh dress.”
So all she says is that the punks focused on the individual rather than community and that they were disillusioned and angry.
Is that so different from “hipsters” not caring “about anything besides the band you just discovered online with all the handclapping and the fixed-gear bicycle you found at the dump?”
If the author is saying that no significant movement has emerged since punk, so what?
As happens with most people when they grow a bit older they think things aren’t as exciting as they used to be.
In reality, they have simply grown older and don’t understand what it is like to be 18-22 anymore when the world and life was so exciting and unknown and life hadn’t battered you down into boringness.
They need to ask themselves the question that Morrissey posed – “Has the world changed or have I changed?”
The bottom line is that journalists have to write something and usually have to make up a story or issue that has no basis.
This is just another very lazy and stupid piece of journalism trying to make a generalization where none exists as the following recent protests will show.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_G-20_London_summit_protests
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Greek_riots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_May_Day_protests
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Icelandic_financial_crisis_protests
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_anti-war_protest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Moldova_civil_unrest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Riga_riot
I must say, I’m having trouble following you. First, you say humanity has learned that it is impossible to change society. After I correct you, you misconstrue my corrections by saying that they were never achieved by the Beats, hippies, or the punks, which is something I never claimed. (Oh, and this is after you make a generalisation yourself about hippies at gay marches.) Now, you’re throwing in the age card (another generalisation) AND you’re insulting the author? If you are simply nitpicking in order to win an argument, then allow me to inform you that this isn’t the point of this post, nor is it the point of our blog. And having said that, we’ll just gladly leave you to it. We’ve got rallies to attend, anyway.
Geo
P.S. Take a moment to read the lyrics of Refused. They’re a wonderful punk band.
to urchins.
I think you guys should steer away from topics such as. “hipsters vs. hippies vs. punks”etc. It’s too myopic and is embarrassing to read. and frankly it’s boring and passe. cover and write about things that are truly interesting to you and you’ll be better off.
To boring.
The appalling apathy of the hipster generation, especially in relation to the activist generations that preceded them, is something of great interest to me. I am sorry if it does not also interest you. Might you suggest a topic you would like to see covered? Or perhaps you can write a guest post for us?
Cheers, Sarah
Movements are systems and systems kill. Movements are expressions of the publics will. Punk became a movement when we all felt lost, then it sold out and we all paid the cost.
You seem to imply that everyone who presented themselves as a hippie was actively involved in social and political activism and that nobody who today presents themselves as a hipster cares about any cause outside of themselves. The truth is that while the hippie movement produced a lot of activism and helped affect change, there were still plenty (I would say the majority) of people who were into the hippie lifestyle solely out of rebellion, for the sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Conversely, plenty of young people today who care about the world around them and want to make it a better place also happen to care about underground music and fashion and would fit the physical description of a hipster. Plus I’d guess that if a national draft were still in effect and casualties in Iraq were anywhere near what they were in Vietnam that you would see a similar response today from young people as in the 1960s. There isn’t, so the comparison is invalid and unfair.
Well said, HiFiGuy, Very well said.
Something about (counter-) cultural movements: They hate their own times, wildly sentimentalizes them twenty years later, then twenty years later yet, reclaim their worth, borne of a nostalgia for that collective youth. Although I must say, this trajectory too seems to be unravelling, going down the drain of obscured vagueness into a time when “cool” is to finally identify with nothing at all. Man.
I think that the discussion of the “hipster” is very relavent to what is happening these days in American culture. The hippies, while predominantly middle class, were the product of a culture that very much valued the ideals of the American Dream. The idea that, The People, through hard work and determination had the ability to determine their own destiny. This idea of this idea of the American Dream has been replaced by the idea that everything will simply be handed to us. America has become so affluent (as a whole) that there is nothing to strive for, and there is no draft to worry about; basically everyone is free do do as he or she pleases. Young people take for granted the fact that they have every opportunity of living a comfortable life, and instead are concerned with whether or not they will be able to obtain the latest Mac product (another staple of the Hipster). This has led to the boredom that is reflected in the hipster ideology and aesthetic. The passiveness of this ideology VERY likely has grave implications as far as where America, which has been a major cultural and financial leader of the western world througout this century, is heading as a nation.
I’m struck by one of the preceeding commenter’s phrases, “America has become so affluent (as a whole)…..” I wonder how it would feel to have that come to my mind as a true sentence? I wonder how it would feel to even know someone personally who believes that to be true? This isn’t meant as any sort of argument. These are just wistful questions sprung from the mind of an unemployed woman who wishes she had money to give to causes she cares about.
According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development the United States has the highest average income in the world. Does this mean that every individual living in the U.S. is affluent? No. In saying “as a whole” I did not mean to imply that every individual within the U.S. is affluent. I am merely stating that, a very large percentage of young people in the U.S. have grown up in an environment where they have not had to work particularly hard for what they have been fortunate enough to receive.
Right. As I said, I’m not arguing with you or anyone else. I’m just one person, wistful, and longing for something.
“Hipster” is not a well defined group like hippies and punks.
I’ve seen homeless squatter teens and $60k/year office workers both called hipsters.
I think what you’re seeing is the entire Western world sliding into apathy… and incorrectly attributing it to current youth trends.
Yes, some changes have been made by protest and activism, but they are fucking baby steps. Just because the fetters aren’t tangible doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
It’s starting to seem like people just hate hipsters because hipsters are living for a living, and the squares who hate their jobs and lives are jealous. They do what they want because why shouldn’t they? Our generation has been told their whole lives that they can be whatever they want to be, and now that we’re actually doing it we’re getting shit for it? Not only that, but we’re seen the revolutions die and go backwards and it seems desperate and fruitless to spend our whole lives fighting against things that we know aren’t going to change. I know hipsters who work with disabled people, I know hipsters who volunteer at animal shelters, I know hipsters who live in really shitty conditions because that is all they can afford because there are NO JOBS LEFT FOR OUR GENERATION and they make the best of it, and have meaningful relationships with their community of friends, and enjoy their lives, etc. They ride bikes because that is DOING SOMETHING, meaning abandoning cars which are shitty for nature. They wear vintage and used clothing not only for the aesthetic but also because it’s cheaper and you are reusing things that are already made instead of promoting the production of more STUFF (more waste). They don’t watch TV because TV is mostly shitty bullshit. They shop at local corner stores and farmer’s markets and grocery co-ops because that is the GOOD thing to DO. There are certainly shitty clueless hipsters who have trust funds and worry more about fashion than anything else, but mostly “hipsters” are just a LOSTGENERATION that doesn’t want to end up like their parents (in debt, working 48 hour weeks at a job they hate, bitter, and bored, and resentful) so they are carving a path for themselves that allows for fun, that allows for a sense of humor about how shitty things are for our generation. It is very obvious that the changes that need to be made to save our society are not going to be made because most people in most parts of this country (USA) especially are lazy fucks who want convenience and stuff over a paradigm shift that would allow us to continue as a society so to that the hipsters say: FUCK IT, LET’S PARTY.
Yes! Thank you! Could not have said it any better.
I don’t agree with your generalization of punks at all. They’re very community oriented, and have been from the beginning. The Dial House as one example.
@thecodger Theres not enough bad things I can say about hipsters…so here we are
>I’ve seen homeless squatter teens and $60k/year office workers both called hipsters.
“Hipster” is merely a floating signifier used by people who have an ax to grind with the youth/fashionable/rich/poor/over-political/under-political — ultimately to the detriment of culture, for if being interested in independent art, literature, music, film, fashion, etc. becomes stigmatized, well, I think you can see where that will lead. Greater homogeneity in mass culture.
Its true that hipsters don’t seem to have any type of cause, but if you look closer, you can see the reason they do what they do.
Our generation has something the others didn’t, which is the internet. Information comes from everywhere now, and the basic person knows a lot more then their grandparents did. The generalization of previously unknown info is a direct lead to why hipsters are so biased toward indie culture. Past rebels united because everybody else thought a certain way, and they thought another. But internet has such an influence now that every opinion is tolerated, and you can always find someone that agrees with your views.
To find something that not many others know about is pretty rare, and thus is valued by hipsters, who are mostly just middle-class suburbanite kids looking for a niche to fit in. Especially now, since they’re getting so much attention, hipsterism is a favorable alternative to being ‘like everyone else’.
Personally, I think the word hipster is just a generalization that can only be accurately applied to a small percent. Just like Punk, there are subcultures within subcultures. I shop at Urban Outfitters and listen to Arcade Fire too, but I don’t consider myself all that hipster. Which might be a good argument to prove that I am. But I digress.
Point is, there’s a reason for everything we do nowadays, a expanding type of social darwinism, and hipsters, great joke material that they are at the moment, are no exception.
LOL, No.
I do not get why people cannot understand what a generation is. A generation is a period of time, basically twenty years whereas the ones who enter the generation would be at the age they would likely have produced offspring.
Working backwards the current generation is the ME generation referring to the millennial’s. Born between 1980 and 1999,They are embodied by Hipster values So Hipster generation is used interchangeably with ME generation. The concept is the same. Its the generation born of the internet with expectations of everything being on demand, who were coddled by their hippy parents and duped into thinking they could do anything.
Before that was Generation X. Generation X was born between 1960 and 1980. GenX represents anti social behavior and increased emphasis on the sense of self and individuality. There were elements of Punk and nihilism surrounding GenX Socially they tend to be more insular and feel they have to fix everything themselves.
Before that was the Baby boom generation. Born between 1940-1960 the boomers were were also heavily connected to the hippies of the time. They existed as a confliction trying to fight in social activism but also creating more problems like the current economic collapse
Before that was the Greatest Generation. Born between 1920-1940 The greatest generation was predominantly the generation that endured the ravages of the both the great depression as well as World War 2.
Before that was the Silent Generation. Born between 1900-1920. This is the generation that predominantly endured World War 1.
Its really not hard to comprehend. So please get your facts straight.
This whole article reads like (un)educated guesses about what Hipsters are and aren’t written by someone who formulates the inside story from the outward fashion of a culture.
I was just thinking about this whole hipster thing the other day, and what I was thinking is I don’t believe that it’s just us young people or our stunted subculture that’s the issue these days (obviously when we speak like this we are generalizing, so this a big, fat generalization). I think most Americans, young and old, are perpetuating this trend of extreme apathy or incredibly passionate blindness. It’s this egocentric stubborness, I believe, that leads to this partisan gridlock where no one listens to eachother or wants to sacrifice their engrained beliefs for the sake of progress.
Somewhere along the lines I think we got image confused with substance. So anything that threatens our image is a threat to who we are as a person.
Along with (or because of) this obsession with image, we’ve become wrapped up in a black and white belief system. You’re either for or against us, you’re either right or wrong, you’re a hipster or you’re not, you’re conservative or liberal, etc. etc. etc. These things may work and make sense in the realm of image, but in the human heart of things they are baseless. None of us are black and white, we’re all nuanced and ever changing. Perhaps that’s why people get so upset about being called a hipster, because they know for themselves personally they are more complicated than that. They know about the depth of their own character.
Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these hipster people (do they really exist? I’m unconvinced). I think we’re all on a journey to something, and we all have our own path we need to take.
I just wanted to add my long-winded thoughts to these heated debates =). I liked your post
Hey Urchins, i really enjoyed reading this post. I know in Melbourne, Australia, there has been a boom in “Hipsters” recently and i can’t help but laugh when i read this post. I have noticed some traits in hipsters that you have mentioned, such as liking an indie-band until it becomes mainstream. You have found some truth in this subject and i agree that overall the hipster scene has no meaning behind it other than being a fashion statement. Well done on the great blog
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To you all, I say watch out for the future. It is going to be shitty from our past. As a hipster I say, who gives a crap. As a hippie I say we need to move to cause change. And honestly we (this generation of americans) are by far the most lazy ever. And we may have what will be the greatest revolution ever on our hands in the upcoming years. With america headed to comunism we better start the revolution fast or we’ll all be under the control of yes, the government. Fts, ftfw, fbor, fdc, and fy.
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The problem is most modern hippies decided to get away from the problem instead of trying to fix it!
Hipsters are just self absorbed hippies. They are the modern hippies that gave into the materialistic world, and it’s sad. The real hippies like myself are just disbanded or too stoned to want to do anything about anything!
Lets stand up for the cause and make a change!
“The appalling apathy of the hipster generation, especially in relation to the activist generations that preceded them, is something of great interest to me.”
I’m with you on that one!