I'm socially ignorant: Please tell me what a "Hipster" is.

[Evil Smurf]

I am a hipster because I go against social norms like pop music and fashion.

That doesn't make you a hipster, that makes you a non-conformist. Trust me, it's not the same thing

Here's some good video explanations of hipsters:
Basically, hipsters are pretentious attention seekers that ironically embrace things outside of mainstream societal norms and expectations. They're essentially trying to be cool by not being cool.

I don't hate hipsters, I just find the whole thing rather dumb.

I knew there was something about Hipsters that I didn't like, the smug, know-it-all gits

P.S. Damn Hipster's stopped me from wearing waistcoats, I've been wearing them successfully before it was cool for years now they've gone and ruined it for me! >8/

Where did the bad hipster touch you?

 

[Something Amyss]

Obligatory:

The common slang that "hipster" is used for now rarely means more than "That person doesn't like something popular, they're so edgy!"

I associate it with people who will state they don't like something popular because it's popular, who often employ idioms such as "You wouldn't understand" or "They were better before they sold out/went mainstream", wear lensless glasses and scarves and tight jeans especially when it would mean being uncomfortable, and just generally subscribe to conformity by trying to escape conformity. Or rather, they try so hard to get away from "the mainstream" that they just fall into stereotypical "hipster" territory instead.

They seem much more common than they are just because "hipster" has become another slang insult for the internet to brandish about.

"Hipster," by their own self-proclaimed, ironic hands, has become synonymous with "douchebag."

It's not hard to not be mainstream. The people who get called "hipsters" are just dicks about it.

There's also a certain irony about conforming to nonconformity, which is where the Hipster images comes from, but that's not new. I mean, as The Who once said, "I've got to move with the trends of the outcast."

Thing is, a lot of us are different. Some are like, "whatever, man," and some are all in your face about it.

I think this comment makes a lot of sense:

A somewhat more specific definition might be that they largely represent the art nerd side of counter culture. Every hipster I've ever met has been drawn to/obsessed with literature and/or music

Well, nerds do tend to have a huge stick up their ass about their pastimes, so it fits.

Hipsters, the type of people we tend to see as them (and honestly, who else would want the label) just come off as massively insecure to me.

And honestly, with your goth comparison, there was a lot of the 90s "goth" culture that basically invaded by the same camp and mentality. I used to despise being called a "goth," because while I was somewhat interested in Goth/industrial music, I really wasn't that into the culture and there was a huge sort of anti-mainstream connotation that went along with it. Oh, the other thing I had in common with goths? I wore black. That makes me a goth, right? Or Amish....Or a Rabbi...Anyway, I grew out of the resentment as well, because people are going to label you whether you label yourself or not. The point more being the connotations. Those who were still into it or had been before it became the fad tended to be among the nicest people I knew, and suddenly you had a community of "fuck you jocks/cheerleaders!" running around like twats. Same thing happened with punk. And the term "emo," though honestly I don't buy into the real "emo" being a thing, either.

Hipsters are usually the same types of people who take other non-mainstream movements way too far.

In fact, I don't think we even need most of these "movements." We'd be better off if we could teach people that being secure in what you are is better than proclaiming individuality by shunning one bandwagon for another.

And honestly, I hope nobody who reads this is offended. I'm rambling and obviously biased, but I'm not actually out to hurt peoples' feelings. Even the "douchebag" part is intended more towards the "it's okay not to like things but don't be a dick about it" thing.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Where did the bad hipster touch you?

(and my noes too)

I thought that was the shoe from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" until I got a closer look.

 

[Saulkar]

Damn, beat me to it. The main reason I cannot stand hipsters is that many times I find that they adopt snippets of various subcultures, many of which have an exciting barrier of entry, and spit out hideous amalgamation all the while insulting the source of their inspiration. I do not know if this is the norm but it has been my personal experience.

 

[shootthebandit]

"Hipster" is just another word used to label people and segragate individuals into different groups. When we are teenagers we love putting people into groups be it an emo, jock, nerd, pretty boy, hipster etc. When you grow up youll realise that you dont have to put everyone into a group and you take everyone at face value

Perhaps if the "hipsters" you all describe take notice of what i just said theyd understand the concept of being a non-conformist and being an individual

 

[shirkbot]

Hipster is an ambiguous term for describing the current pop-counter-culture movement. If you really take it apart, they tend to be upper-middle class kids with a deep aversion to their own roots, seeking non-conformity to the extreme.

From personal experience, they also just tend to lack a strong identity of their own. The entire "movement" is just a patchwork of previous counter-culture movements laced with a liberal-arts mentality that doesn't have any strong views on anything. I think it again comes from the "extreme non-conformist" thing, where even admitting that something you like or believe isn't 100% unique is tantamount to sacrilege.

capcha: kick the can - A good way of looking at it really.

 

[Something Amyss]

"Hipster" is just another word used to label people and segragate individuals into different groups. When we are teenagers we love putting people into groups be it an emo, jock, nerd, pretty boy, hipster etc. When you grow up youll realise that you dont have to put everyone into a group and you take everyone at face value

Perhaps if the "hipsters" you all describe take notice of what i just said theyd understand the concept of being a non-conformist and being an individual

By that logic, most people never grow up.

....which is probably true.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

snip snip!

basically agree with everything zachary just said, thumbs up for putting it into better words than I could find at the moment.

Generally what sets hipsters apart from most people, is that they try so damn hard at what they do, (non-conforming and probably being smug about it)

 

[GonzoGamer]

Hipster is an ambiguous term for describing the current pop-counter-culture movement. If you really take it apart, they tend to be upper-middle class kids with a deep aversion to their own roots, seeking non-conformity to the extreme.

Exactly, they are the preppies of this generation. Except for this generation, wearing polo shirts and listening to pop music isn't cool; what's cool is to know about styles that others don't know about. They're still pretentious and everything about them is so contrived but at least that energy goes into trying to be interesting now. It still leads to the need to "out-do" each other the way previous generations of preppies did but they try to do it with individuality. The good part about this is that they don't all look the same the way they did in the 80s.
The funny thing is that in the 80s hipsters weren't necessarily rare (at least not in NYC) but they rarely came from a middle to upper class household and the ones around here usually came from around here, not like Ohio. Shit, I was probably considered a hipster back then but we shopped at thrift stores because we were poor and we heard weird new music because we liked to hang out with weird people at weird clubs.
So I can understand the OPs confusion as over the years, hipster has come to define a completely different group of people; people who would've been called hipster-posers in the 80s, if there had been such a thing.
I don't mean to be rude, I do appreciate these neohipsters a lot more than the preppies that came before them and at any rate I'm glad Tom Waits sells more records now.

 

[Angie7F]

to me hipster means my cousins that ate writer, designers and the likes.
they like to hang out with people and blog excessively.

 

[shootthebandit]

"Hipster" is just another word used to label people and segragate individuals into different groups. When we are teenagers we love putting people into groups be it an emo, jock, nerd, pretty boy, hipster etc. When you grow up youll realise that you dont have to put everyone into a group and you take everyone at face value

Perhaps if the "hipsters" you all describe take notice of what i just said theyd understand the concept of being a non-conformist and being an individual

By that logic, most people never grow up.

....which is probably true.

I always found that at school everyone is a member of some sort of group whereas i didnt conform to any of these catagories.

However after leaving school i got a job and everyone takes each other at face value. Everyone gets on with everyone else regardless of their backgrounds, likes, dislikes or clothing. I found a vast difference between school and work and didnt really start learning till i started working and i genuinely felt that was the point im life i "grew up"

 

[Depulcator]

Come down here to Portland Oregon, we have hipsters calling out hipsters with hipsters hating hipsters.

 

[Faelix]

Most who try to explain here, do so because they are not hipsters. In that sense the urban dictionary got it right.

First of, where do they come from? They come from the internet.

What is their statement? That the internet is the masses, and that the masses are dumb.

Like this; The internet and the gaming community soon found a foothold and common pace in the concept of min/maxing. One thing was the best, and thus the rest was "garbage" or "horrible" or any other pop phrase to describe ones own "dumbed downness" and one dimensional drive to stay in the flock, and keep the flock in check forcing them to stay in the lowest common denominator.

As you might understand, the intelligent amongst users felt themselves held back by this unison, which on the internet, lacking social means to interact, is even dumber than what we have been used to in real life.

And so the hipster came to be by himself. He would do up with the min/max, by putting on a pair of glasses, that broke the fashion. Or deliberately take the nextbest instead of the best. And making sure the next best was colourful for all to notice.

This is described as; Wearing ironic sunglasses. For example. He is breaking the mold that is so dumbed down, in order to show individuality. His accesories, show irony, and the irony is; that you don't get it. That you who wear "the best", is the one who doesn't "get it". That you are a slave to the internet, and that he is not. He is savy, ontop of the internet. Knows more about it than you, but has broken free of it. He is claiming to have a choice.

And so, the secret handshake is hidden in plain view, it even stands out, only the hipsters understand it.

Internet has caught on to him, they don't exactly know what's going on. But the hipster is trying to break free, and so the masses of dumbness are trying to sniff him out and pull him back in with their approach to being. Mockery, trolling, laughing at.

Oh the irony of this invention called the internet.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I think it's become another buzzword for "someone who likes something I don't like."

 

[Faelix]

All I can tell you is this -- I'm a huge manga hipster, because I'm always reading some obscure manga that nobody outside Japan has ever heard of.

No that is not a hipster that is a nerd. That is someone who would like Manga readers to recognise his insight and be put in the middle ot the flock for that reason.

A hipster don't want the flock to follow him.

 

[prpshrt]

A person who wraps their neck a in LONG scarf and wears tight skinny jeans even though its over a 100 degrees outside.