One of my friends told me that the British call hipsters “dickheads.” He sent me a link to a YouTube video of “The Dickhead Song.” And indeed, based on this video, it would seem that he’s right.
But I couldn’t find anything else on the internet to indicate that the British use “dickhead” for what Americans call a “hipster.”
So, just to make absolutely sure, is it true?
I think you misunderstand. English people call hipsters dickheads, but the terms aren’t synonymous. Dickhead is a generic insult.
A dickhead is a dickhead. There are all sorts of ways to be a dickhead. You can be a dickhead by being a pretentious hipster twat, but you can equally be a dickhead by displaying any other annoying trait just as well.
Do English people call hipsters dickheads? Sure they do. They call them all sorts of other names as well.
Do they call all sorts of other people dickheads as well? Sure they do.
Blake beat me to it! But thanks for the link to the video 
While all hipsters are dickheads, not all dickheads are hipsters.
I thought of this possibility, but it made the video seem to make less sense to me. Thanks for the explanation anyway!
For what it’s worth, the term “Hipster” as a description that combines elements of “Twentysomething University Student-type”, “Poseur”, and “Smug/Pretentious Wanker” really seems to be a uniquely American one; I’ve never heard anyone in Australia use the term in that sense, for example.
This.
“Hipster” isn’t totally obscure in the UK though. There’s a bit of a pretentious guy at work that everyone calls “The Urban Artist”. I described him yesterday as “being in a hipster band” and the person I was talking to said “ah yeah, makes sense”.
I figure they’re trying really really hard to not appear like they’re trying to be cool.
“Hipster” doesn’t seem all that obscure to me, but maybe that’s because I’m so hip. The ultimate hipster-dickhead is of course Charlie Brooker’s creation Nathan Barley.
Charlie Brooker is one of the funniest people on earth.
Hipster is a type of flask over here.
I have never heard the word “hipster” used in a negative way. Always neutral or positive. Maybe it’s a generational thing – I’m 40.
To make the word negative, in all contexts I’v com across, one would have to change it to, say, “hipster wannabe” or “pseudo-hipster”.
I’m American and that what I call them, though I generally prefer to use the term “douchebag.”
Yup it’s only been in the past decade that hipster in the US has acquired a negative meaning. I first heard it as such during the “new rock” movement of indie rockers like the Strokes.
While we’re talking about British artists singing about “dickheads”, here’s Kate Nash’s “Dickhead” (NSFW). There’s nothing remotely about hipsters in the lyrics (indeed she wishes her boyfriend was “more intelligent”). So the “hipster=dickhead” notion, if it does exist, certainly isn’t universal even in the UK.
No, “hipster” is not intrinsically negative here either. It just means a trendy, metropolitan sort of person. You can certainly take the view that all hipsters are dickheads, but the word itself is not a pejorative term.
I felt it only right to link to this blog about the Hipsters who inhabit my bit of London 
Hipster is also a kind of jacket - it stops at, and hugs, the hips. Mostly a garment industry term - you couldn’t market a jacket as a hipster; consumers would snicker.
Naw.
Hipsters are the 20-30-something evolution of geeks and nerds, while douchebags are the 20-30-something evolution of jocks. Jersey Shore is a douchebag show.
Hipster is definitely derogatory in NYC. It particularly has shades of being excessively wealthy while pretending to be poor, and caring a lot that you never enjoy anything popular.
Let the mockery commence: Live From Williamsburg Brooklyn, It’s the Hipster Olympics
Hmm… it seems to me that “hipster” is like other labels, such as “intellectual” or “conservative”, that people might use in a derogatory fashion if they themselves have a dislike for such people, but that is not in itself a derogatory term. That is, one could refer to “hipsters” without being disparaging, unlike “dickheads”, which is insulting any way you slice it.