Hipster / college dorm culture before the internet

[DSeid]

An old school geek myself, this thread has provoked me to have a few conversations about about what “hipster” means, both with my 20 something young adult children, and with someoneI met socially who live in Logan Square and works in Wicker Park, places known to be hipster magnets.

The Logan Square/Wicker Park person declares “hipster” to be an insult and to refer to those putting on airs to be young and cool when they are actually just trying to act much younger and cooler than they are. My young adult children declare “hipsters” as those trying so hard to be cutting edge that they are the ultimate dorks. They are, in their minds, the people trying very hard to conform to whatever is the current badge of non-conformity.

I might call those people poseurs or losers I guess.

Of course the truth is that anyone who is* trying* to be cool/cutting edge/hip/“deck” really has blown it right there.

[msmith537]

Hipster are losers, dorks and nerds. The cool crowd doesn’t care about the latest indie rock band. They are off banging the prom queen. (Not all of them at once). Hipsters are people who have excluded themselves from or have been excluded by the mainstream elite. Instead they compete for superiority within their own kind through their rejection of the mainstream and their eclectic brand of consumerism.

For example, bartender is not a particularly lofty profession. It doesn’t pay well and the hours suck. But if you are the hip bartender at the hip bar where you have access to cool bands and lots of drunk chicks, it affords you a certain social currency. It let’s you scoff at all the “materialist working stiffs” even though you live in some shitbox studio walkup.

At some point that fades though. As you get older what was once cool counterculture hipster becomes weird unsuccessful guy in crap job

[Darth_Panda]

Well, I think it’s always been the case that the preppy/jock crowd consider themselves to be cool and think that counter-culture types are a bunch of losers, while at the same time the counter-culture types consider themselves to be cool while thinking that the preppy and jock types are losers.

[heathen_earthling]

@LC_Strawhouse

The thing is, the guys I was describing in the original post were not nerds. They were basically counterculture types who were in bands, which was totally acceptable in college at the time. Those interests just sound nerdy now because the internet has made everyone more sophisticated since then.

So what is today’s sophisticated counterculture type into? Or does this subculture (or equivalent) even exist any more?

I’m in university and into cliche ‘counterculture’ stuff, but a lot of what I enjoy is from the '80s. I like lots of weird post-punk/industrial/noise music, William S. Burroughs, RE/Search publications, Adam Parfrey’s Apocalypse Culture, films like Decoder, etc. I don’t have friends with similar subcultural interests so I have no idea what’s current in that scene, if anything.

[LC_Strawhouse]

@Darth_Panda

Well, I think it’s always been the case that the preppy/jock crowd consider themselves to be cool and think that counter-culture types are a bunch of losers, while at the same time the counter-culture types consider themselves to be cool while thinking that the preppy and jock types are losers.

Not only that, but I think they were also the same people by the late 80s. The ones who were preppy jocks in high school, once they got to to college, just grew their hair long and wore a Jim Morrison shirt for a few years.

Might help to say that I was talking about the arts & science crowd in college. I didn’t hang around any lifelong jock types who went to college on athletic scholarships.

So what is today’s sophisticated counterculture type into? Or does this subculture (or equivalent) even exist any more?

I’m in university and into cliche ‘counterculture’ stuff, but a lot of what I enjoy is from the '80s. I like lots of weird post-punk/industrial/noise music, William S. Burroughs, RE/Search publications, Adam Parfrey’s Apocalypse Culture, films like Decoder, etc. I don’t have friends with similar subcultural interests so I have no idea what’s current in that scene, if anything.

I think that’s normal because the internet has made it possible for people to create their own individual subcultures. In the original post I was describing the cookie cutter “counterculture” of the late 1980s, which could be silly and cliched by today’s standards.

[LC_Strawhouse]

Was this Oberlin College in Ohio? Sounds just like the stories I’ve heard about that place. I also remember homemade “Zines” full of autopsy photos and the like.

@Charogne

At my very small Midwestern state school (small enough that we had real Ph.Ds teaching 300-level and beyond classes), the following subsets overlapped heavily: “the grunge kids, the hippies, the townies, the druggies, the nerds” (Quoted from Darth Panda above; anyone who wishes or can may fix it properly).

I’m thinking of the 4 patchouli-reeking wake-and-bakes who faithfully attended the 8:00 A.M. class with the openly gay Marxist prof on Non-Western Music, and who made straight A’s in it due to actually doing the required readings and listenings, as opposed to the Greeks and business/education majors who just wanted an easy way to get the diversity/multiculturalism requirement out of the way. (Jonathan, Dylan, John – still there?)

As I recall, reading tastes would be described as “cult fiction” today. Pretty much anything fictional from the Amok Fourth Dispatch catalog could fit, Loompanics and Last Gasp were also well thought of as connections to the outside world.

Listening would have been subsumed under “classic rock” and what Allmusic describes as “college music”, along with mix cassettes for different moods and gatherings, and tapes and vinyl 45’s from bands your friends were in.

Wall art and taste in films were too variable for me to generalize on… although I remember a nasty but jovial vegan dinner and showing of “Henry and June” in someone’s basement, followed by a pass-around perusal of Madonna’s Sex. Martin the bisexual model gave us his informed opinion on which pictures Stephen Meisel got right in terms of lighting and composition.

The most ubiquitous fashion statement of the day seemed to be the old fashioned Army issue gas mask carrier. I never took a shine to the thing, remembering how easily the damn things spill their guts when one low-crawls, but they seemed to leave plenty of room for the requisite Burt’s Bees lip balm, hackeysack and pack of Camel Lights, and easy for your friends to decorate in ink with sketches and quotes.

One other thing that surprises me by omission. No one seems to have mentioned so far that this was the time of 'zines. It seemed every fourth person had one on the fire, and everyone read them avidly when they could get them.

All in all, a lovely way to spend the GI bill and Illinois Veterans Grant. I remember it fondly, if not too well.

[msmith537]

@Darth_Panda

Well, I think it’s always been the case that the preppy/jock crowd consider themselves to be cool and think that counter-culture types are a bunch of losers, while at the same time the counter-culture types consider themselves to be cool while thinking that the preppy and jock types are losers.

True enough. Except that I always felt that the counter-culture types were full of crap. Some may actually be poor and disenfranchised, which is a situation I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be in. The rest are trying to emulate those people which to me seems disingenuous (or at best ironic) if your parents are sending you to a $40,000 a year college. Like it’s all a big act and they put on their Che t-shirts like a Halloween costume in the morning.

In college, someone would occassionally bring a friend from home who was going to a liberal arts school. They would always comment on how everyone looked alike with jeans, dirty worn baseball hats, untucked Ralph Lauren shirts or LL Bean flannels and either a J Crew barn coat or North Face fleece vest if it was cool out. It’s because most of these kids aren’t here to make political statements. They are here to get degrees in engineering, business, finance or accounting, develop networks with similar-minded people and then go join the upper middle professional class after graduation.

Most of the “counter culture” types were more or less rich kids with drug problems.

[Darth_Panda]

@msmith537

Most of the “counter culture” types were more or less rich kids with drug problems.

Yeah - no doubt. But, from a high school type mentality (although it really applied in college, too), whereas a big chunk of people would look at a certain group of people (jocks and preppies) and say ‘those are the cool kids’ - the counter-cultures would say ‘no, those guys are losers’ - and some percentage of people would actually buy in and ‘dig’ the counter culture types and elevate them to the status of ‘cool.’

When it comes to stuff like that, perception is reality.

[heathen_earthling]

@LC_Strawhouse

I think that’s normal because the internet has made it possible for people to create their own individual subcultures. In the original post I was describing the cookie cutter “counterculture” of the late 1980s, which could be silly and cliched by today’s standards.

Why do you think it is “silly”? If everyone in that subculture has the same cookie cutter interests, at least they can enjoy real life conversations with their peers about the books and movies they like. My generation is probably missing out on that to some degree.

@msmith537

Except that I always felt that the counter-culture types were full of crap. Some may actually be poor and disenfranchised, which is a situation I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be in. The rest are trying to emulate those people which to me seems disingenuous (or at best ironic) if your parents are sending you to a $40,000 a year college. Like it’s all a big act and they put on their Che t-shirts like a Halloween costume in the morning.

Who said youth counterculture had anything to do with being poor and disenfranchised? To me it makes perfect sense for students from middle-class families to take an interest in the token rejection of middle-class culture, because that’s the culture we’re raised in. There’s no point in rebelling against something that you aren’t being pressured to conform to.

[Charogne]

Hey LC! Sorry to post and run.

No, it was a much larger, much cheaper, much less selective uni than Oberlin, I fear. Not the major state u in the state, although within driving distance thereof, where we’d carpool to see art movies, hear concerts and eat Chinese. (We had better pizza, though). It had the reputation at the time as being where rich suburban families sent their underachievers, and poor rural families sent their overachievers.

heathen earthling sounds like he would have fit right in, by-the-by

Name dropping made me nostalgic… checking up on my old classmates from Non-Western Music, Jon is an IT guy at a multi-campus tech school, Dylan is teaching art at a southeastern university. John plays percussion and writes songs for a flamenco/acoustic jazz ensemble. My old roomie is the provost for a multi-campus community college in the southeast, and has two books of film crit out. I’m senior staff at a very large Midwestern academic library. Not a billionaire in the bunch, but I have the impression we’re all happy enough.

I forgot wineskins. Lovely way to get gently wrecked on the Quad, inasmuch as the old fatherly campus cops saw it as a low-priority violation. And inevitably, someone would show up with a guitar… on good days, someone who could play.

All-in-all, it just didn’t take a lot of money to have fun, in the off-hours. $300 rent with utilities included for a one-bedroom studio left a lot of disposable cash behind from the grad stipend and government check. Get spastic on caffeine at the all night diner and talk bull at somebody’s place til the wee morning hours, grab some floor space, get up late, eat some spaghetti or cheese grits with Leinenkugel bock and go swim down at the river, in the summer.

Linklater’s Slacker has some of the vibe, although at a much more frenetic pace. Not to be old, but it really did seem like there was more time then, papers and exams notwithstanding.

Hope that helps! Just one guy’s take on things, at one time and place.

[LC_Strawhouse]

@heathen_earthling

Why do you think it is “silly”? If everyone in that subculture has the same cookie cutter interests, at least they can enjoy real life conversations with their peers about the books and movies they like. My generation is probably missing out on that to some degree.

It may be that people used to have more of a shared social vibe. But on the other hand, those conversations were more likely to consist of pseudo-intellectual blathering. Honestly, I think people are much more informed and broad-minded and have much better conversations now.

You can’t really overstate just how sheltered many people used to be, compared to today. Certain types would happily watch nothing but baseball and wrestling (or Carl Sagan, for the wannabe intellectuals), until something like Faces of Death would just BLOW. THEIR. MINDS.

[msmith537]

@heathen_earthling

Who said youth counterculture had anything to do with being poor and disenfranchised? To me it makes perfect sense for students from middle-class families to take an interest in the token rejection of middle-class culture, because that’s the culture we’re raised in. There’s no point in rebelling against something that you aren’t being pressured to conform to.

Because counterculture movements always seem to involve middle class kids emulating the fashion and mannarisms of poor kids from their era - 50s Greasers, 60s hippies, 70s punks, 80s metal head hoods and 90s slacker grunge and gangster rap cultures.

I get the desire for kids to rebel on principle. It’s very appealing to rebel by emulating people who they view as angry and outside what they grew up with as mainstream.

@LC Strawhouse

It may be that people used to have more of a shared social vibe. But on the other hand, those conversations were more likely to consist of pseudo-intellectual blathering. Honestly, I think people are much more informed and broad-minded and have much better conversations now.

You can’t really overstate just how sheltered many people used to be, compared to today. Certain types would happily watch nothing but baseball and wrestling (or Carl Sagan, for the wannabe intellectuals), until something like Faces of Death would just BLOW. THEIR. MINDS.

Don’t kid yourself. We had access to bootlegs and obscure films like Faces of Death. The only difference was we watched them on grainy VHS tapes instead of grainy YouTube clips. And your conversations now are no more “informed and broad-minded”. There is so much information noise on the Internet that people will just cherry pick whatever already fits with their preconceived ideas.

I also think the Internet, like television, gives a false sense that you are “doing something” when all you are doing is watching other people do stuff and pontificanting about it.

In the 80s and early 90s, you couldn’t just sit all weekend in your dorm room and still feel connected because there was no way to connect. Fri or Sat night the dorms were completely empty because everyone was out a fraternity party, house party, the local bar or otherwise socializing. Blogging, Facebook and message boards cannot replace real human interaction.

When I read threads on this board by twenty somethings who never been to a bar, have never been laid, can’t communicate IRL and don’t seem to know many of the social conventions we learned as teenagers, I wonder if there have always been people like that or if there are more of them because the Internet lets them avoid the uncomfortible social interactions they need to grow.

And I can tell you where I see this really creating a problem is when these kids join the workforce and are forced to interact with people face to face. Many of them lack basic skills. Everyone being a social subculture of one is not a good thing IMHO.

[mozchron]

@msmith537

When I read threads on this board by twenty somethings who never been to a bar, have never been laid, can’t communicate IRL and don’t seem to know many of the social conventions we learned as teenagers, I wonder if there have always been people like that or if there are more of them because the Internet lets them avoid the uncomfortible social interactions they need to grow.

There have always been people like that. In the past, they weren’t on internet message boards so you were not aware of them. But they were there.

[LC_Strawhouse]

@msmith537

Don’t kid yourself. We had access to bootlegs and obscure films like Faces of Death. The only difference was we watched them on grainy VHS tapes instead of grainy YouTube clips. And your conversations now are no more “informed and broad-minded”. There is so much information noise on the Internet that people will just cherry pick whatever already fits with their preconceived ideas.

I also think the Internet, like television, gives a false sense that you are “doing something” when all you are doing is watching other people do stuff and pontificanting about it.

In the 80s and early 90s, you couldn’t just sit all weekend in your dorm room and still feel connected because there was no way to connect. Fri or Sat night the dorms were completely empty because everyone was out a fraternity party, house party, the local bar or otherwise socializing. Blogging, Facebook and message boards cannot replace real human interaction.

When I read threads on this board by twenty somethings who never been to a bar, have never been laid, can’t communicate IRL and don’t seem to know many of the social conventions we learned as teenagers, I wonder if there have always been people like that or if there are more of them because the Internet lets them avoid the uncomfortible social interactions they need to grow.

And I can tell you where I see this really creating a problem is when these kids join the workforce and are forced to interact with people face to face. Many of them lack basic skills. Everyone being a social subculture of one is not a good thing IMHO.

Um, I went to school in the early 90s. But if I’m really honest, the culture back then, and the late 80s stuff of my older friends, doesn’t seem all that romantic in retrospect. A lot of that stuff is sort of cringe inducing nowadays.

I don’t know if people are less socially adept now, but that has always an individual thing anyways that has more to do with peoples’ upbringing. I don’t think we can blame pop culture whether someone goes out on Saturday night or not. The wallflowers back then would probably just play games on their Amiga or watch reruns on TV instead.

[Argent_Towers]

I’m pretty confused at some of the definitions of hipster in this thread. Some people seem to be talking about hippies or “trustafarians”, or radical political types. msmith537 also sort of seems to be conflating hipsters with nerds or just generally awkward people, as do others.

I realize this is supposed to be a discussion about the hipsters of previous generations and not today, but they can’t have been that radically different.

When we say “hipster” today, this is what I think of: guys with a thin physique, wearing tight clothes, sometimes including one or more elements from a suit (pants, vest, jacket) but rarely an entire suit; tight, dark jeans, and colorful vintage-styled sport sneakers like Asics or Adidas. Vintage or vintage-style track jackets are also popular. They listen to indie rock like Grizzly Bear, but are usually more interested in the local music scene. They drink a lot of beer (PBR) and cheap whiskey, and smoke cigarettes, usually Camels or American Spirits. They often ride old-style road bikes. They tend to be apolitical.

These type of people are not hippies; they don’t really have anything in common with the hippies of the 1960s. They’re not interested in nature or folk music or spirituality. They’re not nerds. Most of them have only a passing interest in “pop science” and they’re not into science fiction. They certainly don’t read anyone like Robert Heinlein. Maybe Harlan Ellison or Kurt Vonnegut. They love Star Wars because it’s full of childhood nostalgia. They’re not the generic “uncool kids in high school” because plenty of them were cool in high school, though more likely to be soccer or track types than football or basketball players.

[msmith537]

@Argent_Towers

I’m pretty confused at some of the definitions of hipster in this thread. Some people seem to be talking about hippies or “trustafarians”, or radical political types. msmith537 also sort of seems to be conflating hipsters with nerds or just generally awkward people, as do others.

The hipster mentality can be summed up with this Venn diagram.

Part of the problem with this thread is you have people who all grew up in different time periods from different parts of the country with different cultures all trying to describe what the OP has defined as “pre Internet hipster / college dorm culture”. And the examples given by the OP - Spinal Tap, Blade Runner, Faces of Death, David Lynch, Bruce Lee movies, The Doors, Rush, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin - doesn’t sound particularly hip. Throw in D&D, comic books, Heavy Metal (magazine/film) and 80s anime as well and in fact those interests describe my next door neighbor and his friends when we were growing up. They were nice guys and liked well enough, but I would hardly call them “hip”.

Then there is the confusion between “hipsters” and the “cool kids” The “cool kids” are the traditionally popular kids. The good looking jocks and cheerleader types. Hipsters typically reject that sort of conformist culture, but are they social outcasts? It seems like it would be hard making friends by telling everyone the suck.

I never heard the term “hipster” applied in the 80s and 90s. It seems to be a recent term defining a fashion trend typical of Gen Y types who live in Brooklyn and Alphabet City, wear skinny ties and Fedoras, drink PBR, have an Asian girlfriend and think The Shins sold out. So I have to extrapolite “who would be the smart, creative kids who reject mainstream Middle American culture and what would they be doing in the 80s and 90s?”

[Argent_Towers]

I think you may be overstating the degree to which hipsters reject mainstream culture. I don’t think they just decide to dislike music because other people like it; I think they genuinely like the music they like.

[Frylock]

@msmith537

The hipster mentality can be summed up with this Venn diagram.

What is it with these joke “Venn Diagrams” lately? They’re done all wrong. The one you linked to, for example, says that all the music both of us like is music I used to like. That’s clearly not what the jokewriter intended, but it’s what his diagram says.

I’ve been seeing a lot of this lately. I need to find out who’s in charge of the phenomenon and write them a nasty letter.

[/ot]

[Frylock]

@msmith537

and think The Shins sold out.

As far as I can tell (which might not be very far) hipsters don’t believe there’s such a thing as “selling out” anymore.