# Is it just me, or is there a big trend of "hipster love" movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 12, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210 "2009-08-12T19:47:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Crawlspace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Crawlspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crawlspace)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/41 "2009-08-13T20:36:32Z")
> [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > Kill him! Kill the hipster! [Why The Hipster Must Die.](http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/features/4840/why-the-hipster-must-die) The article has one of the best definitions of hipster I’ve seen: > [@](#): > > Under the guise of “irony,” hipsterism fetishizes the authentic and regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity. Those 18-to-34-year-olds called hipsters have defanged, skinned and consumed the fringe movements of the postwar era—Beat, hippie, punk, even grunge. Hungry for more, and sick with the anxiety of influence, they feed as well from the trough of the uncool, turning white trash chic, and gouging the husks of long-expired subcultures—vaudeville, burlesque, cowboys and pirates. > > Of course, hipsterism being originally, and still mostly, the province of whites (the pastiest of whites), its acolytes raid the cultural stores of every unmelted ethnicity in the pot. Similarly, they devour gay style: Witness the cultural burp known as metrosexuality. As the hipster ambles from the thrift store to a $100 haircut at Freemans Sporting Club, these aesthetics are assimilated—cannibalized—into a repertoire of meaninglessness, from which the hipster can construct an identity in the manner of a collage, or a shuffled playlist on an iPod. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/42 "2009-08-13T21:55:54Z")
How could you forget [Megchester, NY](http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail203.html)? ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/43 "2009-08-13T22:17:27Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > God I absolutely loathed when looking nerdy became hip. It’s an absolute and complete rejection of beauty. I don’t have a problem with being nerdy, but damn, it’s not supposed to be fucking hip. The trend of nerdiness being hip has lead to some of the ugliest styles, ugliest music, and ugliest art that has ever been conceived. > > God I pine for a Romantic resurgence, though the SDMB would probably loathe such a thing. There seems to be a visceral hatred for magical primitivism. But the Romantic era produced the best music, and the best art. Modernism has destroyed the soul, and now art is soulless, form without meaning and meaning without form. > > There is nothing along the lines of Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd these days. It’s all this cynical tragically hip self-referential ironic bullshit. > > God I fucking hate hipsters. 😛 Nerd chic != hipster. “Romantic resurgence” is actually a pretty good description of a lot of modern hipsterwear - see, as a primary example, the aforementioned Zooey Deschanel, probably the most hipster-y of female celebrities (hell, she even has an indie pop band). ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/44 "2009-08-13T22:49:54Z")
> [@Crawlspace](#): > > [Why The Hipster Must Die.](http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/features/4840/why-the-hipster-must-die) Man, reading that article leaves me wanting to shout “Everybody, just fucking shut up already. Jesus Christ, why do you give such a shit?..” and so forth till everyone just fucking shuts up already. “Your aesthetic preferences are in conflict with my aesthetic preferences! What you consider cool is disappointingly not the same as what I consider cool! Wah…”. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/45 "2009-08-13T22:58:24Z")
> [@myskepticsight](#): > > Just one example of what hipsters may look like: > [http://www.no2emo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/hipster2.jpg](http://www.no2emo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/hipster2.jpg) Oh, so hipster == douchebag now. Good to know. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/46 "2009-08-13T23:47:48Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Man, reading that article leaves me wanting to shout “Everybody, just fucking shut up already. Jesus Christ, why do you give such a shit?..” and so forth till everyone just fucking shuts up already. > > “Your aesthetic preferences are in conflict with my aesthetic preferences! What you consider cool is disappointingly not the same as what I consider cool! Wah…”. That’s not really the message I get from the article. True, there’s far too much of a supercilious hipster tone to the writing itself, but I think the writer makes some fair points. I’m too old to be a hipster, though we listen to some of the same music, but when I was in the target age, which was in the '80s, what would be considered “hipsters” was a totally different beast. I really do think it’s much more of a pose these days, because there’s really nothing at stake, and a distinct lack of passion (from my vantage point, anyway; I live in Oakland and work at a publishing company in San Francisco where 85% of the staff is in its mid-20s to early 30s, if that’s any kind of qualification). Part of that, I think, is the nature of culture - it’s so easy to latch onto fashions/bands/trends with the internet, any kind of “youth movement” is going to come out pretty homogenized. Back when I was a whippersnapper, it took real effort and dedication to find the “alternative” stuff - you pretty much had to live it; how many hipsters today get their asses kicked regularly for the way they dress? The “indie” kids back then were more making it up on their own, since there were no real markers for them in the larger culture, whereas now it seems to me it’s just following rules - in short, as I said, a pose. I don’t necessarily think that makes today’s hipsters stupid - they’re working with what they’ve got. But the desperation in the “movement” is either much more pronounced now, or I was just blind to it when I was that age. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/47 "2009-08-13T23:59:44Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Man, reading that article leaves me wanting to shout “Everybody, just fucking shut up already. Jesus Christ, why do you give such a shit?..” and so forth till everyone just fucking shuts up already. > > “Your aesthetic preferences are in conflict with my aesthetic preferences! What you consider cool is disappointingly not the same as what I consider cool! Wah…”. MODERATOR INQUIRY: I haven’t read the whole thread, I’m time pressed, but this strikes me pretty much as thread-shitting, n’est-ce pas? Coming to a thread to announce that the topic is meaningless (to you) is pretty much the definition of thread-shitting? I’m not issuing a warning at this point, but I am issuing a friendly (and pretty firm) comment that such comments are not appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/48 "2009-08-14T00:02:50Z")
Sorry. Though, to clarify, that wasn’t aimed at the thread topic (“Is there a trend of ‘hipster love’ movies?”, or even the ensuing discussion about what hipsters are), but solely at the linked article (“Why the hipster must die: A modest proposal to save New York cool”). Still, you’re right; it was an ill-advised post. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/49 "2009-08-14T00:24:06Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Man, reading that article leaves me wanting to shout “Everybody, just fucking shut up already. Jesus Christ, why do you give such a shit?..” and so forth till everyone just fucking shuts up already. > > “Your aesthetic preferences are in conflict with my aesthetic preferences! What you consider cool is disappointingly not the same as what I consider cool! Wah…”. Naw, fuck that. Cool is a state of mind. Seriously. I am not even kidding. Cool is a vibe that comes off a person. Some so-called hipsters are the coolest things since Shaft. They got cool in the bag, and you can tell by their walk, talk and even their stand that they have interesting ideas, adventurous spirits and bold stances on life. Just cool as ice. Then you have a bunch of cornballs, trying too hard to bite the style of the real cool cats, and folks are gonna laugh at them. They are. I am pretty certain that folks that criticize hipsters are laughing at them, more than wah-ing over them. That said, I kind of dig em. I lot of them I can totally see real cool in. I mean, take the saggy jean thing that was popular in my youth. The babies aren’t doing it like that anymore. On the streets of Harlem, they are wearing their jeans much more fitted, and those young bloods are looking good in them. But when I see some of these kids in upstate NY walking around in skinny jeans so tight that they can’t breath, _and trying to sag them_. Hahaaaa!!! That is funny. And the cool kids are laughing at the cornballs. The real cool cats are careful not to laugh in their faces, though. That’s not cool. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/50 "2009-08-14T00:29:14Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > Nah, when this came out it was seen as Hollywood cashing in on the grunge-hipster scene at the time. Recognized as such, it was immediately decried as the faux-hipster tripe it was by us genuine grunge hipsters, who were quick to point out and laugh at all of the stylistic flaws, while simultaneously rationalizing Pearl Jam’s support cameos as being a clever sly wink from the band to the fans that they were playfully mocking the absurdity of it all. The logic being that Pearl Jam paradoxically has an anti-legitimacy presence about them–so the more they seem “sell out”, the more they are actually beating the man at their own game 😉 > > A good hipster benefit that resulted was that we could now wear our torn jeans and flannel shirts _ironically_ while sneering at the rest of the country as poseurs. > > There is nothing a hipster loves more than a good sneer. I’m not going to try to defend Cameron Crowe’s honor here or anything, but… **Singles** was made and released at the beginning of the grunge fad. The look and ethos had not yet been codified. **Singles** wasn’t so much a movie about Seattle grunge as a rather conventional love story set against whatever was new and happening at the moment. My main cavil with it was that I lived in Seattle in the early 90s and none of the recent college grads I knew there had anything like the disposable income that every one of these characters apparently had. And Pearl Jam portrayed Citizen Dick for the exact same reason that [The Oneders](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117887/) portrayed Cap’n Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters. They were at the very early stage of their fame and hadn’t yet figured out that this might make them look goofy. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/51 "2009-08-14T00:38:05Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > The “indie” kids back then were more making it up on their own, since there were no real markers for them in the larger culture, whereas now it seems to me it’s just following rules - in short, as I said, a pose. I don’t necessarily think that makes today’s hipsters stupid - they’re working with what they’ve got. But the desperation in the “movement” is either much more pronounced now, or I was just blind to it when I was that age. Making it up on their own? Most adherents of a subculture are just following rules as they _always_ have. Individuality through conformity in music/fashion et al. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/52 "2009-08-14T03:51:49Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Making it up on their own? Most adherents of a subculture are just following rules as they _always_ have. Individuality through conformity in music/fashion et al. That’s true when a subculture’s fashions and rituals become codified and are absorbed by the dominant culture, which happens these days as fast as marketers can identify and exploit them. But during the period I’m talking about, while there were certainly poseurs and some narrow-mindedness (I gave up going to hardcore shows after about 6 months because of the almost fascistic rules on what was “acceptable” behavior/dress/etc.), the members of the subculture (that I was in contact with, at any rate) _were_ making it up themselves, and barely had anything in common, fashion-wise or as far as a particular dominant style of music. There were kids dressed like preppies, kids with mohawks and colored hair, longhiar stoner types, nerds - who all shared records and zines with each other as a way of discovering what was going on. A typical “underground” fan would have records by The Feelies, Yaz, The Butthole Surfers, The English Beat, The Meat Puppets, Scritti Politti, The Beat Farmers, The Teardrop Explodes, R.E.M. and a billion other acts whose only common link was that they weren’t played on mainstream radio or MTV. Really, there was no sense of any kind of movement or belonging to a scene, because it was a million different people all across the country fumbling to figure it all out (though a crude network was put in place for trading info among people you’d meet at shows). I realize this is all anecdotal, but it was vastly different, IMO, than the state of affairs today. The conformity you’re talking about wasn’t much in evidence, because it was all too fragmented for there to be any clear overriding ideology or style to conform _to_. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/53 "2009-08-14T03:59:10Z")
Yeah, yeah, “the kids in my day were _authentic_, the kids now are just posers”. Meh. I think it’s all so much "Get off my lawn"ism. **An Gadai** is right: kids, and people in general, have always largely followed their peers, though the specific trends have varied; that’s how fashion and culture work. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/54 "2009-08-14T04:14:33Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Yeah, yeah, “the kids in my day were _authentic_, the kids now are just posers”. Meh. I think it’s all so much "Get off my lawn"ism. **An Gadai** is right: kids, and people in general, have always basically followed their peers; that’s how fashion and culture work. That’s definitely how _fashion_ works, but culture is more than just fashion (or at least, it used to be), and I’m talking about the difference in ideology/praxis between then and now. Even merely on a fashion level, though, it’s a hell of a lot easier to wear skinny jeans and a geometric haircut when there are dozens if not hundreds of others doing the _exact same thing_ all around you than it is to be the only leather-jacket-wearing mohawked kid in your entire school. I believe I (and the linked article) made valid points, with concrete examples of the differences between then and now, which you’re dismissing too patly as old fogey-ism. The Baby Boomers used to make claims for how different the culture was in the '60s, too, when I was a teen, and you know what? They were right. Society’s bound to be dramatically different every generation, and so are its hipsters. I personally enjoy living now more than at any other period in my life, but I’m glad I got to experience my hipster days when I did. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/55 "2009-08-14T04:42:19Z")
Yeah, plus it’s the kids their own age dissing the hipsters. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/56 "2009-08-14T20:12:58Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > MODERATOR INQUIRY: I haven’t read the whole thread, I’m time pressed, but this strikes me pretty much as thread-shitting, n’est-ce pas? Coming to a thread to announce that the topic is meaningless (to you) is pretty much the definition of thread-shitting? > > I’m not issuing a warning at this point, but I am issuing a friendly (and pretty firm) comment that such comments are not appreciated. Is it really thread shitting to decry the act of other posters decrying something? If so, your post is actually much more thread shitty than the one you are commenting on (I realize the irony of my statement). The discussion went from ‘why so many hipster movies’ to ‘what the hell is a hipster anyway’ to ‘hipsters must die’ to the comment you read which was basically ‘this is all a big non issue and hipster haters are full of sound and fury signifying nothing at best and hypocrites at worst’. For the record, his comment _was_ very much appreciated, and yes you _should_ have read the whole thread first. As far as the OP, there will always be movies with trendy youths. All that changes is what the trends are. And there’s always a dichotomy between MTV type movies where the trends are sheepishly followed by unintelligent characters, and indy type films where the characters have some kind of personality or intelligence or self awareness. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210/57 "2009-08-14T20:30:26Z")
> [@Tanbarkie](#): > > Nerd chic != hipster. Nerd chic is so totally hipster, it’s so what all the indie bands have been wearing for years. > [@](#): > > “Romantic resurgence” is actually a pretty good description of a lot of modern hipsterwear - see, as a primary example, the aforementioned Zooey Deschanel, probably the most hipster-y of female celebrities (hell, she even has an indie pop band). Heh, not so sure about that myself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-me-or-is-there-a-big-trend-of-hipster-love-movies/506210.md?page=2)