Tragically Hip

August 2008
Tragically Hip
I Knew "Hipster" Was a Bad Word When...
S. Appel

... I was walking through Williamsburg (Brooklyn) with a posse of friends one night and some douchebag yells out the window "Fucking hipsters!"

It's kind of a shame, really, as I quite like the word. It used to have such cool connotations, like in that old blues song "The Train Kept A-Rollin'":

I caught the train, I met a dame,
She was a hipster, well and a real cool dame
And she was pretty, from New York City
And we shuffled down that old fair lane
With a heave, and a ho...well I just couldn't let her go

Now, it's just mass-marketed faux-starving artist coolness served up by the likes of Urban Outfitters and American Apparel. Fashionably unkempt hair? Check! Shoestring headband? Check! Oversized glasses? Check! Nylon Mag subscription? Check! Just like skaters, hippies, goths, and emo kids before, hipster has become more about a brand of fashion than an actual lifestyle involving a creative mind and progressive forms of music, style, and art. And with this exploitation of yet another subculture comes a backlash and now anyone even using the word "hipster" in its original context seems terribly out-of-touch.

Nevertheless, I do love that Mastercard commercial, the one with the guy sporting the strategically messed up bed head, skinny jeans, & ironic t-shirt. He goes to the club and lines up behind 5 guys who look exactly like him. Kind of sums it all it in about 20 seconds :)

<<< My Back Pages My Back Pages>>>

facebook | twitter