06 March 2017

Understanding hipsters - scholarly and otherwise

Are "hipsters" on their way out, or have they become so normalized in our popular culture that we don't really notice them anymore? (And, if the latter, is that ironic?)

In any case, social scientists still have some interesting things to say about hipsterdom.

If you never quite figured out who or what hipsters were, you might want to start with this cheeky and informative video (4.40 minutes of the 5.53 minute video) from PBS: Are You A Hipster? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios (2013). The main argument reflects on the interconnections between subculture authenticity, cultural capital (in subculture objects and affects), and cultural appropriation.

From there, you might want to check out some commentary on "The sociology of ‘hipsters’" by Mark Carrigan on hipsters as an youth subcultural movement.

Or, perhaps a little more intriguing is this Savage Minds series from Alex Posecznick questioning and working through the possibility of "Anthropologists as Scholarly Hipsters" (2014):
Across the five-part series, Posecznick addresses the hipster as a conceptual category that's productive for thinking about the discipline (practice, style, public reception) of anthropology today.