The 21st-century hipster is a subculture (sometimes called hipsterism) typically associated with urban millennials. The subculture is characterized by alternative fashion, lifestyle, and music. Hipster values are defined by claims to authenticity and uniqueness, but tend to lack authenticity and conform to a collective style. The subculture embodies a particular ethic of consumption that seeks to commodify the idea of rebellion or counterculture.: "As a result, a picture of hipster culture emerges as a translocal and layered phenomenon with contextually specific claims to authenticity." ..."What is absolutely crucial – and global – in defining a hipster is the claim to authenticity, uniqueness and individuality" ... "distinction and claims to authenticity (and not being 'like everybody else') lie at the core of the hipster culture." ..."with an enormous emphasis on style, fashion and a particular ethic of consumption" Members of the subculture typically do not self-identify as hipsters, and the word hipster is often used as a pejorative for someone who is pretentious or overly concerned with appearing trendy. Thorne, Tony, 2014, Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, sv. "Hipster", p. 217.
The subculture is often associated with indie and alternative music. In the United States and Canada, it is mostly associated with perceived upper-middle-class white young adults who gentrify urban areas.
The term hipster in its present usage first appeared in the 1990s and became widely used in the late 2000s and early 2010s, being derived from the earlier hipster movements of the 1940s. Hipster culture became a "global phenomenon" during the early-mid 2010s, before declining from the mainstream by 20162017.
History
Mark Greif dates the initial phase of the revival of the term hipster to refer to this subculture from 1999 to 2003. In early 2000, both The New York Times and Time Out New York (TONY) ran profiles of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, referring to "bohemians" and "arty East Village types", respectively. By 2003, when The Hipster Handbook was published by Williamsburg resident Robert Lanham, the term hipster (originally referring to the 1940s subculture) had come into widespread use in relation to Williamsburg and similar neighborhoods. The Hipster Handbook described hipsters as young people with "mop-top haircuts, swinging retro pocketbooks, talking on cell phones, smoking European cigarettes... strutting in platform shoes with a biography of Che Guevara sticking out of their bags."Robert Lanham, The Hipster Handbook (2003), p. 1. Lanham further describes hipsters: "You graduated from a liberal arts school whose football team hasn't won a game since the Reagan administration[,]" and "you have one Republican friend who you always describe as being your 'one Republican friend.
While hipsters usually come from affluent white families, they can come from a multitude of backgrounds. A running theme of hipsters, according to Greif, is having parents who are supporters of former President Ronald Reagan.
A similar phenomenon occurred in the United Kingdom, with young, comparatively affluent workers in the media and digital industries moving into traditionally working class areas of London such as Hoxton, Spitalfields, and, particularly, Shoreditch with the subsequent gentrification of these areas. The subculture was parodied in the magazine Shoreditch Twat (1999) and the television sitcom Nathan Barley (2005). The series led to the term Nathan Barleys being used pejoratively in London for the subculture it parodied.
In 2008, the Utne Reader writer Jake Mohan described "hipster rap" as "consisting of the most recent crop of MCs and DJs who flout conventional hip-hop fashions, eschewing baggy clothes and gold chains for tight jeans, big sunglasses, the occasional keffiyeh, and other trappings of the hipster lifestyle." He notes that the "old-school hip-hop website Unkut, and Jersey City rapper Mazzi" have criticized mainstream rappers whom they deem to be posers "for copping the metrosexual appearances of hipster fashion." Prefix Mag writer Ethan Stanislawski argues that there are racial elements to the rise of hipster rap. He claims that there "have been a slew of angry retorts to the rise of hipster rap," which he says can be summed up as "white kids want the funky otherness of hip-hop...without all the scary black people."
A 2009 Time magazine article described hipsters as follows: "take your grandmother's sweater and Bob Dylan's Wayfarers, add jean shorts, Converse All-Stars and a can of Pabst and bam — hipster."
Slate writer Brandon Stosuy noted that "Heavy metal has recently conquered a new frontier, making an unexpected crossover into the realm of hipsterdom." He argues that the "current revival seems to be a natural mutation from the hipster fascination with post-punk, noise, and no wave," which allowed even the "nerdiest indie kids to dip their toes into jagged, autistic sounds." He argues that a "byproduct" of this development was an "investigation of a musical culture that many had previously feared or fetishized from afar."
In his 2011 book HipsterMattic, author Matt Granfield described hipster culture:
Fashion
Stereotypical fashion elements include vintage clothes, alternative fashion, or a mixture of different fashions, often including skinny jeans, checked shirts, knit beanies, a full beard or deliberately attention-grabbing moustache, and thick-rimmed or lensless glasses.: "There are also certain elements – vintage clothes, skinny jeans, an ironic moustache and big glasses – that seem to make one a hipster instantly"; "skinny jeans, the beanie hat and big glasses"
Fixed-gear bicycles are associated with the hipster subculture. Slate calls the bikes an "increasingly common hipster accessory." An association of hipsters with an increasing popularity of full beards dates from before 2010. In 2016, historian Alun Withey remarked that "The hipster beard, or lumberjack beard, is going to be the defining facial hair of this generation." The undercut hairstyle also became popular among hipsters in the 2010s. Other hipster trends in the 2010s have included knitting, photography, horticulture, urban beekeeping, specialty coffee, craft beer, taxidermy, fedoras, and printing and bookbinding classes.
By region
In 2017, the British logistics and marketing firm MoveHub published a "Hipster Index" for the United States. This first study drew from five data points: microbreweries, thrift stores, vegan restaurants and tattoo parlors, and they compounded this data with cities' rent inflation in the previous year. In the following year, MoveHub came out with a similar study, this time measuring the most Hipster cities in the world. The metrics were slightly different for this study: they measured vegan eateries, coffee shops, tattoo studios, vintage boutiques, and record stores. For the global study, they also limited their search to larger cities, with populations above 150,000 residents. For this reason, many American cities which ranked highly on the U.S. study in 2017 were not eligible for the 2018 study. iHeartRadio, a media and entertainment company, then took MoveHubs 2018 study, and narrowed it down to the Canadian cities. All three of these tables are referenced in the following sections about regions which have large hipster cultures. Top of the world list is the city of Brighton in the UK, whose MP Caroline Lucas was the sole Green Party MP voted into the British Parliament in the 2010, 2015 and 2017 general elections.
Top cities list United States cities (2017)Global cities (2018)Canadian cities (2018)1VancouverWashington1Brighton and HoveUnited Kingdom1MontrealQuebec2Salt Lake CityUtah2PortlandOregon, U.S.2KelownaBritish Columbia3CincinnatiOhio3Salt Lake CityUtah, U.S.3St. CatharinesOntario4BoiseIdaho4SeattleWashington, U.S.4VancouverBritish Columbia5RichmondVirginia5LisbonPortugal5ReginaSaskatchewan6TacomaWashington6Fort LauderdaleFlorida, U.S.6HalifaxNova Scotia7SpokaneWashington7MiamiFlorida, U.S.7WindsorOntario8AtlantaGeorgia8OrlandoFlorida, U.S.8OshawaOntario9Grand RapidsMichigan9HelsinkiFinland9CalgaryAlberta10RochesterNew York10SpokaneWashington, U.S.10LondonOntario11OrlandoFlorida11TampaFlorida, U.S.11BarrieOntario12PortlandOregon12EugeneOregon, U.S.12KingstonOntario13KnoxvilleTennessee13MinneapolisMinnesota, U.S.13KitchenerOntario14TucsonArizona14AtlantaGeorgia, U.S.14WinnipegManitoba15Santa RosaCalifornia15San FranciscoCalifornia, U.S.15SaskatoonSaskatchewan16BirminghamAlabama16RochesterNew York, U.S.16SaguenayQuebec17TampaFlorida17BordeauxFrance17OttawaOntario18RenoNevada18PittsburghPennsylvania, U.S.18EdsonAlberta19AlbuquerqueNew Mexico19Las VegasNevada, U.S.19HamiltonOntario20SeattleWashington20RichmondVirginia, U.S.20Trois-RivièresQuebec
Pacific Northwest In the above global index put out by MoveHub, three of the ten most hipster-centric cities around the world were listed as being in either Oregon or Washington state: Portland, Seattle, and Spokane. Of the top 20 hipster cities in the U.S., six of them were in the Pacific Northwest. This includes, in order: Vancouver, Washington; Boise, Idaho; Tacoma, Washington; Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle, Washington.
While Canada as a whole is often known for their liberal philosophy and openness towards alternative living, some of the listed hipster cities in Canada are in the Canadian province of British Columbia, which is just north of Washington state, and this included three of the five top-ranking cities—Victoria, Kelowna, and Vancouver.
Southwestern U.S. Young adults (Millennials) are increasingly influencing culture in a number of cities throughout the Southwest and Rocky Mountain region. These cities are gaining a distinctive artsy, alternative atmosphere which is strongly associated with the term "hipster", forming havens for alternative, liberal lifestyles and politics in the midst of regions which normally have a strong association with the GOP and very traditional, conservative values.
One of these cities is Austin, Texas, well known as the home of the South by Southwest Music Festival. Texas is well known for its loyalty to the Republican party, but Austin is one of the few locales in Texas that reliably vote Democratic. There are also several organic foods and cosmetics companies based out of the city. The neighborhood of East Austin is an especially popular neighborhood for hipster-types to live in.
Another example of a liberal enclave in a conservative state is Salt Lake City, Utah. In the 2016 Presidential Election, a majority of voters chose Democrat Hillary Clinton in only two Utah counties, both located right around Salt Lake City. On the aforementioned MoveHub list of the 20 most hipster cities in America, Salt Lake City placed No. 2 in the whole nation. In a state known for its Mormon faith, Salt Lake City has become a favorite residence of LGBT people, and has sprouted an impressive host of microbreweries. The city also has many vegan stores and hiking trails.
Other locales in the Southwest region which made MoveHub's list of the 20 Most Hipster Cities include Tucson, Arizona; Santa Rosa, California; Reno, Nevada; and Albuquerque, New Mexico. New York City As hipsters—"young creatives" priced out of Bohemian urban neighborhoods in Brooklyn such as Williamsburg, Park Slope, and Greenpoint—moved into suburbs near New York City, The New York Times coined the neologism "Hipsturbia" to describe the hip lifestyle as lived in suburbia. Hastings-on-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, and Tarrytown, all in nearby Westchester County, were cited.