Haddow is most interested in the superficial elements of  hipsters and his article is permeated with  a lexicon of  political concepts from 30 years ago.  Mainly, he is offended by the hipsters sense of fashion as living bricolage as they are either ignorant or indifferent to the social context from which they borrow:

“Punks wear their tattered threads and studded leather jackets with honor, priding themselves on their innovative and cheap methods of self-expression and rebellion. B-boys and b-girls announce themselves to anyone within earshot with baggy gear and boomboxes. But it is rare, if not impossible, to find an individual who will proclaim themself a proud hipster. It’s an odd dance of self-identity – adamantly denying your existence while wearing clearly defined symbols that proclaims it…The American Apparel V-neck shirt, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Parliament cigarettes are symbols and icons of working or revolutionary classes that have been appropriated by hipsterdom and drained of meaning. Ten years ago, a man wearing a plain V-neck tee and drinking a Pabst would never be accused of being a trend-follower. But in 2008, such things have become shameless clichés of a class of individuals that seek to escape their own wealth and privilege by immersing themselves in the aesthetic of the working class…”

Ah yes the Vee-neck: proud workmanly attire of the proletariat. Give me a break!  What do all the hipster items have in common? They are cheap and students/kids can afford them.

To his credit as a “fashion policeman,” the concern is not wholly without merit…How many times have you seen a Che shirt on someone here in Toronto? How many of the people wearing it know the life story of this revolutionary figure? (interestingly, a custom shirt place on Yonge advertises a Che shirt w/ the caption: “I don’t know who this is”)likewise, the appearance of the politically-charged keffiyeh has also been decried many times in the court of public opinion…

Of course when you are judging someone’s politics by their clothes it’s an easy/lazy call to make no? Pass me another Pabst, I feel like drinking my politics.

A Toronto Star article written by Sarah Barmak presciently noted that much of Haddow’s poo-pooing of hipsters was based in his inability to see the shift in political aesthetics in “youth culture,” and quite simply how out-of-touch he is…

“In the near-forgotten, pre-digital days before a mass SMS could ignite a flashmob, style warriors communicated subversive intent – or just membership in a subculture – with materials they had at the ready; the gritty semaphore of a plaid hanky in the back pocket, for example. If you saw someone in a Mohawk and Doc Martens, you had a good idea of her politics. Now, a hipster in a neon ’80s fanny pack could be conservative or ultraliberal. The subversive function has largely faded from style, leaving us with mere fashion. So instead of speaking with our clothes, we broadcast opinions and start micro-movements online.This has led us, perhaps wrongly, to conclude that kids are obsessed with the aesthetic.”

Youth have always been interested in fashion, music, and (with the invention of the polaroid) taking tons of inappropriate photos.

“Damn kids and your party music!”

Yet why is the label “hipster” so maligned?

Labels  exist as  an external judgement mandated by, and in relation to, the mainstream. A label effectively strips away a person’s originality and creativity and lumps all “like-minded” people into a homogenous mass. No news there right? Modern hipsters already have a sense of irony about them and accepting the hipster label really takes the piss: you are a joke.

Perhaps sensing hipsterdom’s unstoppable slide to the morass of the mainstream, BlogNGR tries to deflate the collective hipster ego by laying bare the limits of cynicism and the political inefficacy of “partying,” i.e. there’s something more than the “scene” and his name is Obama. Thus, hipsters can be simultaneously labelled and maintain a sense of individuality or purpose beyond the ascribed hedonism.

BlogNGR won’t change but you will.

Outsiders seem to mirror his points. Yet their attack is focused on hipster aesthetics which for some have come to represent the “end of Western Civilization”: hedonist, consumerist, and unorginal.

This is a perplexing argument.

As Western Civilization is firmly rooted in capitalism, which puts a market value on everything – scenes included, how is hipsterism any different than any other youth trend that has been co-opted, bought/sold on the market? Within capitalism we are told to express ourselves through brands and consummerism. It’s remarkably effective. You can buy an image and have a whole lifestyle/span of goods mapped out for your consumption. Our civilization has become fascinated with decadence and a lust for leisure and credit (if reality shows and trashy tabloids are any indication) so according to the values of our society hipsters are essentially living the shared dream albeit from an alt-urban perspective.

In it’s mainstream branding, hipsterdom thrives on the novelty of kitsch (one of the best definitions of kitsch I’ve ever heard is the denial of the existence of shit!). Mining and aping past trends, hipsters appear to burn through the fashions/sounds/images of the past to meet the ever-quickening pace demanded by novelty, i.e. lifestyle mags, blogs + pics mean that a “style” gets played out faster because more people can see it and copy it. Fuelled by the internet, trendiness has broken the natural speed limits of “seasons” in all scenes. A scene implies a look, a sound, an identity, and in this day and age – a brand.

If we took the view of marketing agencies, Adbusters, and mainstream media: all hipsters are merely consumers. In fact, quite a number of them are cultural producers and have their own blogs, bands, art, etc…The merits of which and their effects on society have yet to be debated.

A “scene,” on the other hand demands novelty lest it grow stale by virtue of it’s own ubiquity.

Novelty for the sake of the scene has always been distasteful among those who have a stake in a sub-culture and it has never been particularly helpful in creating or sustaining anything but the demands of capitalism. I’ve never liked the hipster aesthetic, but then again, according to the political aesthetics of yesteryear: I’m a prep. Hipsterdumb (the mainstream, cynical, poser aesthetic demanded by the marketing machine) is an unending parody of the past: a regurgitation of kitsch devoid of meaning aside from the individual’s cry for attention or acceptance. But there have always been fakers/wannabes/copycats/fashionistas/scenesters etc…

A question remains, is there any point to try to defend a unique or “authentic” hipster identity in the face of criticism from within and without?

Does the true hipster set out to destroy and re-make the images/ideas of the past or simply parade them around like dad’s old porn collection, sneering and joking about “how big the bush is” and “look at his sideburns!” En masse, I would be inclined to say the latter…but what does that say about me? True irony would imply knowledge of the past trend and its social context…an irony based on the aesthetic alone would be a parody. Is the average hipster literate, educated, reflective? Does it matter? Does authenticity really matter in a digital age? Tracing the thread of origin back to a discrete historical occurance is the stuff of religion and fantasy – and it’s so 20th Century. Nowadays everything is everything all the time.

The “revolutionary” aspect of hipsterdom, as I see it, is in the relatively rapid consumption and appropriation of cultural goods. Ignorant, indifferent, or deliberate, hipsters – for a time – challenged our relationship to media. A truly post-modern movement immersed in it’s own sense of (inter)subjectivity. The plugged-in, creative, and technically-inclined hipster has made use of our connectivity to advance his/her own creative pursuits. The wide-scale synthesis of fashions, sounds, and ideas have given rise to a new sense of global perspective. Now that it has attracted the attention of the mainstream, hipsterdom is of course flattened out to it’s most readily recognizable image: cynical and garishly clashing fashion.

Bricolage is perhaps the best legacy we can attribute to hipsterdom: cultural recyclying to meet the demands of today’s youth. Maybe BlogNGR is right…the mainstream has picked up on hipster communication and run with it. What do we really need hipsters for now?