we've been hearing this word "hipster" for quite some time now as a means to describe a certain type of person. fine, but moreover, we're seeing a glorified anti-hero being made out of this character. everywhere you go, it's "hipster this hipster that! he's a hipster she's a hipster! are you a hipster? where do the hipsters hang out in this town?" it's starting to get sickening, and i'll tell you why: never once have i heard someone describe themselves as a hipster, yet this word is everywhere in white youth culture. it's a word that seems to have been flailed upon people so we can have yet another way to categorize human beings into little clumps of subculture, as if we were forms of bacteria. i'm sure there are people who would wish to be called hipsters, but they're too cowardly to ever step out of their slimy hides and actually call themselves hipsters out loud. cause that would be be so unhip, wouldn't it?
the word hip comes from "hepi", a word in an african langauge, (i read this in an article once, i forget from where. russel smith in the globe, maybe. he's into that whole thing.) and was brought to america by slaves so they could have a word that described something that was theirs and not anyone else's. somehow, the white people got a hold of this word and it evolved from "hepi" to "hep" to "hip". who the fuck really knows what it means, but it's on the same wavelength as the word "cool". we don't know exactly what it is, and we don't know how to describe it and its definition changes day to day. so in such an instance, we take all kinds of liberties with this concept, and next thing we know, beat poets and journalists write their definitions of the hipster identity in the 1950s like it was some crisis of identity that needed to be solved at once. let's see what they have to say:
"a hipster is anyone who can stand on any street corner in the world and successfully find some reefer by simply asking strangers." jack kerouac (paraphrased from a book i once read)
"like children, hipsters are fighting for the sweet, and their language is a set of subtle indications of their success or failure in the competition for pleasure. unstated but obvious is the social sense that there is not nearly enough sweet for everyone. and so the sweet goes only to the victor, the best, the most, the man who knows the most about how to find his energy and how not to lose it." norman mailer,
"the white negro: superficial reflections on hipsters", 1957
i'll agree that there are people who exhibit these qualities, and good for them, but i wish i could find one. i personally have never seen a torontonian male with emo glasses and pinstriped pants score dope in nepal, nor have i ever seen a girl with a cabby hat and a 1950's professor jacket do the same. but i do agree that there are certain people who we assume have these qualities and abilities because of their ironic clothing, outrageous hair and oh-so-up-to-the-minute knowledge of the latest trends in fashion and music. i do agree that these people "fight for the sweet" but as a result, they have no more of an idea as to who they are than anyone else in this world. in my opinion, they're most likely lost in this sham of an identity and suffer from serious delusions about who they are and how they and others of similar ilk are supposed to act. if you ask me, they're stuck living in a territory of stereotypes, albeit a strange one with all kinds of complexities and ironies in it, but one that has very little to offer but pleasure and leisure to the bored young urban socialite. as a result, they forget what they set out to do in the first place - find the right energy to express themselves as individuals with original tastes and concerns - and tie themselves into the knot of delusion that goes along with self-aggrandizing faux hipsterdom.
with regards to what kerouac says, nothing could be further from the truth. a hipster is not someone who can score dope anywhere anytime. a hipster isn't even a person. a hipster doesn't exist, beacuse a hipster and hipness altogether are constructs of our social intermingling which only exposes our inability to see cultural movements as they are: amorphous and ever evolving, yet inextricably linked to history and politics.
