Time Out NY Calls For Death To Hipsters
How timely! Does this mean hipster backlash has officially begun? Oh wait, we thought that happened like SIX YEARS AGO on this site. Then again when FREEwilliamsburg founder, Robert Lanham, released his mock anthropological “study” of hipsters, The Hipster Handbook in 2003. The article’s authors asked us to respond to the following question: Whether or not you would identify yourself as such, you are considered a hipster-friendly blog, and we’d like to offer you the chance to respond to our charges. Should hipster culture be defended? If so, will you defend it? Here’s what we said:
“Isn’t hipsterdom dying on its own in New York City? Last time we went to the Lower East Side, it was overrun by smart-casual Coldplay fans wearing jeans and blazers and buying eight dollar Amstel Lights for their anchorwomen-wannabe girlfriends. Or maybe looking like a Hedge-Funder from Connecticut is what passes for hip now in New York.
You ask, ‘Should hipster culture be defended?’ My book The Hipster Handbook was an attempt to call bullshit on this fauxhemian movement nearly five years ago. In the satirical book I claimed that ‘hipsters understand that cultural trends become fin the moment they hit the mainstream.’ The hipster thing hit the mainstream years ago, so by my own definition it hasn’t been cool for a while now.
And let’s be honest, hipsters are getting harder to defend now that they’re all sporting beards. Williamsburg is beginning to look like a tailgate party at a jam band concert.”
–Robert Lanham
Robert – you can’t have it both ways. This whole blog is shallow, I don’t know why I bother to read it.
so timeout new york is now the home of depth, progressive art, and activism for the city, what with there first issue that didn’t refer to horniness or whining about being single in a year… I’m glad they still think a critique of pastiche is a new idea though, brilliant insights, you read one Jameson article for research? how bout death to the last place the whole idea of the hipster remains, those who use the word as an overly broad and dismissive category for anyone who got bored with wilco when they graduated
I do – for the Movie Preview, which is always great.
the only thing worse than being a hipster is being a hipster who talks shit on other hipsters.
Why did we ever allow some pompous, conceited, preppy “follower brains” define the whole idea of using your time to pursue the arts and culture as despicable? Maybe Williamsburg isn’t exactly Paris, but eat shit if you don’t like sharing self expression. “Hipster” is just another way for these people to redirect their frustrations about being such up tight butt-wads.
but Time Out New York IS for hipsers.
Frank Calls For Death To People Who Care Way Too Much About How People Dress and What Kind of Facial Hair They Have.
how bout death to the last place the whole idea of the hipster remains, those who use the word as an overly broad and dismissive category for anyone who got bored with wilco when they graduated