what comes after the hipster?
tracking the death of the hyper-individualised, early-adopter, cool-hunter ‘hipster’ archetype and pondering what comes next.
what comes after the hipster?
The homogeneity contrasted with the overall hipster philosophy of the 2010s, namely, that by consuming certain products and cultural artefacts you could proclaim your own uniqueness apart from the mainstream crowd – in this case a particular coffee shop rather than an obscure band or clothing brand. “The irony of it all is that these spaces are sup... See more
Kyle Chayka • The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same
The aggressive cynicism of hipster responses to popularity reveal how deeply the hipster identity was situated within the authenticity paradigm. Hipsters clearly experienced a loss of value whenever something they liked entered the realm of mainstream pop culture.
From after authenticity by subpixel.space
The ‘90s version of not selling out meant refusing to play certain spaces or not letting your song be in a beer commercial. The ‘20s version of selling out means making things in limited quantities to play against mass culture. Though different, the responses come from a similar place. They’re both sensing a culture where, to quote Claire L. Evans ... See more
Sell out without selling out
Yes, this is 2024, where life increasingly feels like a huge in-joke that started on the internet. Once upon a time we had subcultures: punks and goths, hippies and emos. Now we have Gen Z’s perceptive trendspotters pinpointing a style or a mood that is sweeping the zeitgeist, coining a label for it — often with the suffix “-core” — and sharing it ... See more
Phoebe Luckhurst • From brat summer to hot rodent men: why Gen Z love a label
Teen Subcultures Are Fading. Pity the Poor Kids.
https://www.nytimes.com/by/mireille-silcoffnytimes.comThe hipster was an information-sorting algorithm: its job was to always have good taste . The hipster listened to bands you’d never heard of. The hipster drank beers brewed by Paraguayan Jesuits in the 1750s. The hipster thought Tarkovsky was for posers, and the only truly great late-Soviet filmmaker was Ali Khamraev. The hipster bought all his toi... See more
Sam Kriss • All the Nerds Are Dead - By Sam Kriss - Numb at the Lodge
This dialectic is muddy from the get-go, of course. It’s a version of the more familiar hipster trap: over time, the marginal labor of the bohemian experimentalist and taste-maker is swallowed up by the smug cartoon of the in-the-know consumer clone. But the near inevitability of this process also suggests that the first hipster was already part of... See more
Erik Davis • The Weird and the Banal
When we’re feeling lonelier than ever, trapped within our cages of niche identities and alternative tastes, it’s refreshing to fall in line with the crowd. As we melt into one big, gooey puddle of shared interests, jobs, and outfits, there’s camaraderie in liking what everyone else likes.