what comes after the hipster?

by 2012 it was finally possible to call just about everyone a hipster. The development of the authenticity aesthetic made it possible for the mainstream to participate in the most outwardly visible ritual of hipster behavior: authentic consumption.

K-HOLE and Box1824 captured the new landscape in their breakthrough 2014 report “Youth Mode.” They described an era of “mass indie” where the search for meaning is premised on differentiation and uniqueness, and proposed a solution in “Normcore.” Humorously, nearly everyone mistook Normcore for being about bland fashion choices rather than the... See more

If you are reading this, you likely grew up in an era in which irony was the primary way of engaging with the world. Not only did it have to do with goods, but was (and continues to be) pervasive in interpersonal relations. Asserting one’s individuality and refusing group labels on principle is not unique to hipsters but can be seen in dozens of... See more

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

It makes sense that norms are shifting in this direction as Gen Z’s influence spreads. Raised on social media, with access to once illicit bad-taste touchstones like Rocky Horror just a click away, they’ve largely replaced IRL subcultures with a constellation of aesthetics—cottagecore, dark academia, Y2K—to be performed, then discarded or demoted... See more