what comes after the hipster?

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 t... See more

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

The 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

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.

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

Clearly the cultural pressure to achieve a unique self is old, strong, and not unique to hipsters, so why did the authenticity drive spin out of control after CE 2000? One possible reason is that the hundreds of studies on authenticity in tourism and subcultures have also been read and in many cases sponsored by business thinkers who directly influ... 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 ot... See more

In the post-hipster era, you listened to what Spotify told you to listen to. If you read a book, it was because the precise pattern of blobby pastel-coloured shapes on its cover contained coded instructions to TikTok’s algorithm that sent it zooming to the top of your feed. Your tastes and preferences were decided for you by vast crystalline machin... See more