Post by Jim Beatdown on Jul 24, 2024 8:05:54 GMT -5
"Hipster" is term that's hard to define. Cambridge dictionary defines it as "someone who is aware of and influenced by the most recent ideas and fashions". However, Wikipedia acknowledges "Members of the subculture typically do not self-identify as hipsters, and the word hipster is often used as a pejorative for someone who is pretentious or overly concerned with appearing trendy"
Like justice Potter Stewart said when asked to describe obscenity in 1964, "I know it when I see it." What makes a hipster is a little hard to put your finger on, but I think we all have a conception of what one is and is not.
Would you consider Jeff Sokol to be a hipster?
More from Wikipedia:
1. The subculture is often associated with indie and alternative music. In the United States and Canada, it is mostly associated with perceived upper-middle-class white young adults who gentrify urban areas.
2. "Hipsters are the friends who sneer when you cop to liking Coldplay. They're the people who wear t-shirts silk-screened with quotes from movies you've never heard of and the only ones in America who still think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good beer. They sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses. Everything about them is exactingly constructed to give off the vibe that they just don't care."
Like justice Potter Stewart said when asked to describe obscenity in 1964, "I know it when I see it." What makes a hipster is a little hard to put your finger on, but I think we all have a conception of what one is and is not.
Would you consider Jeff Sokol to be a hipster?
More from Wikipedia:
1. The subculture is often associated with indie and alternative music. In the United States and Canada, it is mostly associated with perceived upper-middle-class white young adults who gentrify urban areas.
- Sokol plays guitar and I think the genre of his music generally fits here
- Sokol is American, upper middle class, white
- He lived in a fashionable, gentrified area of Boston
2. "Hipsters are the friends who sneer when you cop to liking Coldplay. They're the people who wear t-shirts silk-screened with quotes from movies you've never heard of and the only ones in America who still think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good beer. They sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses. Everything about them is exactingly constructed to give off the vibe that they just don't care."
- Sokol seems like a music snob. But Coldplay legitimately sucks; you deserve to be sneered at if you like them.
- Sokol wore a lumberjack flannel that was at least a size too small for him, and his faux-hawk and freshly trimmed beard seem designed to give of the vibe of not caring when some real thought was probably put into style; unlike most of the slobs on TCAP, he looked dressed for a date, but it was casual enough to where it was hard to tell.
- I could absolutely see Sokol wearing Wayfarers, Chucks, and drinking PBR at the hole-in-the-wall hipster bar with its open mic night
3. "Stereotypical fashion elements include vintage clothes, alternative fashion, or a mixture of different fashions, often including skinny jeans, checked shirts, knit beanies, a full beard or deliberately attention-grabbing moustache, and thick-rimmed or lensless glasses"
4. Three of the ten most hipster-centric cities around the world were listed as being in either Oregon or Washington state. Most are in the Pacific Northwest, and Boston did not crack the top 20. But parts of Boston are urban, chic, and trendy.
Then, there are also the cultural terms of "lumbersexual" and "metrosexual" to consider:
"In 2014, the term "lumbersexual" emerged in online culture due to an observation that outdoor gear was used because of its aesthetics, not function. The term "lumbersexual" is a near antonymous play on the earlier "metrosexual", a metropolitan-heterosexual man who values appearances, apparel and aesthetics. Unlike the metrosexual, the lumbersexual is a man who adopted the stylistic traits of outdoor gear, namely a beard, plaid shirt, and work boots, in urban environments."
To me, lumbersexuals and metrosexuals feel like subgenres of hipsters, but Sokol might fit the bill here, too. What do you think?
- Vintage clothes? Check.
- Skinny jeans? Check.
- Full beard or moustache? Check.
4. Three of the ten most hipster-centric cities around the world were listed as being in either Oregon or Washington state. Most are in the Pacific Northwest, and Boston did not crack the top 20. But parts of Boston are urban, chic, and trendy.
Then, there are also the cultural terms of "lumbersexual" and "metrosexual" to consider:
"In 2014, the term "lumbersexual" emerged in online culture due to an observation that outdoor gear was used because of its aesthetics, not function. The term "lumbersexual" is a near antonymous play on the earlier "metrosexual", a metropolitan-heterosexual man who values appearances, apparel and aesthetics. Unlike the metrosexual, the lumbersexual is a man who adopted the stylistic traits of outdoor gear, namely a beard, plaid shirt, and work boots, in urban environments."
To me, lumbersexuals and metrosexuals feel like subgenres of hipsters, but Sokol might fit the bill here, too. What do you think?
" when she didn't actually say that (yet)
