Defining the Hipster

What Was the Hipster? — New York Magazine.

Over Christmas vacation I attempted to explain to my brother’s girlfriend, a recent Auburn graduate, what a hipster is (they have yet to surface in Alabama). I realized during this that I didn’t really know how to define them. I know we have a lot of them here in Richmond (although I think outside of Brooklyn and LA’s Silver Lake they’re technically Scenesters) but what escaped me was what was the hipster movement really about. Skinny jeans and tattoos? Such a superficial answer cannot account for a group of people who allegedly are profoundly more enlightened than the rest of us.

I stumbled on this article today and it documents the rise and fall of the hipster. The hipster is defined as a person who has a first knowledge, therefore, the “hipper than thou” mentality. I’m definitely not trying to hate on hipsters, we have them to thank for American Apperal and Wes Anderson movies. I enjoy this article because it helps me understand the culture and what it is all about. It also inspired me to get a bicycle.