[Sloper]

It seems some cvnt has developed something that makes a mobile telephone sound like an old typewriter when sending a 'text'.

Does anyone else care to unburden themselves with the indignities of modern life?

It would have annoyed me to the point of violence but a. I have tried (successfully for over a year) not to assault fellow passengers and b. I was slack jawed with disbelief at the hipster with a top knot (the first one I've seen in the flesh) and cartoon character tattoos; is this common in areas with a high hipster concentration?

[petejh]

HIPSTERISM: AN ANTI-MANIFESTO

HIPSTERISM isn't a style, it's a uniform. Venture into certain pubs in Hackney on a Friday night (The Jolly Butchers, The Cock Tavern, The Three Compasses, The Sebright Arms, The BrewDog) and it looks like an Allen Ginsberg convention – but without the poetry. No room for variation, no space for creativity, only a checklist of conformity ticked off by the virtual doorman in your head.

HIPSTERISM doesn't express an identity or attitude to the world, it is that identity. It's the triumph of the signifier over the signified, the simulacral over the real. Like gym-honed muscles that have never done a day's labour, or tattoos that have never been to sea, hipsterism is the horse pushing the cart, the tail of pose wagging the dog of action. Devoid of cultural origins for its shopping-cart of symbols, from African earplugs to Maori tattoos, Hindi inscriptions and Kabbalah wristbands, hipsterism instead seeks precedence in its allegiances – to the band that nobody has heard of, the film no-one has yet seen.

HIPSTERISM represents (yet another) crisis in western masculinity. The beard, its primary symbol, affects a wisdom it's youthful wearers have outsourced to the internet. To this end, hipsterism mimics the religious dictates on male facial hair in Islam and Hasidic Judaism. Their Qur'an is their smart phone. Hipster women, by contrast, like their shaven and veiled sisters, retain their Brazilian waxes, depilated armpits and legs, their rebellion against patriarchy confined to the messages on their pre-torn t-shirts.

HIPSTERISM didn't emerge from British culture, it was imported, down to the last detail, from Williamsburg in New York, and in origin is just like every other mainstream U.S. commodity masquerading as alternative. It has no relation to the street cultures of Hackney or Dalston or Shoreditch, except insofar as these are the consumer outlets of multinational capital in London. In this respect, hipsterism is the house-style of multiculturalism in all its apolitical naivety.

HIPSTERISM demands no DIY creativity, like Rock 'n' Roll, or Mods, or Hippies, or Punk, or Hip Hop, or Skins, or Goths, or New Romantics, or Acid House, or any of the other youth tribes. It's an identity of pure consumption. The only thing that separated hipsterism from the mainstream was the rarity of its labels. It's as radical as a Milanese catwalk. Fashion is its medium, the pose (micro-brewed beer or ethically-sourced coffee in hand) its only form of expression.

HIPSTERISM is a consumer identity for a generation of consumers who create nothing but an image of alterity, offer no opposition to the status quo, present no alternative to the suffocating blanket of consumer culture, and entertain not the slightest concept of rebellion. In this respect hipsterism, far from being an alternative lifestyle, floats along in the mainstream of our culture, which seeks to gather all the energy of youth and channel it into an aesthetics (and more importantly, ethics) of consumerism. And like all marketing strategies, behind the facade of plurality and choice there is only the monolith of a vast and all consuming homogeneity.

'Alas! The time of the most contemptible man is coming, the man who can no longer despise himself.

Behold! I shall show you the Final Man.

"What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?" thus asks the Final Man, and blinks.

The earth has become small, and upon it hops the Final Man, who makes everything small.

Everyone wants the same thing, everyone is the same: and whoever thinks otherwise goes voluntarily into the madhouse.

"We have discovered happiness", say the Final Men, and blink.'

– Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

[kelvin]

/\  No beating that reply

Someone at work has the "Avon calling" doorbell as their message alert... I feel old.

Can't believe it's taken so long for you to spot a lesser northern shoreditch hipster - fuckers are everywhere.

[Sloper]

I've seen lots of hipsters but maybe the Manchester variety were too cool for topknots and it's only the wannabe twats that are now sporting them?

[andy popp]

Quit the lazy hating. 'Hipsters' (if we're calling them that) often, for example, open fucking great places to eat and drink or make great, interesting products. They can be a pretty entrepreneurial bunch.

[Oldmanmatt]

Quit the lazy hating. 'Hipsters' (if we're calling them that) often, for example, open fucking great places to eat and drink or make great, interesting products. They can be a pretty entrepreneurial bunch.

Possibly, possibly.

But there really is no excuse for serving me a damn Cappuccino in an old Jam Jar.
We invented the friggin cup/mug (with a bloody handle) for a reason.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Stubbs]

What Andy said, that anti manifesto is so Hackneyed (sic).

[Zods Beard]

Plus one for what Andy E & Stubbs said, the hipster hating is pretty boring. Just sounds like grumpy old men whinging about things they don't understand.

And as for climbers whinging about how people dress I find that just as ironic as drinking out of a jam jar.

[petejh]

I can see both sides. A wander around any city is enough to discover there are  lot of people dressing the same but that's how it's always been - every scene has its uniform however 'counter'. And internet start-ups are florishing...

But the point about timidness of spirit also resonates with me - Andy your comment sums it up perfectly: opening a fucking coffee shop... Wow, what spirit these kids have.

[Bonjoy]

You wear a beard for years and suffer the funny looks and crying children. Then everyone gets one and you get lumped in with trendy to laugh at trendys. Then you bear the protracted beard backlash. Such are the woes of the original beardies.

[duncan]

Beards and top-knots are cool.

[Jim]

I've seen you riding around on your penny-farthing in your red trousers Lovejoy, don't deny it!

[Muenchener]

Quit the lazy hating. 'Hipsters' (if we're calling them that) often, for example, open fucking great places to eat and drink or make great, interesting products. They can be a pretty entrepreneurial bunch.

They still look like twats though.

However: a large part of the purpose of youth fashions down the ages is to look like twats to old farts like us. So well done lads, job done.

However however: I was cycling home from the wall this evening and went past a new place offering "over a hundred" obscure microbrews. The free house concept is pretty much unknown in these parts, most bars are owned by or have a contract with one brewery. But we are in the capital of Bavaria, where the "major" breweries brew some of the best beer in the world. And if I want beer from obscure village breweries, well I just have to drive two hours to the Frankenjura and voila, the beer is even better than in Bavaria proper.

So why would I need to import American microbrews? Also - this being a holdover from the CAMRA days of my youth - it's impossible in any case to keep dozens of cask ales all in prime condition at the same time; I'd far rather trust a landlord who knows how to maintain one or beers to absolute perfection.

So - long story short - this does strike me as an prime example of people doing something because it's fashionable rather than because they've really thought of a way to improve on the current state of affairs.

There's a hipster coffee roastery here too - undrinkable under-roasted acid crap.

[Sloper]

I am sure some hipsters are leading the development of new businesses and so on and more power to their elbows.

Yes there are plenty of new breweries, but a lot of the beer they produce is fairly poor and as pointed out, unless the volumes are high enough (and that's not often the case) the quality is often poor, similarly with coffee some of the independents are excellent, some are just the hobby job of trustafarians and serve a pretty unpleasant brew.

The object of my derision was the wholly unnecessary noise pollution 'look at me' 'look at me' etc, if a hipster wants to read The Divine Comedy in Italian in a silent 'look at me' pose then fine.

[slackline]

I've seen you riding around on your penny-farthing in your red trousers Lovejoy, don't deny it!

[moose]

So why would I need to import American microbrews? Also - this being a holdover from the CAMRA days of my youth - it's impossible in any case to keep dozens of cask ales all in prime condition at the same time; I'd far rather trust a landlord who knows how to maintain one or beers to absolute perfection.

The UK is also replete with great breweries and pubs, that never stopped me from mail ordering crates of bottled US microbrews, Belgian ales, and German beers (big fan of Dunkels and Bocks).  I'm not a twattish hipster (maybe a twat, but a very plain one), I just like variety and to feel that I am exploring from the comfort of my own sofa.

And as a coincidence with Jim's post - I recently got stuck in traffic behind a penny farthing just outside Ilkley.  Since it was grimly rainy and windy it looked far from hip, more of a suffer-fest (although still a bit annoying as no-one dared overtake due to its worrying precariousness in the wind).

[SA Chris]

I think the older you get the more you branch into the "rant and rave abut things" or the "live and let live" direction.

Fortunately I'm heading down the live and let live route, probably because if I was gulity of many twattery offences in my youth.

[tomtom]

I sometimes wonder if I am alone in disliking the super hop++ pale ale tasting pale ales that seem to abound from said micro breweries?

Still - they're doing something to break the large breweries monopoly and revitalise in a different way pubs...

Top knots.....

[andy_e]

No, you're not alone, I like a hoppy citrussy British ale but I find a lot of the US pales to be hop monsters that leave you feeling like you've just eaten an entire packet of Jacob's cream crackers.

[a dense loner]

I quite like pale ales, I went to a bar in San Fran with Irish Si a few times and didn't have a bad one in there. I also thought the bar in Squamish that everyone seems to rave about as very bland for beer. Can't pls everyone.
Pony tales on older guys = ffs

[moose]

I sometimes wonder if I am alone in disliking the super hop++ pale ale tasting pale ales that seem to abound from said micro breweries?

agree... you can only go so far with super high "alpha".  That said, those same breweries often do very good darker beers - porters and stouts, amber ales, strong dark ales (hmmm Stone Double Bastard) etc - admittedly often with a lot of hops but at least it's off-set by a hefty dose of malt. And most of the more mainstream craft breweries do something resembling a session drinker (Boston Lager / Ale, Anchor Steam etc).

[tomtom]

Glad I'm not alone. They also seem to leave me with a bad head even after one or two... Me and MrsTT went for a pre curry snifter at one of the little bars up the road - and I ended up having a pint of lager as everything else was PA based..

I'm a big fan of the fresh (citrussy AndyE?) blondes that now seem quite popular - there is some good variety and some great beers out there...

[johnx2]

Strong IPA, 6%+, sold in a bar that also sells stripey tops, coloured kecks and kidneys, by a guy who looks like a friendly DH Lawrence? I like everything about this scenario apart from the one unisex bog. Are we in Red Hook, Williamsburg or Sheepscar? Hipsters? Salt of the earth. Ah happy days fixie spotting in Hoxton...

[petejh]

All for good quality food & drink and especially local enteprise, as long as there's substance behind the image. If it becomes more about creating a fashionable image or riding the bandwagon based around 'quirky/local/non-mainstream = good' (as long as you're moneyed enough to partake), which is one criticism of hipsterism, then the consumption of beer starts to resemble the truckload of bullshit that is the wine scene.

Leffe blonde's hard to beat - mainstream: certainly; unfasionable in certain scenes: surely; delicious: yes.

[johnx2]

I prefer the brune myself. Did a flanders road bike trip a few weeks ago, which involved many of same and similar.

This is year of the beard on bikes with a few hipster-alikes inveigling into the pro peleton. The spinoffs are not all good:

Floral Finn $330.00
The vibrant floral features are only a small part of this piece of art, with teal and green leaves on a black backdrop creating a sense of risky elegance. The Finn Sheep is well-known for it’s broad hind quarters and it’s exceptional fertility. What a man!

Real, apparently, from: http://www.blacksheepcycling.cc/uploads/3/0/0/7/30073321 . Think I'll pass.