Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Keltologie

Popping Some (Postmodern) Tags

The Hipster's Search for Authenticity

Term paper for

Postmodernism

Wintersemester 2013/2014

Dr. Silke Meyer

Helen May

Bonn, 28.03.2014

Table of Contents

1 Introduction.....................................................................................................................1

2 Reading Fashion.............................................................................................................2

2.1 Sign System.............................................................................................................2

2.2 Group Cohesion......................................................................................................4

3 The Hipster.....................................................................................................................5

3.1 The hipster of the past.............................................................................................5

3.2 The hipster today.....................................................................................................6

4 Authenticity.....................................................................................................................8

4.1 Modes of authenticity..............................................................................................8

4.2 The longing for authenticity..................................................................................10

4.3 Institutionalized individuality and limits of authenticity......................................11

5 Cultural capital..............................................................................................................13

6 Conclusion....................................................................................................................14

Bibliography....................................................................................................................17

1 Introduction

The hipster is a brainchild of late capitalism. It is only under these ideological and social

realities that the hipster could grow into what we now associate with them: caught

somewhere between expensive coffee drinks, Apple products and clothing from

goodwill, commercialization and on a quest to find authenticity.

The hipster knew things “before they were cool” and wears things “ironically”.

They take pride in their seemingly “unhip” clothes that could be stolen from their

grandparents' closet and there even is a webpage1 where you can vote if the person

shown is a hipster or homeless. This clearly shows their standing in mainstream society:

they are often ridiculed but at the same time also written about in big news outlets such

a s The Guardian. There are hipster Disney Princesses2, Hipster Animals3 and even a

HipsterMerkel tumblr4, dedicated to a photo of a young Angela Merkel layered with

multiple effects and filters perceived to be typical of the digital hipster aesthetic.

This paper will explore one of the key features of the contemporary hipster: their

fashion choices. It will argue, that hipsters make use of fashion trends of the past to

convey a sense of authenticity which has become a myth within the subculture.

Furthermore, I will explore the limits of authenticity and its function as a status marker

within the subculture and explore the cultural capital needed to establish and access the

latest trends.

However, I will not try to establish a clean definition of the subculture itself

which has proven to be problematic and a seemingly impossible task in the existing

literature on this topic. This paper will follow the approach to loosely define the hipster

through general fashion choices, love for vintage things ranging from clothing to

technology and their demonstration of cultural knowledge through these things.

Whether hipsters actually form a subculture is very debatable. However, I will

use this term (and the term “hipster culture”) for a lack of a better alternative:

“movement” would imply a political agenda which is not present. Although Jameson

claims that “every position on postmodernism in culture – whether apologia or

1 HipsterOrHomeless.com

2 “Hipster Disney Princesses – THE MUSICAL” can be found on YouTube

3 hipster-animals.tumblr.com

4 HipsterMerkel.tumblr.com

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stigmatization – is also at one and the same time, and necessarily, an implicitly or

explicitly political stance on the nature or multinational capitalism today”

(“Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”), I would disagree in the

case of the hipster. Although it can be argued that the modern hipster tries to negate

consumer culture they often do so while sitting in a Starbucks, typing on their latest

MacBook. Even though there have been recent trends towards urban gardening, locally

produced goods and organic produce it is more of a general trend than one of the main

features of the hipster culture to promote a green and sustainable lifestyle. As I am

pointing out in this paper, the contemporary hipster clearly is a product of the

postmodern condition, however, their stance is not strong enough to justify the name

“movement”5.

2 Reading Fashion

There are many ways apart from language that we can utilize to communicate. One

possibility is by wearing certain clothing.

2.1 Sign System

We can define culture as “the product of shared meanings produced through social

interactions” (Alfrey 3). Interpreting others' clothing is an example of social interaction.

When looking for help in a store we look out for somebody wearing a shirt with the

store's logo on it or somebody with a name tag. Fashion is a matrix of symbols that

signify things, “a meaningfully structured symbolic complex” (Bohn 5): a skirt

signalizes femininity, a button-down shirt professionalism; old people dress different

from young people and subcultures follow their own complex code. Shoppers will

hardly wear a branded shirt or a name tag by chance, employees, however, may.

Clothing follows a set of unwritten rules. Besides gendered, and age-appropriate

clothing there are different acceptable styles of clothing for certain occasions: Nobody

would wear a wedding gown to the gym or sweatpants to a wedding.

Therefore, fashion can be understood similar to Saussure's sign: a skirt itself

does not have any particular meaning but through the shared meanings within our

5 Their existence, however, could be seen through a political lens. This is not the focus of this paper but

is implicitly touched in Chapter 4 when discussing limits of authenticity and adaptation of subcultural

aesthetics into the mainstream and creation of objectified cultural capital.

2

culture it becomes a signifier for femininity. The arbitrariness of the sign can be seen in

Scotland where kilts are traditionally worn by men and do not signalize femininity but

are essentially just a piece of male clothing cut similar to a skirt.

A discourse is produced around fashion products. “Social theorists have argued

that these glamorizing discourses have facilitated the emergence of the consumer-driven

capitalist economy by widely diffusing an image of 'the good life' based on the

attainment of material affluence” (Thompson and Haytko 17). This discourse is often

fueled and guided by advertising.

Baudrillard's explanation of advertising begins from the observation that 'Advertising

sets itself the task of supplying information about particular objects and promoting

their sale'6 […] However, he insists that there is no such thing as advertising that is

restricted to the supplying of information: rather, advertising exists to persuade and

to awaken desires that consumption cannot ultimately satisfy (Barnard 7).

By associating certain goods and style with affluence, glamour and fame consumers are

driven to buy them. This marketing strategy is called social appeal: “social appeal

encourages people to buy the products for recognition, affiliation, acceptance, status,

etc.” (Sinha, Agarwal, and Johnson 4). These marketing discourses are an integral part

of the sign system and help to create the shared meanings through which we interpret

and create the values associated with pieces of clothing. By depicting beautiful people

as more successful in both career and personal life, always smiling and thin the notion

of “the good life” is connected through products that promise to make us more beautiful

or at least hide our flaws. Through buying these products we can be just like the models.

Another important factor that has increased in recent years is marketing through

celebrities. Music videos are instrumental in creating an aura of hipness around

products: companies pay artists large sums of money to place their product in a video.

By connecting the product with the famous celebrity that “has it all”, the looks, money

and fame, it again tells us that we can have a piece of the celebrity lifestyle cake if we

only just buy this product. This influences a lot of young people. Keeping in mind that

the core demographic is mostly considered to be people between 14 and 45 years of age

a significant portion of potential costumers of lifestyle products such as sneakers or

perfume can be reached by these means.

Through this discourse the product loses its use-value: “Advertising is, in effect,

the effacement of any and all 'real' economic experience from consumption and its

6 Quoted from: Baudrillard, Jean. The System of Objects. 1968. London: Verso, 1996. Print. (page 179).

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replacement by meanings, signs and significations” (Barnard 7). Of course advertisers

could also use rational appeal, highlighting the usefulness of a product, but the market is

flooded with alternative products that will work just as fine: why should you buy a pair

of jeans from Brand A when you can get a similar pair from Brand B for half the price?

As long as they have both legs, a zipper, a button and fit reasonably well both jeans

serve their purpose equally, don't they?

2.2 Group Cohesion

As we have seen in most cases “consumption does not arise from an objective need of

the consumer, a final intention of the subject towards the object” (Baudrillard7 qtd. in

Clarke 40) but through the want for the product. One of the reasons speaking for Brand

A's jeans is group cohesion.

Because fashion can be used as a signal it is often utilized in subcultures as an

identity signal. The way a person dresses can signalize class, gender and affiliation with

a subculture:

In general, psychologists who study consumers understand that people are largely

motivated to spend money not just on things that they materially need, but that

bolster their sense of identity. They purchase not just goods and services, but

mythologies. Imagining themselves as rugged, rebellious patriots, they buy a Harley-

Davidson. Imagining themselves as respected and well-heeled, they buy a Lexus

(Wise).

If we can use fashion choices to signal identity we can also use them to show

others that we share certain pieces of the way we understand and construct our identity.

Using pieces of clothing as a signifier to show belongingness to a certain subculture

makes the style “a visible construction, a loaded choice. It directs attention to itself; it

gives itself to be read” (Hebdige 101).

Within subgroups fashion follows a strict but unwritten set of rules. The kilt

serves as a great example again: traditionally, each clan had its own style of tartan. This

is common knowledge among the in-group of traditional kilt wearers. From the outside,

however, the choice of tartan may seem like an arbitrary choice based on personal taste

and those who want to appropriate a kilt into their wardrobe out of fashion reasons –

who, if we were speaking about a “subculture of kilt fans” could be seen as “posers” –

will likely not pick up on this which could lead to misunderstandings with the in-group.

7 Baudrillard, Jean. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. 1972. St. Louis: Telos. 1981.

Print. (page 75)

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3 The Hipster

One group with a particularly interesting way of signaling identity through fashion is the

hipster. Although Mark Greif and his colleagues have pointed to their death, hipsters are

alive and kicking: anybody who has been to Berlin Kreuzberg or Friedrichshain recently

will have seen countless examples.

Still, clear identification is not easy. Since there is hardly any (academic)

literature or consensus about the post-2000 hipster the claims that I will now make are

of course easy to criticize. However, finding enough people who would themselves

identify as hipsters and conduct interviews with them in order to gain remotely empiric

data is almost impossible. Whereas the hipster of the past is long dead and therefore

cannot complain about claims made about them, one of the core features of the

contemporary hipster is that they deny being one. One of the reasons, apart from the

obvious mainstream dislike, is individuality: “'[… t]he minute you start identifying with

a subculture... you kind of lose individuality, surrender part of your identity, and we

don't wanna do that.' This, then, is the essence of being a hipster. Pretending you aren't

one” (Wise).

3.1 The hipster of the past

Although the term “hipster” might has become more famous in recent years the

phenomenon itself is nothing new. In fact, the term hipster was used in the late 1930s

and early 1940s to describe aficionados of jazz. In his book on subculture published in

1979, Dick Hebdige dedicates a whole chapter to “Hipsters, Beats and Teddy Boys”.

Here, he explains how the hipsters borrowed from jazz and black aesthetics:

[…] by the mid-50s a new, younger white audience began to see itself reflected

darkly in the dangerous, uneven surfaces of contemporary avant-garde, despite the

fact that the musicians responsible for the New York sound deliberately sought to

restrict white identification by producing a jazz which was difficult to listen to and

even more difficult to imitate. None the less, the 'beat' and the hipster began to

improvise their own exclusive styles around a less compromised form of jazz […]

(Hebdige 47).

The hipster and the beatniks have similar roots.

The Beats wanted nothing to do with the 1950s suburbanized hell-hole that America

had become after World War II. Amidst McCarthy-Fordist-conformism they let it be

known through their writing and lifestyle that they were rejecting the mainstream and

seeking 'authenticity,' which, from the 1950's onwards, became a dominant theme

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within subculture (Kinzey).

Some even go so far as to call Jack Kerouac, a famous writer of the beat generation, the

“Homer of the hipster” (cf. Diez). In his famous novel “On the Road” Kerouac even

mentions the hipster several times and gives an almost prophetic warning: “They're here

too.[…] The arty types were all over America, sucking up its blood.” (Kerouac 37).

However, the beatnik and the hipster have to be differentiated.

… the hipster was… [a] typical lower-class dandy, dressed up like a pimp, affecting a

very cool, cerebral tone – to distinguish him from the gross, impulsive types that

surrounded him in the ghetto – and aspiring to the finer things in life, like very good

‘tea’, the finest of sounds – jazz or Afro-Cuban … [whereas] … the Beat was

originally some earnest middle-class college boy like Kerouac, who was stifled by

the cities and the culture he had inherited and who wanted to cut out for distant and

exotic places, where he could live like the ‘people’, write, smoke and meditate.

(Goldman8 qtd in Hebdige 48)

From the beginning, hipsters have been drawn to the city and poorer

neighborhoods. Here, the white hipster and the black jazz musician could mingle: “In

such places as Greenwich Village, a ménage-a-trois was completed – the bohemian and

the juvenile delinquent came face-to-face with the Negro, and the hipster was a fact in

American life” (Mailer 278f.).

The hipster can be seen as a rebel, according to Caroline Bird9 (qtd in Mailer). In

their neighborhoods hipsters could avoid mainstream society. She writes: “As the only

extreme nonconformist of his generation, he exercises a powerful if underground appeal

for conformists, through newspaper accounts of his delinquencies, his structureless jazz,

and his emotive grunt words”.

In the 1960s the hipster turned into the “hippie”, who sought after authenticity

within nature, only to resurface in the early 2000s.

3.2 The hipster today

The contemporary hipster is very different from the past one and “more likely to be

brokers or lawyers than art-school dropouts” (Lorentzen, “Why The Hipster Must Die:

A Modest Proposal to Save New York Cool”).

As we have already established they do not want to be called a hipster or identify

as one and they are not very popular with other subcultures or the mainstream. As

8 Goldman, A. Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce. Panter, 1974. Print.

9 Bird, Caroline. “Born 1930: The Unlost Generation”. Harper's Bazaar, Feb 1957. Print.

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Fletcher points out: “Hipsters manage to attract a loathing unique in its intensity. Critics

have described the loosely defined group assmug [sic!], full of contradictions and,

ultimately, the dead end of Western civilization”. “Hipster” is more often used as a slur

than an identity marker by a member of the subculture, making it hard to establish a

common definition of a hipster. Still, “you know it when you see it” as Dayna Tortorici,

referring to Justice Potter Stewart's view on obscenity, puts it.

“[Hipsterdom] is a material subculture often symbolized by objects or styles

appropriated from past eras, meant to appear ironic or novel with contemporary

application” (Alfrey 6). The argument about ironic usage or appropriation is particularly

complicated: whereas wearing clothing associated with the white, suburban, lower class

of the American heartland might have seem ironic and would fit Jameson's definition of

parody it soon turned into pastiche. The classical hipster style can now be seen as

pastiche: merely a “stylistic mask […] without parody's ulterior motive, without the

satirical impulse” (Jameson, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society” 5).

Douglas Haddow even went so far as to call the hipster a sign of “The Dead End

of Western Civilization”, claiming that they represent “[a]n artificial appropriation of

different styles from different eras […] – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past

and unable to create any new meaning”. This judgement of course is very harsh. Indeed,

it can be argued that this mixture of past styles and symbols in itself creates something

new and hipster aesthetics are neohistoristic.

Looking at recently published articles about hipsters one thing seems to be at the

core of all attempts to define the subculture and that is fashion: “[w]hen asked, most

people describe the hipster in terms of concrete objects they consume (what they wear,

listen to, eat etc.) or as an attitude (e.g. they are elitist snobs masked in an 'aesthetic

populism')” (Kinzey).10 In 2010 Greif described hipster fashion as follows:

Let me recall a string of keywords: trucker hats; undershirts called 'wifebeaters,'

worn alone; the aesthetic of basement rec-room pornography, flash-lit Polaroids, and

fake-wood paneling; Pabst Blue Ribbon; 'porno' or 'pedophile' mustaches; aviator

glasses; Americana T-shirts from church socials and pig roasts; tube socks; the late

albums of Johnny Cash; tattoos.

The hipster seems to have a love for things traditionally regarded as “white trash”,

similar to the postmodernists' fascination for “this whole 'degraded' landscape of

10 This also underlines my claim that hipsters do not form a political movement that is easily

identifiable through clear and distinct ideology.

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schlock and kitsch” (Jameson, “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late

Capitalism”). The hipster successfully incorporated them into their aesthetics.

However, the aesthetics of the hipster have changed from what Greif described

but the “reinvention doesn’t detract from the enduring validity of [past] arguments”

(Ehrlich and Bartz 27f.). While the mustaches described by Greif gave way to full-

blown beards and trucker hats disappeared, a new style emerged: “Take your

grandmother's sweater and Bob Dylan's Wayfarers, add jean shorts, Converse All-Stars

and a can of Pabst [Blue Ribbon] and bam — hipster” (Fletcher).

4 Authenticity

The hipsters' style constantly changes:

With all members interested in maintaining their subcultural identity, hipsters must

collaborate to negotiate the standards of the group. As these standards and norms

evolve, so do the commercial actors who supply the goods and objects used to reify

the hipster identity. In this way, consumption patterns serve as the set of standards

whereby which an aspirant, aware of the communicative power of these goods, can

achieve member status through conscious consumption (Alfrey 13).

In order to remain authentic the hipster constantly has to renew their personal style as

soon as the trends they said have trickled down into mainstream society.

4.1 Modes of authenticity

Describing “authenticity” is very hard. Merriam-Webster defines “authentic” as “real or

genuine: not copied or false. True and accurate. Made to be or look just like an

original”. This definition already entails a contradiction: if something is “made […] to

look just like an original” it implies that is has been copied. Thus, the first and third

definition oppose each other.

Janna Michael differentiates between two notions of authenticity, the romantic

notion and the modernist notion.

The former “embraces a sincere and pre-industrial past” (5). This can be seen in

today's popularity of TV formats like Farmer Wants a Wife (cf. Michael 5) which has

many international spin-offs11 and shows the idyllic countryside and down-to-earth

11 Farmer Wants a Wife was developed by Fremantle Media for the British TV Chanel ITV and “has

traveled to more that 20 countries (including the US, Australia and across Europe) and continues to

launch in new territories around the globe” (“Farmer Wants a Wife”).

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famers looking for real love to magazines like Landlust – Die Schönsten Seiten des

Landlebens which is the only print magazine in the best selling top-15 list in Germany

with a growing rate of sold hard copies last year (“DWDL Zahlenzentrale Print”). It

makes use of “the ‘real’, traditional and emotional [which] are sought after instead of

the cool or the fashionable” (Michael 5).

In contrast, the modernist notion “breaks with the past, and demands radical

innovation and experimentation. The chaos of the cities, alienation and machines are

celebrated as authentic elements of our time.” (Michael 6).

However, “both approaches hint at a complicated relation to trendiness, as being

trendy implies a constant adaptation to novelty while an authentic personality comes

with its own taste which expresses who she or he truly is” (Michael 6). Translating the

aforementioned notions of authenticity into fashion usage we can find two different

patterns. On one hand you can make use of your clothes to create a new identity on a

daily basis: “[c]ategorization of the person from the outside is difficult since he or she

may appear differently every day. This can be seen as authentic in the modernist sense,

as the fleeting style reflects the diversity of different moods and identities” (Michael 8).

By constantly reinventing ourselves through new fashion styles we can celebrate the

chaos and alienation. On the other hand, we can also dress very sober and remain a

tabula rasa since there is no specific element in our clothing trying to communicate

something extraordinary12: “[i]t demands a closer look in order to explore and

understand the person ‘from the inside’, rather than defining the person by his or her

looks. This too implies that one desires to be seen as a true self and thus authentic

underneath one’s looks” (Michael 8). Furthermore, we can utilize “real” and

“traditional” vintage clothing like the hipster does.

Both types of authenticity are ways of dealing with the late modern capitalism. While

the romantic notion can be seen as a retreat from the chaotic, harsh world; seeking

for something 'true' in it, the modernist approach can be interpreted as an attempt to

get ahead, a way to acquire agency by making use of the new possibilities offered.

(Michael 6).

But just like Farmer Wants a Wife follows a script and employs basic editing techniques

to create suspense and often makes the farmers and their love interests look like fools –

and therefore is no authentic depiction of the events and feelings of the protagonists at

12 A classic example of this can be seen in the character of Cayce Pollard from William Gibson's

Pattern Recognition (2003) who tries to escape the brand-driven world by wearing extraordinarily

plain clothes without labels. Another example is the recent (proclaimed) trend “normcore” where

people try to dress as ordinarily and plain as possible.

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all – the hipster embraces modernist authenticity and creates an identity through clothes

by taking elements of romantic authenticity in the form of vintage clothing and makes

them cool and fashionable, thus creating a paradox.

Deciding what is authentic and what is not is a hard task. “In the end, something

is authentic because it is declared authentic by an authority, whether or not scientific

methods or historical scholarship have been used in deciding on it.” (Van Leeuwen 393).

Hipsters seem to have decided that vintage clothing is authentic. Now the question

arises why they did.

4.2 The longing for authenticity

As we have seen “[u]nder the guise of 'irony,' hipsterism fetishizes the authentic and

regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity” (Lorentzen, “Why The Hipster Must Die:

A Modest Proposal to Save New York Cool”). The trends of past ages signalize

“authenticity”. By buying clothing in a thrift shop the hipster tries to escape

consumerism and the mainstream and to buy something “authentic”. The hipster chose a

particular part of clothing in a thrift shop by themselves and did not follow any trends

dictated by somebody else. The choices that were given also were not superimposed by

the latest fashion trends but by an amalgam of past trends and styles that simply were

available on that day in that particular thrift shop by chance. “While creating trends is

related to being innovative and therefore potentially cool and authentic, following trends

has to be made authentic by combining diverse items or mixing styles into something

that is seen as unique” (Michael 10).

By choosing “garbage-dump chic” (Kinzey) over clothes traditionally perceived

as pretty, hipsters can escape the dictation of the flawlessness that surrounds us

everywhere we turn: models on billboards are photoshopped to perfection, there are tons

of beauty products available, both for women and increasingly also for men, and diet

fads promising thin bodies. Hipsters can utilize their raw fashion choices to signal that

they do not want to belong to a society that worships smooth but “fake” beauty

aesthetics.

Apart from clothing old technology is also utilized. First, digital cameras were

ditched for polaroids and lomography, an analog camera named after its Russian

manufacturer, the Leningrad Optical Mechanical Association. Later, the app and social

network instagram made use of digital filters to make pictures taken with the latest

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iPhone look like they were taken by old analog cameras thus making them look less

digitally manipulated while being just this.

Hipsters yearn for something seemingly authentic and “real” which they can

express through their love of nostalgia (cf. Kinzey). However:

It is hence not so much the taste in itself (what is liked) that matters, but being a part

of a discourse that is perceived as authentic (how it is liked). Therefore, the choice of

cultural goods itself appears to be less relevant than the narrative that is attached to it.

(Michael 16).

4.3 Institutionalized individuality and limits of authenticity

The main problem with this felt authenticity is its fast incorporated into the commercial

fashion system. “What started as a small movement in New York can now be found on

giant billboards worldwide; the hipster is the dominant aesthetic filter through which

mainstream culture emanates” (Kinzey).

Since “aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity

production[, there is a] frantic economic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more

novel-seeming goods (from clothing to airplanes), at ever greater rates of turnover”

(Jameson, “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”). Because of this

growing urgency for constant reinventions the mainstream fashion swallowed the

hipster aesthetics. As soon as it became “hip” to wear thrift shopped clothes that looked

like your “granddad's” as Macklemore and Ryan Lewis13 put it, there was a growing

demand for formerly outdated fashion. As Jameson points out, the end of the “high-

modernist ideology of style […] the producers have nowhere to turn but the past: the

imitation of dead styles” (Jameson, “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late

Capitalism”), or in other words the vintage clothes one finds in a thrift shop. Now you

can shop “Vintage Urban Renewal” at Urban Outfitters or buy vintage blouses straight

from the 1980s at American Apparel at prices way above the thrift shop level.

This left the hipster in a vicious cycle: To not look like a “wannabe” or poser

they had to find new, “authentic” styles. With the help of the internet and fashion blogs

these trends spread again and after a while became a mainstream trend. Because of the

world wide web the cycle became even shorter than Jameson would probably ever have

imagined.

13 “I wear your granddad's clothes/ I look incredible/ I'm in this big ass coat/ From that thrift shop down

the road”

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Authenticity has become a myth and ultimate goal for the hipster: “Myth takes a

purely cultural and historical object […] and transforms it into the sign of a universal

value” (Allen 36). As mentioned before, in case of the hipster vintage clothing and

aesthetics stand in for authenticity and realness. This process is analogical to Roland

Barthes reading of roses:

Do we have here, then, only a signifier and a signified, the roses and my passion?

Not even that [… . W]e do have three terms; for these roses weighted with passion

perfectly and correctly allow themselves to be decomposed into roses and passion:

the former and the latter existed before uniting and forming this third object, which is

the sign. (Barthes 111f.)

The myth works on a level above the semiological system mentioned: “That which is a

sign (namely the associative total of a concept and an image in the first system, becomes

a mere signifier in the second” (Barthes 113). On the first-order semiological system

vintage clothing signifies something used, something that is not store-bought but

probably handed down from an older generation. Taking this as a sign of the first-order

semiological system it then signifies a lack of commercialization on the second-order

semiological system. This creates a new sign: authenticity.

But the authenticity seemingly signalized by vintage clothing is actually a

simulacrum: vintage clothing only references past fashion trends. Given that most

clothing items in thrift shops are not handmade and custom designs they are only a relict

of an older fashion discourse and therefore in no way “realer” or “more authentic” that

today's mass-marketed goods – the only difference is the age of the clothes. The anchor

point therefore is gone: “The ironic part of all this is that the contemporary culture

industries invest their lifeblood in producing the very authenticity they tell us cannot be

manufactured” (Vannini and Williams 2).

In fact, any reference point would be unreliable. Since hipsters are most likely

millennials which were born in the early 1980s to the early 1990s they are referencing

fashion trends they hardly experienced consciously first hand. They did not grow up

with vinyl records but cassette tapes, Walkmans and CDs. The past authenticity they

yearn for is nothing but nostalgia. As Baudrillard put it: “When the real is no longer

what it was, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. There is a plethora of myths of origin

and of signs of reality – a plethora of truth, of secondary objectivity, and authenticity”

(4). The source of authenticity is an imagined past with an imagined reality and zeitgeist

which those calling upon know mainly from books or maybe home videos made by their

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parents.

Christian Lorentzen argues that “childhood is the only source of authenticity in

America”. Children are often seen as authentic because they have not yet developed a

sense of self consciousness. “Children, it is said, are 'spontaneous' and 'innocent'”

(Sayers). They cannot help but be themselves. Embracing the aesthetics, fashion and

technology of their childhood therefore might seem authentic to the hipster.

As Jameson points out “the existential model of authenticity and inauthenticity”

(cf. “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”) does not work

anymore and has been replaced by “a conception of practices, discourses and textual

play[…,] depth is replaced by surface, or by multiple surfaces” (ibid). According to him,

postmodernity means the “end of example of style, in a sense of the unique and the

personal, the end of the distinctive individual brushstroke” (ibid). If no personal style is

available anymore there cannot be anything authentic since the authenticity stems

directly from the personal choice. By preferring vintage clothing the average hipster

tries to underline their individuality. They think they escaped the capitalist marketing

system that superimposes its styles, wishes and desires upon them and chose something

they wanted to chose themselves, something individual. But with the incorporation of

vintage fashion into the mainstream fashion cycle the authenticity left.

5 Cultural capital

Knowing what is “real” and “authentic” can be a hard task, especially since both,

mainstream and hipster, fashion trends change at an increasing rate as we have seen. “If

consumption habits signal affiliation or solidarity with a social category, then knowing

the signal associated with a certain good or set of goods allows an individual to choose

which status to embody” (Alfrey 13f). By always wearing clothes that fit the latest trend

the hipster can show off their cultural knowledge: “Being in fashion, therefore, means

having access to information, such that one knows the appropriate social meaning of an

object or way of doing things at the right time” (Alfrey 14).

In his article “The Hipster in the Mirror” Greif opposes subgroups of hipsters:

“liberal arts college grads with too much time on their hands” and “trust fund hipsters”:

[The former are] instantly declassed [by the latter], reservoired in abject internships

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and ignored in the urban hierarchy – but able to use college-taught skills of

classification, collection and appreciation to generate a superior body of cultural

'cool'. They, in turn, may malign the 'trust fund hipsters' […] who, possessed of

money but not the nose for culture, convert real capital into 'cultural capital' […]

acquiring subculture as if it were ready-to-wear. (Think of Paris Hilton in her trucker

hat.)

Cultural capital is a term coined by Pierre Bourdieu. It is the forms of

knowledge, skills and education through which a person can gain a higher status.

Cultural capital can exist in three forms: in the embodied state i.e., in the form of

long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body; in the objectified state, in the form of

cultural goods […], and in the institutionalized state, a form of objectification which

must be set apart because […] it confers entirely original properties on the cultural

capital which it is presumed to guarantee. (Bourdieu)

The embodied cultural capital the “liberal arts grad” hipsters gained through their

college education (which would, in the form of a degree, be institutionalized cultural

capital) is used to find new trends. The “trust fund” hipsters then use their monetary

means and buy into the trends, thus creating objectified cultural capital.

Hipsters like to brag with their cultural knowledge, gained through either

embodied or bought as objectified cultural capital, referring to obscure bands with even

obscurer names that they have known “before they were cool”. This again signals

authenticity. By taking pride in this a priori cultural knowledge the hipster forms hatred

towards others:

[…] they feel the weakness of everyone's position – including their own. Proving that

someone is trying desperately to boost himself instantly undoes him as an opponent.

He's a fake, while you are a natural aristocrat of taste. That's why 'He's not for real,

he's just a hipster' is a potent insult among all the people identifiable as hipsters

themselves (Greif, “The Hipster in the Mirror”).

6 Conclusion

The hipster is a cultural phenomenon made possible by postmodernism, which Jameson

describes as the “logic of late capitalism”. Giving a clear definition what a hipster is has

proven difficult, they have a fluid identity. The only thing that visually distinguishes the

hipster seems to be the love for vintage things and the aesthetics of past times. They

follow a myth of authenticity, utilizing vintage clothes as a communicator for said

authenticity.

Hipsters are highly unpopular within the mainstream. This might be because of

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their “holier that thou” (or in this case “hipper than thou”) attitude: They know things

before they were cool and have a better cultural knowledge than the average person (or

they at least like to think so). They even hate each other. No hipster would identify as

one. If they succumb to being a declared member of a subculture it would strip the

hipster of their individuality.

Furthermore, clever marketers have picked up upon the hipster aesthetic.

Fashion trends spread over the internet in no time and the seemingly uncool aesthetics

the hipster embraces to underline their individuality and authenticity have soon been

incorporated into mainstream fast fashion, leaving the hipster on a never ending quest to

find a new aesthetic to fetishize as authentic. This is also a problem for an academic

analysis of the hipster. Each wave of new trends that formally “belonged” to the hipster

draws in more mainstream. How we distinguish those who really have “heard it before it

was cool” from those who were only early adopters of a later trend? And who are the

real hipsters – the “liberal arts graduates”, those with a trust fund and an interest in

culture (as Mark Greif proposes) or brokers and lawyers (as Christian Lorentzen

argues)?

“This imagined hipster, just like the imagined mainstream, is a straw man

against whom one can set oneself off as more authentic” (Michel 16). By pointing to the

hipster as somebody obsessed with this unreachable myth of authenticity we say that

they are fake, or phony, and we are real and a level above them. “Part of the meaning of

hipster bashing […] lies in claiming for oneself the much valued authenticity that

hipsters are so sadly lacking” (Michel 2). We could claim to be post-hipster, so to say, or

meta-hipsters, who have accepted the fact that authenticity is an unreachable goal. This

way we are turning the hipster vs. mainstream dichotomy upside down and become

guilty of everything we accuse the hipster of doing: trying to one-up the mainstream by

using our cultural capital to be hipper, cooler and even more individual and in the know.

This discourse can easily be turned into a philosophical Möbius strip: however far we

go along and switch sides we always end up with an unsatisfying answer. We can either

buy recent trends or desperately try to avoid them. Either way, we seem to be facing the

same medallion, just from two different sides of the cultural capital, arguing that we

have the knowledge to see that this is not individual or authentic and try something

completely different or buying into the narrative of the proposed individuality and

authenticity.

15

In the end we are all hipsters and there seems to be no escape so we better start

growing our ironic mustaches.

16

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