The Hipster's Dilemma
They're calling people like me vapid colonizers, and worse. Valid?
Timeout New York launched its attack last year.
The evolution of a cool neighbourhood seems to follow a predictable pattern. Skinny-jeaned, angular-haircutted young bohemians move into a rough part of town, make it palatable for creative professionals and people with money, in turn luring developers who cash in by building condos and Lululemon outlets, and before you know it, you have Kitsilano in Vancouver.
The now blandified area spurs the next generation of American Apparel unitard thong-lovers somewhere else, thus completing the life cycle of hip.
If hipsters were a fungus, they'd be lichens -- pioneers that make the first inroads into the hard rock of underground culture. They're often among the first gentrifiers of an area, turning tough urban neighbourhoods into bohemian bastions of urban chic.
Poor is no joke
But if there is a hipster ethos, it bears a host of contradictions. For one, most of the scenesters I know are sympathetic to Vancouver's growing wealth disparity, the increasingly displaced Downtown Eastside community, and other effects of gentrification, but rarely do they acknowledge being a cause of it.
Worse, the hipster's love of all things ironic means 'slumming it' is somehow cool -- strange, considering it's practiced by people who are often well-educated, liberal humanists.
Living in a poverty-stricken part of town, eating at crappy diners and dressing like a hobo might be chic when you're in on the joke. But it's also a slap in the face when the jokester is an upper middle class ex-suburbanite feigning homelessness for no apparent reason.
Take Vancouver's underground-ish nightlife. For the past few years, the indie scene has hopped from bar to bar in the Downtown Eastside -- the Astoria, the Balmoral, the Royal Unicorn Cabaret, the Waldorf, etc. I wonder if regulars appreciate being taken over, and whether there's any acknowledgement of the change when these original communities are eventually displaced.
Why is poor somehow more real, and skid row more authentic? And how does irony excuse knocking people who happen to like trucker hats and greasy diners? This isn't to suggest that class segregation is the answer, but crossing socioeconomic boundaries does require a degree of sensitivity and emotional intelligence.
Debating the hipster soul
Adbusters recently ran an anti-hipster piece that criticized the group for being vapid, unoriginal and flaccidly subversive. The piece was clearly a polemic, to which Sean Orr at Beyond Robson made a reasonable defence, noting that a lot of so-called hipsters are socially conscious, politically active, and just normal, creative people who happen to have an appreciation of style. He also noted that counter-culture has always been co-opted by shallow fashionistas who like it for the look, and these types are the real target of the Adbusters piece, though it's not mentioned outright.
Perhaps the point is that whitewashing an entire group of people is, well, kind of dumb, and that labels like hipster create inaccurate stereotypes.
That said, the Adbusters critique might be a pretty accurate assessment of the fashionistas. But it's not the point. Yes, it's hard to be authentic in a culture saturated with irony and overloaded with bullshit. I think we all knew that.
Who, me?
The hipster malaise -- riding a bike, making arts and crafts, feeling superior for thinking you haven't sold out -- stems from the frustration of genuine-identitylessness. But latching onto the mores of the underprivileged is just as misguided as driving a blinged out Benz and wearing diamond grills.
I don't know, maybe I'm a hipster. I have shaggy hair, I wear hoodies almost exclusively, and I ride an old bike. I even wrote an article in these pages a few years ago extolling the virtues of legions as watering holes for young people. But now whenever I go to a karaoke night at the Main Street Anavets -- inevitably teeming with deep v-necks, oversized summer scarves and fluorescent checkered vans -- I can't help but wonder what the handful of regulars think. Did they have any say?
Related Tyee stories:
- Be Nice to the 'Creative Class'!
Academic star Richard Florida says cities must pander to flighty creative types. There goes the neighbourhood? - Clothes Make the Me
So who's making my personal statement fashion? - 'Heavy! Hard!' and Hip
Urban curling. Ironically, I'm sensing a new way of life.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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- Skating into 2012, More Resolutions
- Glaciers, BC Hydro's Melting 'Batteries'
35
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seanorr
3 years ago
Was there a choice?
Thanks for the props Rob. I'd just like to offer one more opinion on the matter; that those bars weren't chosen for their working class irony, but rather a dearth of local venues, in Vancouver at least, for these vacant, bored, youth to gather. Also, they don't charge you 3 grand to throw a gig there.
jimmy_laroux
3 years ago
seanorr: Morning Brew kicks
seanorr:
Morning Brew kicks a$$. Keep up the good work. And the sarcasm :)
jimmy_laroux
3 years ago
Not sure I follow...
How do "scenesters" cause "Vancouver's growing wealth disparity"?
anarcho
3 years ago
True in part but...
As someone whose "hipster" creds go back to the Beats of the early 1960's, I take offense at the idea that we move to poor parts of town because poverty is "cool." Sorry, but we move there because rents are cheap. Cheap rent means you can live cheaply. Living cheaply means you don't have to be a wage slave as much as other folks and devote more of your time to art, literature, music, study etc. But it is true that wherever we go, the wealthy but uncultured tend to follow and gentrify the place. The West End was once beatnik ville back about 1960, then it became high rises.Kits was hippy-land, then yuppie ville. The Drive... well, you know... Don't know the answer other than vandalizing BMW's...
AMP
3 years ago
Pretending to cross-over...
Anyone who has lived with someone who was poor in the depression era will note some startling things. It's the habits of someone was was REALLY poor.
I still remember as a young girl watching my mother (a baby boomer) try to stop my father from rescuing an etterly inedible banana from the garbage. "There's still some good here!" he said, and he showed her the few non-rotten bits. We were living in a 3 story house at the time, and he was a doctor.
All my life I never wanted all that stuff, never wanted a 3 story house. But over the years of living a minimal life-style, riding my bike, wearing recycled clothes to avoid materialism, choosing bad paying jobs with ideologies I loved, I was never that poor. I had friends who were, or atleast I thought.
I think I aspired towards ideologies of simplicity. Simplicity is not poverty. That is the difference.
Now when I look at the realities we are facing with peak oil, I realize that my life now is a picnic in comparison both with people who are acutally broke, and with our lives in the future.
We need to take a long, hard look at what not having enough really means, and also what bounty truly is.
proflex4ever
3 years ago
Typical whiteboy drivel
Really...is this the best for a topic you can come up with?? being a hipster in Vancouver???Send me a dispatch from Barcelona, Melbourne, Vienna, or NYC. But spilling tears in yer beer over the demise of Kits.....how very provincial of you lad......Don't ya think you could write about something else that may have a a bit more merit than to a tiny portion of privileged, disaffected youth??
Come on TYEE, fill your site up with provocative articles that cause the reader to seek change [EDITED. -MODERATOR.].
AMP
3 years ago
bad sign...
And I guess if my closest image is one from 30s... well, that's not saying much for my awareness, is it??
Stump
3 years ago
hating hipsters
I like hipsters. Sure, I like to make fun of them too, but I'll take hipsters on fixies over loogans with loud trucks in my neighbourhood any day.
If the pretense of poverty gets a few hipsters thinking about the reality of the real thing, how is that bad?
The haters need to take the onion off their belt, crack open their high-school yearbook and reminisce about the self-absorption and fashion disasters of their navel-gazing youth. It was Corey Hart hair and bland synth-pop in my time... about as outre as one could get in middle-class Vancouver Island in the 80's (being a punk looked like more fun, but was more likely to result in an ass-kicking).
No doubt this article or a variation on it has been written before. Just substitute Beat, or Hippie, or Punk, or Flapper, or Greaser, or whatever by which label Roman youth differentiated themselves. but hey, what does that tell you? We're all guilty of the youthful misapprehension we've cracked the Rosetta Stone of cool.
As to what the regulars think... hard to say. Maybe, "I hope they don't drive up the price of a pint, but I like being able to look at a pretty girl in here for a change, even if she has facial piercings and purple hair."
bob the cat
3 years ago
hepcats digging it
like..theres no.. like hip dilemma man..you just walk around and try to dig it.
bob the cat
3 years ago
like a clarification
like digging it as in experiencing
as opposed to like sandbox
Rhea
3 years ago
Is the Tyee channelling the Georgia Straight now?
This isn't aimed particularly at this article...it's more about the general drift of the Tyee content in the last 6 months. I originally started reading the Tyee because it offered in-depth, thoughtful coverage of important BC issues that weren't getting play in the mainstream media. Now I check in maybe once a week, and read almost nothing on the site because the editors seem to have decided to stop covering news in favour of fluffy "lifestyle" articles. Yawn.
This article and others like it are the kind of self-satisfied and useless puff pieces I'd expect to see in a rag like the free papers they hand out on transit, or in the Georgia Straight. I've stopped recommending the Tyee to others as a news site...there's so little value in it now. If I wanted the kind of articles you're publishing, I'd go buy pop magazines or read somebody's blog.
ThePosse
3 years ago
Well said Rhea!!
Whew!!
Thanks Rhea!
I thought it was just me...lol
I joined almost 5 months ago and liked the journalism here, at first, but then started noticing a sudden shift.
Glad you pointed that out.
Unfortunately, by coincidence, it started around the time I had sent the Tyee some information that could have put them on the scent of a story with grit. They didn't have to cover it from my angle, but could have touched on any aspect, there was a distinct reek of corruption emanating from Victoria regarding this industry.From any angle they would have had a story.
It concerned a construction industry that killed a number of innocent people and put many lives at risk. It employees many people but Canwest, CTV and CBC are all trying to sweep this story under the carpet.
Even before I spoke with Canwest I spoke to one of their lawyers to make sure there were no obstacles so they could cover the story.
From: (ThePosse)
To: info(at)farris.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 1:28 PM
Subject: ATT Farris RE: Robert Anderson
> ATT: Farris
> I spoke briefly with Mr. R. Anderson >today
Believe, you, me,the info I have is a major story and Tyee had access to it.
Look at the leaky condo stats here in BC, only half have been identified with many more to come. This industry is no different.
So what gives!? Bill Goode on CKNW has stooped to covering bear poop and binsters while crime by hand gun and knives threatens children and elderly,meanwhile the police taser anyone who inadvertently gets in the way.
No news there. Business as usual.
alive
3 years ago
I second the motion
the Tyee tries too hard to be a venue for "arts and farts"!
Was it not for individual posters breaking the treads and starting new and more interesting subjects, this would no longer be worth the effort to bring on the screen.
Like what is this story all about, is it news that neighbourhoods change?
Is it news that poorer people gets pushed out of areas that used to be rundown?
We have an all-time crooked government here, and its dirty business cannot be overexposed!
So get with it, or become another fluff media outlet.
Yammer
3 years ago
Strength in mixing
Culture, like water, is mutable and tends to find its own level. Of course there is a clash of cultures, classes, perspectives when one group moves into an area populated by a different group. But in the long run, it is a good thing to mix the groups. What would Kitsilano be without the Naam? And without yuppie incomes, who could afford to eat there?
I wonder, however, about hipsters taking over legions for drinking. Does that really happen? Doesn't seem very respectful. Surely veterans wanted to have a club for veterans. But I suppose they could always institute private memberships (if that isn't illegal, in our egalitarian society).
Chris Bouris
3 years ago
news worthiness
I thought it was a good article; quite reasoned actually - it calls to question the actions of a demographic that is indeed very prevalent in our society. The article invites, with a "non F-Y, you suck" style, for individuals within a particular demographic (and those who are not) to maybe consider a deeper reality check on how they attend their part of community.
I find the cynical diatribe of some of the commentary here disappointing. It appears from some of the posts that so-called hipsters are not their particular demographic. They're not mine either. Gasp; the sky must be falling down.
Maybe it's not all about you, and not all about me, or what we deem newsworthy.
It's not a particular news site's responsibility to write stories for you or me, on our terms.
One can always submit stories.
One can even consider the (very new age and hip) practice of not blaming the editors for not accepting a particular one. Blame has been done - overly - and it's not news.
Inspire and you will find an audience.
Thanks for the article.
ME2
3 years ago
perspectives
Having previously posted comments similar to yours, Rhea, I've since accepted that other people have interests different than mine and that the deadly seriousness of most of the Tyee content can wear a bit thin.
Moreover, if tongue-in-cheek articles such as the one above can provoke insightful comments such as Stumps, I'm all for them :
"We're all guilty of the youthful misapprehension we've cracked the Rosetta Stone of cool."
Beautiful. And so was bob the cat's :
"like..theres no.. like hip dilemma man..you just walk around and try to dig it.
Clarinetist Artie Shaw described singer Bing Crosby as "the first hip white person born in the United States."[2]
Bing Crosby "hip"?..."cool"?, but of course he was, long before he became known only for button-down vests and White Christmas.
But knowing that is unlikely to be of the slightest interest to the tire-biters - boom-box - wide ovals crowd.
Moat
3 years ago
Whoa! Can we not have different flavours here?
a commenter wrote:
I am a little surprised at the negativity towards a few recent articles. I don't email the "Globe and Mail" to complain that they are covering golf, a sport that I have very little interest in.
If a radio station plays a song we dislike, do we call and complain?
Not every article is going to be... "CAMPBELL SCAMS BC VOTERS AGAIN - JAMES SILENT ON ISSUE".
Lighten up people.
Keep up with the mix. I like it.
I did not care for the "hipster" term, but the theme of this article got me reflecting and thinking of my own neighborhood.... as well as my age.
alive
3 years ago
about filler articles
While I do not fit the description:" tire-biters - boom-box - wide ovals crowd", I must admit that it is of little interest what some pop-idol said, at one time, ages ago.
What is important to me is that this was one of the few places where serious subjects were featured and discussed.
Now, I can accept that the Tyee at times need a "filler-piece" such as this, but for heavens sake every weekend we are stuck with a fluff piece to be front and centre for several days, what kind of a message is that?
As we know,late friday afternoon is when the government drops news they want buried, would it not be appropriate if this site was there to catch it while it is fresh?
Or is there a provision that editors must have the weekend off, unlike more ordinary wage slaves who has to work when it is needed?
wcullen
3 years ago
Perspective
Having come from the proverbial 'wrong side of the tracks', I'd like to present an 'inside', non-polemical, and mostly attitude-free, perspective on slumming it.
It's a catch-22 to be sure. I agree with the idea that there is something to learn from such experiences by those who want to learn; who are acting out of empathy, or who walk into it for the cool yet wander out with a greater understanding of their reality.
One ingredient is almost always missing from this recipe though: when people 'slum it' they are rarely actually in the position of having no options and, thus, no hope. Those slumming it usually have somewhere to turn for help; usually have options; and, almost exclusively, know they can and will leave it. The same cannot be said for denizens. More importantly, until you have actually been in such a state-of-being--until you have felt a deep sense of despair and felt it erode your sense of self-worth-- you will not walk away with their experience as such.
How does your presence affect them one reader asked? Well, they can spot you a mile away and they've seen dozens of you before (and know they'll see dozens after). And they so crave dignity that every time you come down only but a few will continue to entertain you. The effect of that on them/us is that they are constantly reminded of the fact that they don't have much to turn to, they don't have many options, and that they probably won't get out of there. A rep from that other place is sitting right infront of them usually telling them about how 'real' the experience is. Rather ironic, if it didn't hurt so much.
Kerouac is, at least in part, responsible for the romanticising of this life; the allure of the grittiness of the other side of the tracks; of the 'real' experience to be gained by visiting (and I do mean visiting) it.
However, I find that, sadly but often, people return to their waiting affluence without a lesson-learned. Worse, quite often they return with very definitive middle-class attitudes (think the Protestant work ethic type). What their experience seems to entitle them to is not empathy (not even sympathy), but an I-was-there-so-I-know argument.
In a minor rebuttal to Rob Peters I would add that if all these hipsters who've slummed it do is discuss how rough, tough, and real it was and are not doing something about it then they have only words, not deeds. I admit that listening to someone who is not on about locals around the Balmoral just having to 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps' is more pleasant than the "Look, I lived down there, I know" argument. However, in the end, and in my opinion, if you don't help, you are hindering (helping has its own unique issues).
I would merely ask that people who slum it not exaggerate that experience. Being the generation influenced by Dharma Bums, I believe people need to find their own way. However, share in experiences, but don't confuse your experience with theirs.
Food for thought...
Bobby Peru
3 years ago
Vancouver- Home of No Funsters, Unhipsters
Pure, unfiltered sour grapes are all I can smell in this piece by someone who doesn't understand the root of the problems affecting the Downtown Eastside. And doesn't understand youth culture and simply can't take it easy.
All culture is a recycled distillation of previous and other cultures. Just let the kids have their harmless fun searching for a new identity. Out of it will emerge something creative. If you have a problem with the problems with parties at the Waldorf and other aged Hastings hotels then why don't you tell the landlords to stop renting it to hipsters?
Who is being displaced? Poor homeless people who can't afford to party? Should we accommodate them for your conscience's sake? Of course landlords love renting out the Waldorf to hipsters- it's profitable.
Ultimately, the Downtown Eastside's blight will be solved by natural economic forces. Hipsters will eventually live there and demand and pay up for apartments. It'll become even more expensive for the government to provide free housing down there. Ultimately the homeless will be forced out to the suburbs.
It's precisely these kind of provincial attitudes full of moralism that prevent Vancouver from being as vibrant as cities like NY, Austin and San Francisco.
alive
3 years ago
provincial v/s capitalistic
You are correct Bobby Peru, that is how it has evolved so far, in spite of protests.
That is great if you are not one of the poor displaced people!
They can move to the suburbs and eventually end up in some abandoned mining town up north, right?
The fact that they, more than anyone depend on qualified medical assistance is not "our" problem, right?
What you are spouting is a capitalistic attitude, winner takes all!
Let us just hope that your future is safe!
bob the cat
3 years ago
wcullen
yes so right on wc...sort of like Jim Morrison having to die in the bathtub in Paris to be taken seriously as a poet...or Janice J. a legitimate blues artist.
" those that would be junkies for the sad glamour it entails"
Very good piece wc and definitely solid food for thought.
gassyandy
3 years ago
right on the mark
Does anybody remember Columbia street in
New Westminster?
What happened to Slops cafe (the pacific)
and the all the old sro's that used to exist
back in the 70's, remember Queensbouro
when you could cruise the grassy back lanes
with a case of beer?
What happened?
The same is going on right now in Gastown
and the unit block of Hastings!
Where will they go next?
Perhaps they will take over the drive!!!
ME2
3 years ago
homelessness
Bobby Peru and alive are both correct in their views of the status quo concerning homelessness.
What I'd like to know, then, is whether there is a large modern city today that does NOT have this problem, and if so, how it was solved.
G West
3 years ago
Addressing the problem - and making progress
http://www.winnipegsun.com/News/Columnists/Mohan_John/2008/07/16/6171371-sun.html
Bobby Peru
3 years ago
The Politics of Political Correctness
What makes Vancouver the 'no fun' town and why we can't confront and solve our problems is this hopeless culture of political correctness that we have cast upon ourselves. It suffocates all social discourse and prevents us from laughing at, addressing and critically attacking our problems.
Like homelessness and the hipsters who live, socialize and party in the Downtown East Side. Political forces love nothing more than perpetuating the homeless problem as a wedge for complete social and political change. That there are other equally important priorities for government eludes them. That, it is too expensive to solve the homeless problem while maintaining the slum we call downtown east side. Most Vancouverites plan their driving route to avoid this blight.
Of course there are slums and homeless in every Canadian and American city. It's just that they're in outerlying, less obvious and nice sides of town and out of the way of tourist attractions. Vancouver's left just loves its poverty pimping and isn't interested in real solutions. Like redeveloping the downtown east side and scattering the homeless all over town and the suburbs. That is what happens when economic forces finally have their way.
So why pick on the young people who are trying to do their own thing? Why should they be so sensitive to the situation and what are they being sensitive to? You can't accomplish anything meaningful in art, business or invention if you try to please everyone.
What's wrong with them holding raves, parties and concerts at the Waldorf? If the landlords didn't rent it to them what else would be done with the space? It's not as if the homeless were getting together and sponsoring a rave. Where is the displacement?
The Vancouver lefties always find a pathetic excuse to not have fun. Like somebody is being screwed or deprived or exploited while you're having fun. When the Waldorf rents out their hall to a hipster party, the income allows them to keep the Waldorf going, providing a real social service.
G West
3 years ago
This is baloney
Vancouver's left just loves its poverty pimping and isn't interested in real solutions. Like redeveloping the downtown east side and scattering the homeless all over town and the suburbs. That is what happens when economic forces finally have their way.
As you well know, to suggest that the left - which has only been in power for 13 years in more than the last hundred in this province (even less, arguably, in Vancouver) has anything to do with perpetuating the problems of the disconnect between power and real need in this city is the most egregious political correctness I've every seen.
The fact of the matter is that the neocons who form the support structure behind the corruption that is both Vancouver and provincial politics like to perpetuate that myth.
It is nothing but a myth and those who continue to tell that same story are doing little more than telling stories about the imaginary boogiemen that people their dreams.
bob the cat
3 years ago
all over the place
Dude do you think anybody really wants that?
Without a ward system the N.P.A. folks have successfully and very craftily kept it all contained and ghettoized mostly in the one area and like you say one can easily avoid it once you know the boundaries.
The Narcotics Squad used to stake out the Plaza cafe where the hub of the heroin dealing action was with telescopes from hotels across the street. They knew who was comin` and goin`..who was buying and who was selling and where it was going. They wanted to keep it contained and under a certain level of control...that is... not being where it might bother the decent hard working fun loving folk on the West side and Kerrisdale, Point Grey etc. the `burbs dude the `burbs.
bob the cat
3 years ago
score
After you scored your cap at the Plaza you could hit the drugstore for a "works".
Just put down fifty cents and ask the Pharmacist for a kit...in a nice little plain white envelope you got a bottle cap
( to cook your shit in) an eyedropper, ( to affix a needle to the open end..using a cigarette paper as a gasket . A size if I remember correctly 23 stainless needle ..or maybe it was a 26.
wacqueline
3 years ago
Good reality check
I'm not sure how this article qualifies as fluff. I read it as an apt and compelling exploration of the hypocrisy that runs rampant in many subcultures (punk, goth, etc.) where its members will misguidedly bill themselves as morally superior to the Man that they like to say they fight. And if all the ruffled feathers over the hipster argument of late is any indication, this strikes a nerve with a lot of people and merits good discussion.
Also, coming down on the Tyee as a new purveyor of media crapola whose wilds you originally tried to escape by reading this publication is kind of naive. There is no perfect media outlet now, nor has there ever been, so stop getting so choked up when something causes you to 'lose faith' in the media. People are human. And humans make the press. So, like, give peace a chance.
I liked this article, Rob.
Moonbug
3 years ago
young and poor in Vancouver
I don't know very many rich hipsters in Vancouver, but I do know a lot of hipsters.
I think that this article is written from the vantage point of someone who actually has no clue how the people who are so called "slumming it" actually live, or what their socio-economic status is.
You wanna know why young people go to places like the Balmoral? Because they can afford it. What do you think these hipsters do, walk around with their parent's credit cards, buying whatever they please?
What sort of jobs do you think they have? I'll tell you, they work for painting companies that rip off students, they are barista's and store clerks... they work in call centers. They are not rich. Sure, they are not slumped in a alleyway nodding off their latest hit of heroin, but that doesn't make them invaders of Canada's poorest postal code.
You know what? I like going to shitty diners... because they are relaxed and affordable. I wear ratty clothes because who can afford to buy nice new crap all the time? I shop at thrift stores because that is what I can afford.
I don't live in Vancouver, but I can tell you, when I did, I was poor as dirt. I've even spent a few weeks at powell place, a women's shelter... and the only apartment of my own I ever rented was at keefer and gore. I'll tell you, it wasn't because I wanted to slum it. Cockroaches aren't cool. I did it because there is no where else in all of frigging vancouver that a person working for the minimum wage can afford.
Lots of those 'hipsters' you bewail at the Waldorf lived in a place just a few blocks away... they had up to 17 people living in that one house.
Maybe you, the author, are one of the slummers, or rich kids pretending to be poor... but I saw the beginning of what is now called hipster culture in vancouver, and it wasn't built by kids who have college funds.
The kids who built it rode bikes because they couldn't afford bus fare. They dumpster dive so that they could afford to do something besides pay rent and eat. Everyone deserves some leisure... and those punk-hipster kids earned their fun, their cheap pints at the waldorf, by scavenging the waste of others and finding ways to get around the horrific costs of living in a city that offers next to no opportunities for those that don't have parents to pay for university.
Moat
3 years ago
Moonbug! Good perspective, but a a bit harsh.
Ok, Moonbug... I do appreciate some of your comments. It is almost impossibly difficult now to maintain a job, live independently, and succeed at university without getting a break somewhere - either through employment, living arrangements, or being intellectually gifted - and live in Vancouver. Something has to give. This is where living creatively comes into play.
But here is where I start getting confused when you discuss affordability vs "slumming it"....
Moonbug wrote:
Ok, if each person scrapes up $200 bucks for living, you can come up with $3400. $3400 will get you pretty nice and large digs in Vancouver... not a flophouse (unless you want it to become one). I guess the key is finding a landlord that would allow that or who would turn a blind eye.
Sounds like a lifestyle choice to me, not a matter of simple economics.
I do see where you take issue with the author, especially when he refers to "ex-middle class suburbanites" as part of the "hipster scene". But this is all part of defining the issue.
Good discussion. Good article.
BenParsons
3 years ago
explantion
Hipsters made poverty cool so they dont have to compete in normal society. These are people that are ultimately insecure about their own abilities, intellectual, social or otherwise, so they drop out of the race, get a job at an organic coffee shop, and tell themselves that this is a fulfilling lifestyle.
ME2
3 years ago
education
One doesn't have to waste money on university to become a psychoanylyst, just read the TYEE.
finalgirl
3 years ago
interesting
I liked this article though I definitely agree that we should avoid making gross generalizations about anyone who appears to fit the 'hipster' model. that gets us nowhere. sure, I find the hipster aesthetic severely aggravating, yet I came of age during the 'grunge era' and for anyone who cares to remember, it was a bit of an embarrassment (though in many ways it was more about anti-aesthetics). at least it was a way for lower income kids to be 'stylish' without spending a fortune.
it's difficult nowadays for any subculture to flourish because everything is so quickly commodified, repackaged and overpriced for mass consumption and anything that was remotely subversive and/or revolutionary about 'hipsters' has been completely sucked away by the corporate machine. 'Hipster' has just become another marketing label, a lifestyle choice that can be bought and worn as a marker of one's status or what have you - we live in such an image conscious society now.
I appreciated very much your comments about 'irony' because this has become a noticeable and annoying problem to me that needs to be addressed. I don't see how anyone learns anything from wearing their clothes or hair in an ironic matter (i.e., mulletts), or throwing 'white trash' parties, other than finding another way to justify discrimination and prejudice at the expense of groups of people who do not always have control over their life circumstances. sorry, but that is far from 'funny', 'hip', or 'cool'! I'm starting to think irony is truly dead.