Tonight I Felt Like Defending Hipsters…(a Rant)

Hipster foodies are not necessarily people I would want to eat with. Even though I really don't know what a hipster is: I do know for a fact (insert sarcasm) that they are into every food trend, photograph their food a lot, review every meal on Yelp, and talk about food without really preparing it. They also eat out all the time and shop at organic markets so their maid can make some good ethnic food at home that their nanny will then feed to their kids while they are preparing their legal briefs for Exxon (both Hipster parents work of course). Someone help me out, there have to be a lot of stereotypes I am missing…oh, yeah, don't most of them live in NYC, especially Brooklyn?

With blanket sarcasm said, I don't hang around with hipsters (whoever they area) and all my ideas of them are plain and simply prejudice from what I hear from Anthony Bourdain and others -- I'm originally from North Dakota, the son of a farmer, and drank a lot of vodka. I am assuming I am not a hipster -- though maybe I am wrong.

But tonight, I saw some anti-hipster opinion that was equally repulsive (they were Australian btw). Food trucks were rich chefs doing a hipster thing riding the new trend (no understanding of how food trucks developed as inexpensive restaurant options in over regulated markets); expensive knives -- also hipster; any food that was moderately complex (read: not overly simple) was hipster; sous vide: hipster even though the French have been using if for a long time; learning about new food techniques in general -- hipster. It went on and on, anything new they shot down as hipster. In the end, they simply used the word, hipster, as a defense for when they stopped learning and didn't understand.

Food has a very large universe. Even my mother, who raised me cooking out of cans that were labeled Campbell's, is willing to try something new and will be interested in something new I tell her about. If I asked her what a hipster was, she wouldn't even know what I was talking about. No matter how comfortable I get with my cooking, I still look to try something new -- that is just me. And by the end of my talk with these ladies, at least one of them was convinced I was a hipster. Stay-at-home Dad, expensive knives, who talked on food forums such as this: all hipster crap in her mind. She even referred to talking on forums like this as 'blogging'.

So from now on when someone critiques 'hipsters', I am going to hold them to a standard: They have to define what it means to be a hipster. My guess is that they won't be able to do it remotely well, and it will quickly become clear that it is simply code to cover for something they don't feel comfortable with or understand.

I am sure there are many who share a different perspective, but tonight I am defending hipsters.

k.

 

Hi mate. Labels whatever they are, are a waste of time. You can call me a hipster anytime, I don't really care. It's just an excuse for narrow minded people no matter where they come from. It's the human condition I am afraid.

 

My favorite definition of hipster is anyone who uses the word hipster.

 

I like both of those answers.

k.

 

Anyone who eats soups decorated with Warhol paintings MUST be a hipster!

 

That made me laugh. Good one.

Btw, I just checked, you can still buy them on eBay. I remember seeing those throw-back cans at Target a few years ago.

k.

 

Aren't hipster's those things you wear over your shoulders to keep your pants up?

/confused

 

I work in hipster central- Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

I'm going to open a store that sells flannel shirts, tattoos, ironic beards, organic tobacco, and single speed brakeless bicycles. And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

 

I thought hipsters road Vespa's

 

Originally I took hipster to mean: A person who uses cultural knowledge superiority in lieu of financial affluence as a basis for self aggrandizement.

I think it was a reaction to college grads unable to find the rapid upward mobility their parents enjoyed due to the Great Recession. Now that the economy has been in recovery for a bit and the 'original hipsters' have aged enough to gain some traction in their careers the whole concept has been flipped. Because the internet now allows for the instant dissemination of fads many fads become large scale trends without any basis other than Internet hype and Pinterest pins. The new hipster is someone of any financial class who deigns themselves one of a select group that is able to see through the fad clutter to the trends that are actually impactful to the larger collective culture.

Of course, to be short, it is really somebody who cares way to much about what other people think of them and dedicates far to much energy toward judging the choices of others.

Drinky, you are not a hipster. You simply have good taste. Trashy people have a very hard time making a distinction between the two. But please do grow a beard.

 

You guys all forgot about the most important component. .......skinny jeans.
You gotta throw in giant basketball sized gauge earrings too.

 

D'oh! No chance of me coming a hipster any time soon

 

You don't have to wear them David! However, if you don't, you have to have your collection on display in your home*...framed, with a card explaining each pair.

 

After Toothpick's pictures caused me to mix up some biscuits & gravy, ALL my jeans are skinny jeans.

 

I hate when that happens.

 

Paying $80 + for a forgecraft on ebay.... Hipster

 

Someone sitting in Starbucks using their new iphone to check their twitter account must be a hipster. I forgot while wearing their skinny jeans!

 

\
After I recieved a pay it forward with one from Son. I paid it forward to a guy in need. Its so anti hipster. You've saved my life Huw

 

To me unboxing is way more hipster thing then all the skinny jeans in the world combined.

 

I've never met anyone really that was incredibly anti-hipster, but at the same time, I haven't really met anyone that was ultimately 'hipster'. Titles and characterizing in that manner is kind of dumb to me though. In a very real sense, I could be labeled a hipster by definition because I try to do most things differently - I'm always trying to be different.