Williamsburg, I Love You, but You're Bringing Me Down

Listen, I know that the tirade about hipsters is a tired subject in modern journalism (once the Times covers skinny jeans[1] as a trend you know it has been buried in the ground and had its grave jumped upon), but living in the hub of the New York hipster scene I feel compelled to at least address the subject. My beef with the group of people who associate themselves with what can hardly be called a movement (considering there are no principles attached to the trends as there were with, say, original hippies or punk kids or even yuppies [if working a lot and making money can be called principles]) is not the oft-referenced claim that they are “posers” or phonies (if we’re going to get all Holden Caulfield about it). Honestly, I don’t give a shit. Don’t care. If you wanted to run around posing as a donkey with a hemp tail or a quail with a purple feather on your head, I would be offended just as much (read: not at all; although I would certainly be more amused at those two things than I am at dispassionate, bored twenty-somethings in loud clothing and ugly hats).

The main problem I have is not with the lack of principles displayed by these kids, it’s their lack of originality. I am honestly sick of having to see people file down the street, one after another, all in the same flannel shirt or stupid “vintage” boots, or oversized glasses, or overpriced, sweatshop-free lame’ somethingorother. Yes, it’s sort of vapid for me to complain about the aesthetics of this group when there are so many other issues with it outside of the sartorial realm[2], but I feel like this is one thing that hasn’t been addressed by countless of other complaining bloggers. I have a relatively humble level of knowledge about fashion (I guess more than most people considering I am at least partly in the business as a part-time photographer), but I was pretty sure that one thing I understood about it was that it was fickle and unapologetically un-accepting of the bland and already-been-done. Aren’t hipsters, by the nature of their definition, supposed to strive to be “hip” by trying to stay original and outdo one another in terms of quality of their outfits? Doesn’t all wearing the same thing go against everything they should be trying to do (which is, as even Merriam Webster knows⁶, to be “unusually aware of and interested in new and unconventional patterns”)?

Hipsters, though, from what I have seen in them thur magazine printy-thing-ma-bobs, are not embraced by the fashion world at-large. There are hardly any hipsters (in the Williamsburg proper sense) in Vogue (Chloë  Sevigny does not count; she was always weird and I ascribe that to her personality and not to the current fashion trends), and it is likely for that reason that hipsters indeed care only about feeding into a certain prescribed list of what one may wear (any stupidly high-waisted shorts from the 90s[3] that you were embarrassed to see your mother in when she dropped you off to second grade) or may not wear (anything velour, which is actually a decision that I can stand behind [sorry, Jersey]). Indeed, these are the kids who, when I went to high school with them, wore Abercrombie and Fitch and would scoff at a pair of Doc Martens or anything not polo and/or pink. American Apparel and Urban Outfitters, though not necessarily to blame for the epidemic (I get that they’re businesses and want to make money off of the people stupid enough to consistently frequent their overpriced racks[4]), are really just reincarnated versions of the previously safe shopping options from the 90s, the preppy crap of yore, so to speak.

Look, I get it; certain people use trends in order to hide behind their lack of originality or fear of straying from the herd[5]. I guess I can hypothetically stand behind something that will lessen people’s therapy costs, I just don’t want to be subjected to staring at it, and only it, every time I walk to my apartment. These kids are incorrectly dubbed hipsters considering the definition of the term[6]. I suggest a return to the foregone “scenester” or even “trendster,” or perhaps a complete riddance of the scene and a re-emergence of originality so that we don’t have to make up bullshit social terms and spend time complaining about them on our blogs. I mean, come on, I have a Black Lips concert to get to and something high-waisted and shiny to squeeze myself into. I don’t have time for this.