Fire

(for those of you who said American Apparel V-Necks, go sit in a corner)

“Hipster” is a great scapegoat term, and in the eyes of whoever lived on your block before you did, you are a hipster.

We knew that for a while buddy.

I also don’t get why someone has to have been born in Brooklyn in order to be considered “authentic.” For one thing, it would be pretty hard to match it since the last census reported that at least 36% of the population in New York City is foreign born, and in some Brooklyn neighborhoods, it’s an even greater percentage.

I was born & raised in a suburb in the Midwest. Does that mean I have to stay there? I never liked it and I felt alienated. When I moved to NYC, and to Williamsburg Brooklyn almost 20 years ago, I finally felt HOME. When I moved here, I was a minority group but it was easy for me to find my social group because of things like similar ways of dressing, etc. But you know what? Everyone does this. Not just hipsters. That’s why I think some of this conversation is so simplistic.

PLUS, part of what makes NYC great is the joining together of all these people. And one of the biggest reasons I left my home state was that there wasn’t a climate to allow or support differences outside of (what I saw, anyway) a narrow band of acceptibility.

Now, if you walk down Bedford Ave it may feel like everyone there looks the same. That’s the heart of hipsterdom though. Everyone’s rocking their dirty white converse or vans and wearing ridiculous low-hanging tapered jeans that went out of style in the 80s. Hipsters may not self-identify as such, but they’re as homogenous a crowd as any in this city. On the other hand, I really don’t know of any so-called hipsters who are forking down hundreds of thousands of dollars for condos in the Burg. And if you’ve seen any of the real estate marketing, it’s not for this crowd. It’s for affluent professionals. I hate to be too judgmental or classist, but I don’t thing that hipsters (or their parents) really have that much earning power. So all the people who equate the condo buyers with hipsters are kind of off-base! It may be that parents are helping kids buy into the neighborhood, but from what I’ve seen the buyers aren’t hipsters.

Why do the majority of hipsters emit a low energy? Why do they not simply smile and carry on their individualness with a little zest and culture?

On that note, any “group” that associates being or atleast looking like they are simply carrying on the lull of life, why promote that kind of mundaneness?

Hipster ladies, MEN LIKE CURVES. I am not talking about J-Lo booty and Pam Anderson racks, but what about the hip-to-waist ratio that promotes healthy levels or hormone releases in the opposite sex. Pull up your pants, do some squats and be the ladies that you are.

I am getting off topic, but where is the CULTURE in all of this, rather than a “look” that feeds into a typified personality - skinny jeans, scarf, tight hoodie, dishevelled yet styled hair = def not the most conversational interesting person I will meet today.

Why be that?

most people on this board sound like abunch of old farts sitting on their front porch yelling at “those youngins”

also there are quite a few cliques inside the realm of “hipster” so many of these arguments are pretty damn silly.

Most of the people I grew up with in the “burbs” were born in Brooklyn (Greenpoint, WBURG, Sheepshead Bay, Bensonhurst). Did people bitch about the Brooklynites moving to the suburbs becuase NYC was dangerous? No. Who gives a rats ass.

So why bitch that people from the burbs are moving to Brooklyn now that it’s safe? If you’re not from around here, you won’t understand this dynamic. I guarentee 90% of the people who moan about HIPSTERS are from the very places they complain about the hipsters being from in the first place.

Also note: 1) Brooklyn has always been majority white. Don’t complain that the “white people are overtaking Brooklyn!” If anything, Brooklyn’s becoming less white. Who cares.

2) Hipsters do not raise rents or real estate prices. ever. If that were the case, like someone mentioned above, Williamsburg would’ve been gentrified in the early 90s when all the artists started moving there. No, it took a hot economic period and weak dollar (i.e., positive investment climate) to push prices up.

People use hipsters as a scapegoat, seeing “creative” people as the enemy (who really do nothing) and the men wearing suits and ties as the hardworking heroes (even though those are the real people who are pushing prices into oblivion).

The end.

Hipsters are loathesome because they try too hard to be something they are not. By and large, they are pocket-protector laden children of suburban accountants and librarians that seek refuge in some false cover of cool. It is like joining a gang. They wear the same colors, talk the same talk, and promote themselves as know-it-alls about a city they just found last year and will flee in favor of some subdivision in the suburbs next year. We all love to call them hipsters because they are anything but hip. I call them underemployed spoiled brats that are spending mommy’s money, all the while complaining about how expensive the city is made by those cursed yuppies (i.e., their parents). If you ask a hipster, change (i.e., them) and white collar workers (i.e., those of us that have lived here for 40 years) have ruined the city.

All that said, I agree with Mike. So what if I hate the hipsters. They are just the latest passing fad that perceive themselves to be uber cool. They will go they way of the Stork Club or Studio 54 like all other group you could call “hipsters” over the past 100 years. Yet, we welcome them all to the city. That is what makes this place so great.

It’s funny - the city always had kids from the suburbs moving in, but they adapted to the city and added to it (Lou Reed, Cindy Sherman, Walt Whitman etc…all from the burbs) This batch is like locusts, leaving expensive condos in their wake.

not to equate the hardship of irish (or insert any other immigrant community) with hipsters but the dynamic of a city is an ever-changing thing, and whether it is changed by poor famished Irish people or suburban kids who want to live the city life, it is a change nonetheless.

and for jason, isn’t the hegemonic american culture of mtv, SUV’s, american idol, and blind consumerism also wanna-be’s, follow the herd, and mindless? who cares what other people like. just because I don’t like american idol, it doesn’t mean I feel inclined to be a complete asshole to them because they do like it. what you’re saying is just like the bigots in the past who said the irish, italian, whatever, will ruin the city. they didn’t ruin it, they changed it, and they made new york what it is now. you obviously have no clue to the fact that this is a society, and whether you like it or not, it changes. brooklyn is not going to stay the same as it was “for generations” because of economic growth and so many other factors, so embrace the change or get out of the way. yes, it sucks the new york is turning into a suburban culture city, but the whole world is cyclical; new york will someday be dangerous and scary and shitty, just like the “good ole days”