Jason Cree said,

April 30, 2007 @ 7:43 am

Hipsters are the lowest quality of interesting people out there. They are mindless, follow-the-herd, wannbies, similar to the trailer-trash of the intellectual world. And they’re an infection spreading throughout Brooklyn. Not just Williamsburg, but everywhere. They’re lower than lipstick lesbians, UES-via-CT blonds slumming it in the Village, and Al Sharpton-esque hypocrites. Brooklyn should be ashamed for letting these suburbanites come in and ruining that Bklyn has been for generations…

jh-r. said,

April 30, 2007 @ 8:31 pm

The hipster is a different social type. You would be hard pressed to find someone who would self-identify as a hipster, though many it seems yearn for the objects to make one able to be classified as one.
Perhaps rather than asking if brooklyn is the new stomping ground, or if brooklyn=hipster the question should be to asked for someone to self proclaim themselves. Why? This might help to clarify the new suburban hipsters that are transforming the urban environment or perhaps, post-urban environment of brooklyn.
Hipsters claim everything material from every marginalized group out there, from property for their housing to androgynous clothing from queers.

Boomberg said,

April 30, 2007 @ 9:09 pm

Hey, I’m a hipster, lay off.

mike said,

April 30, 2007 @ 11:58 pm

you make good points alex b. but isn’t that what a city is defined by? I mean, New York was a very different place before the Irish came here and then they moved into neighborhoods and completely changed them, then by the 50’s moved out to the ‘burbs and left the neighborhood entirely different from when they came.

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”

John said,

May 1, 2007 @ 12:54 am

Wow Alex, I do believe that’s the most cogent and well reasoned response as to why I loathe hipsters I’ve ever read. Get out of my head!!

unhip native said,

May 1, 2007 @ 9:19 am

Alex B and Mike present perhaps the most lucid commentary on a blog in recent memory. Hipsters are not loathesome for their tastes, origin, background or counter-culture bent. As Mike points out, this city and its character (as well as its distinctive Neuw Yawk accent that is fading but otherwise traceable to mixing of languages and accents of years’ past) is a product of its variety and shifting composition. Some blame that for what is wrong with the city (ruined at one time or another by influx of poor Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, hispanics, etc.); others recognize it for the diversity that defines us.

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.

Blurhn? said,

May 1, 2007 @ 11:07 am

People who hate hipsters for “being from the ‘burbs’ are the most likely people who are nowhere near here.

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.

Talya O. said,

May 1, 2007 @ 11:39 am

I am a working professional in the heart of Williamsburgh. I ride the L train to Bedford, which is where they all seem to get off in herds. Here are my questions rather than assuming criticisms?

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?

Lee said,

May 1, 2007 @ 1:29 pm

I don’t get why there’s always ruckus surrounding the word hipster. It’s just a convenient way to describe a certain group of like-minded individuals. Everyone is part of some group whether they want to be or not, because everyone has preferences and people will naturally gravitate towards their own preferences.

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.

Talya O. said,

May 1, 2007 @ 4:48 pm

Did someone actually write the statistics that Brooklyn is not all white?

We knew that for a while buddy.

santa said,

May 1, 2007 @ 11:58 pm

damn punks

Fidel Gastro said,

May 2, 2007 @ 3:25 pm

What’s orange and looks good on hipsters?

Fire

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

Hatta, Shemagh, Kuffiyah, Keffiyeh, uh . . . Hipsters are Dead! « Mikey Wally said,

April 7, 2008 @ 8:57 pm

[...] From the Daily Slope jared says, hipster don’t gentrify, a booming real estate market does. don’t blame kids who like to dance and dress silly for raising rents, blame free market speculation. the punks/hipsters of the mid 70s didn’t turn the east village/les into a frat boy heaven, frat boys, landlords, and investors did. its also important to look at why these areas were depressed in the first place - robert moses and slum clearance, white flight, abortion being illegal, the cia and the crack industry, banks that refused to lend to certain areas, etc [...]