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Hipster (1940s subculture)

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A hipster is a person who is strongly associated with a subculture that has been deemed "hip", or "hep." The term was used originally in the 1940s and 1950s to describe aficionados of jazz, and it eventually described many members of the Beat Generation, but its usage declined in the 1960s, with the advent of hippies. Since the mid 1990s, the word "hipster" has been redefined to refer to members of a different subculture. Modern hipsters are those devoted to ironic retro fashions, indie music and film, alternative comics, and other forms of expression outside the mainstream.

More generally, trendsetters in fashion are sometimes called hipsters, though this use is distinct from the hipster subculture, whose fashion sensibilities are specific and not usually destined for the mainstream.

Original hipsters

In the purest sense, the original hipsters were the hip, mostly black performers of jazz and swing music in the 1940s and 1950s, at a time when "hip" music was equated with African-American-originated forms of musical expression.

Although hipsters could be black or white, the term later and more predominantly came to be used to refer to whites who were aficionados of the music, groupies and members of the so-called Bohemian set, or Beat Generation. Because the jazz scene had long been integrated, hipster culture, too, became integrated before much of the rest of society. The use of the term "hipster" for whites who had an affinity for the avant-garde and for African-American culture was popularized in Norman Mailer's 1956 book The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster. Hipsters sometimes were referred to as beatniks, a combination of "beat" and "nik," a Yiddish suffix meaning "person."

Hipsters were cool. That is, they exhibited a mellow, laid-back attitude that is still called hip. Many also were users and popularizers of recreational drugs, particularly marijuana, amphetamines, and to some extent heroin, which was epidemic for a time among bebop musicians such as Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.

Hipster lingo

Many terms in the hipster argot, such as hip, kicks, square and dig continue to be used in their hipster meanings, though often with a certain level of self-conscious irony attached. Cool has entered the everyday speech of many English speakers, and become so common, it is rarely thought of as a word associated with a particular hipster aesthetic.

An even earlier term for hipster was gate, used because gates swing. Gate, Jim, and Jackson were used in place of regular names in expressions like "Hold on, Jim" and "Solid, Jackson." Hipsters were also known as hepcats, "hep" being an earlier form of the word "hip". Cat/Kat was used to mean "person"; so a hip kat, or hepcat, is a person who is current and up-to-date. However, "Hippie" was a "Beatnik term"; meaning "Not Hip Enough to be Hip" or "Not hip enough to be a real Beatnik".

When Beatnik language was the fad, the stereotypical New York hipster, or bohemian, wore a beret, dressed frequently in black, smoked mentholated Kool cigarettes, wore sunglasses even after sundown, and frequented jazz clubs and beat poetry coffeehouses and cafés in the Village. Many hipster terms generally fell out of use in mainstream, white society with the changing of styles and the coming of hippies in the 1960s, but have remained in use in the African-American community, where they were neither in nor out of fashion, but simply part of the traditional lexicon.

While attempts have been made to link the etymologies of hip, cat and dig with Wolof, a West African language, this remains a subject of debate among linguists, and is not widely accepted [1] [2].

Hipsters come lately

Since the late 1990s, the word hipster has resurfaced as a term to describe performers and devotees of indie rock, intelligent dance music, and related styles of music, and those who follow the associated fashions and tastes. Accessories of the modern hipster include Buddy Holly-style glasses, patchy facial hair (in the case of men), tattoos, and vintage clothing with patches and buttons bearing ironic messages.

Modern hipsters often follow or are involved with the local art and DJ scenes, and are often associated with independent film and alternative comics. Unlike previous generations of hipsters, they are rarely now associated with the jazz scene, though the term may have re-entered use as a result of the swing revival of the mid-1990s, which many current hipsters were associated with at the time.

As with any distinctive subculture, the hipster -- or at least the supposed hipster stereotype -- is sometimes a target of derision or satire, though, as the subculture is a fairly amorphous group that generally appreciates irony and self-deprecation, the audience is often as not the hipsters themselves. Robert Lanham's The Hipster Handbook affectionately lampoons the hipster cliche in its current incarnation. Numerous web sites also exist that less-affectionately express their authors' exasperation at hipster cliches. Many would argue that the term "hipster" itself has become mildly derisive, and it is seldom used as a label for self-identification, except in an ironic or self-deprecating way.

Hipster districts

Due to financial circumstances hipsters have often been forced to live in formerly unfashionable, often blighted neighborhoods in large cities; after wealthier middle-aged people (many of whom are former hipsters themselves) move into these areas and begin to gentrify them, hipsters often move on. As of this writing (October 2004), noted hipsters live in every major city in the world.

Their favorite districts in the United States include:

In the UK, the popular hipster places of dwelling include Hoxton in the Old East End of London who became the legendary Shoreditch Twats, satirised by Chris Morris in Nathan Barley, as well as the adjacent Bethnal Green. New Cross, around the Goldsmiths College area (also in London) is popular with hipsters, especially the local art-punk scene.

Canadian hipsters tend to congregate in The Plateau in Montreal, the Parkdale (Queen West) and College Street neighbourhoods in Toronto, around Chinguacousy Park in Brampton, and the Strathcona, mid-Main and Commercial Drive neighbourhoods in Vancouver.

Noted hipster districts in Australia include Fitzroy/Fitzroy North and Brunswick in Melbourne, Newtown and Darlinghurst in Sydney and Fortitude Valley in Brisbane.

In Germany, they tend to swing in Prenzlauer Berg, a district of Berlin, and the Schanzenviertel, a district of Hamburg. In Spain they gravitate, among other areas, towards the Chueca neighborhood in Madrid, and the Gracia neighborhood in Barcelona. And of course many parts of France, Italy, and Greece.

The most famous district for Japanese hipsters is Shibuya, Tokyo. Vancouver and New York are particularly noted as destinations for Japanese hipsters visiting or living in North America.

Famous hipsters

1940s and 1950s

For a comprehensive look at the Beat Generation of hipsters, see Beat Generation

1990 and beyond

This is a non-exhaustive list of a few well-known hipster artists and celebrities of the 1990s and 2000s. Where works or biographical information are cited, this should be read as they key points establishing the figures in hipster culture, and not as an exhaustive bio.

Quotations

  • "Carrying his language and his new philosophy like concealed weapons, the hipster set out to conquer the world." -- Partisan Review, 1948
  • "The hipster is man who's in the know, grasps everything, is alert." -- Mezz Mezzrow, Really the Blues


Hipster is also a fashion term from the early 1960s for trousers or a skirt that sits on the hips rather than the waist.

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