WTF: The Hipsters of Lichtenberg
Here are some excerpts from my imaginary log:
Journal 1. Section h,i,p
Hipster no. 78 turned up dead in front of NP Markt today. Moments before his collapse, he was seen rummaging through the reduced bins in the aforementioned supermarket. He was heard remarking that they were ‘very lifelike’, as if under the misconception that he was in some sort of antikmarkt and/or art installation. He dug out a bottle of gherkins that had expired in 1988, bought them and proceeded to go outside and take a selfy of him consuming one. After posting the image to Facebook, he went into convulsions and died within minutes, of a severe case of botulism.
Journal 2. Sections s,t,e,r, s
Hipster no. 32 was involved in an altercation with a Trabant vehicle today. He saw the Trabant coming down Weitlingstrasse and leapt in front of it to take photos on his iPhone 25. Witnesses describe him as laughing and calling out, “Photobomb, bitches!” He seems to have believed that the car’s occupant, who was sporting a mullet and oversized pink football jacket at the time, was a period actor in a film. As a result he and the Trabant collided – with tragic results. Hipster no. 32 walked away with a few minor scrapes and bruises but the Trabant was not so lucky: its front fender was utterly crushed on impact with the hipster’s beard.
Hipsters, generally speaking, are people who seem to have teetering piles of zany, mismatched clothes and accessories laying around their funky conversion lofts. Hence why they have to be blase about how to mix and match it all: putting all that tat together in new, original ensembles each day takes time. Being a hipster means having so much money, so much stuff, that even just putting clothes on each day is an exhausting chore. All those wardrobe doors and drawers to open: it’s a killer workout, you know.
Clive Martin of Vice Magazine once wrote that hipsters are now so normalized that they can’t be ridiculed, anymore. I totally agree with that… but I don’t agree with his inference that it’s too difficult to “wage war on a subculture that defines itself through constant revision.” Subculture? Ex-squeeze me? Hipsters can’t be a subculture because, by definition, they are being exactly what all mainstream Westerners aspire to be: voracious consumers.
A hipster is basically any person who has spent so much time shopping, they’ve managed to cycle through every fashion trend ever created in their bid to stay ahead of the curve. This speaks to an identity that’s entirely bound up in stuff, inseparable from it, and an unresolved crisis that is played out in shops strewn with hastily tried on clothing (I’m looking at you, Primark). So many cast-off shells that will never find a perfect fit.
Hipsters may be looking in the wrong place for their identity (I’m looking at you, EastSide mall) but does that really make them so different from anybody else these days? Hasn’t everyone at some point thought, ‘Once I’ve saved up, I can finally (insert dream here)‘. I know I have. I have to remind myself to be it instead of dreaming it almost every day. It’s easy to forget when every piece of advertising space is owned by companies trying persuade you 24/7 that saving up and spending are prerequisites to existing.
Still, whenever I go into the store to buy anything – say, a pair of shades – they invariably look like hipster shades. Same thing goes for trousers. And socks. To get something non-hipster, I’d probably have to go to a designer store and spend even more money… which would be even more of a ‘hipster’ thing to do. So, it seems like being a hipster is less of a conscious choice and more of an unavoidable expression of a commercial philosophy which shapes every point of sale: never-ending consumption. We’re now even expected to buy a whole, new Christmas uniform each year, wear it once and then toss it. Being a hipster is not about the end product, it’s the process of attaining it; it’s a life that is well spent by… well… spending.
Wherever I go, I can’t escape this ‘subcultural’ trend. I also can’t escape the sneaking suspicion that I’m reaching for those retro eighties shades, not because they’re everywhere and cheap but because, on some level, I wish I could afford to be as conspicuous about my consumption as those flipping hipsters are. I am pretty sure I don’t wish that, although I do wonder how long that state of affairs will last when the largest ‘subculture’ in the West around revolves entirely around shopping.
Thoughts?
Originally published in 2013. Relevant today.
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