What is a hipster?

Hipsters are hip to the ways of Babylon,
All know who is in charge around here,
Which is why they scorn so many others,
Chickens are the masters of acting indignant.​

 

hipsters are gay men who drink craft ale and eat gluten free brownies

 

I've been stranded by a rainstorm inside a trailer with eight adults who stood toe to toe and yelled at each other without pausing for breath for four hours. They had the time of their life and, how they did it I have no clue, but they heard almost every word the other person said, and were just competitive talkers. No accounting for taste, but I watched the TV instead. David Carradine, much quieter.

 

i was there and i disagree with your version of events

 

I knew my lying ways would get me into trouble some day.

 

OP craves negative attention. He lacks other kinds of attention and only knows how to get this kind. He's probably asking for it on the internet because he doesn't dare to get it 'in real life'. Not from strangers at least. He most likely bothers his close surroundings (parents) for it daily
Now he has found this place :-D

 

When in trouble, when in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout!
If that doesn't work, keep trying to figure it out,
Just laugh at the punch lines and the truth will come out.
Sooner or later, everyone either falls to the ground laughing,
Or on their knees, humbling themselves to the best of their ability.​

 

Hipsters originated from the post WWII jazz players.... first called hep cats then by time Chet Baker/Miles Davis were trumpeting along, were hipsters.... Term died out and has been revived to mean young urbanites on top of fashion, food, music trends. Well, what would be considered "cool" trends. Original hipsters were music icons and very few followed any fashion trends they set... they were not into making restaurants or designers big names.... Not happy with you referring to "pussies" as negative, nor gay as a bad thing. Gay covers as broad a ground as male. Your idea of masculine is not everybody's. Pussies are powerful equipment that bring babies into the world and give pleasure. Nothing negative about that. Might want to rethink your negativity. Think Groucho Marx said the silly statement about not wanting to be member of a club that accepted him... Self denigrating humor... you put yourself down before anyone else does...

 

hipster, n and adj
Pronunciation:
Brit. /ˈhɪpstə/
U.S. /ˈhɪpstər/
Frequency (in current use):
Origin: Probably formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: hip adj., -ster suffix.
Etymology: Probably < hip adj. + -ster suffix. Compare hepster n.

1. In African-American usage: a female jazz dancer. Now rare.Probably punning on or with allusion to hip n.1

See the etymology for a discussion of the relationship between this and sense A. 2a.
1932 Afro-American (Baltimore) 9 Jan. 9/8 Josephine Baker, Harlem's banana-shaking hipster, who has been the toast of gay Paree.
1935 New Jrnl. & Guide (Norfolk, Va.) 6 July 13 Willa Mae Lane, pretty hipster and Lovette and Villa, dance duo complete the show lineup.

2.
a. A person who is, or purports to be, hip (hip adj. 1); one who is aware, well-informed, or in the know, especially with regard to jazz music and culture; a hepcat, a hepster. Now chiefly hist. except as merged with sense A. 2b.Common between the 1930s and 1960s, originally in African-American usage.

After a period of decline in the 1970s and 1980s, the term was revived in the 1990s with broader cultural associations: see quot. 2010, and cf. sense A. 2b.
1938 N.Y. Amsterdam News 3 Dec. i. 1/4 To take an expression from Cab Calloway's Hipster's dictionary, ‘the big show will be a “killer-diller”.’
1940 Crisis May 142/1 Me an' Roy an' the whole Acme Hipsters Gang is goin' to Orchard Beach.
1940 Current Hist. & Forum 7 Nov. 22 A hipster never teaches a square anything.
1948 A. Broyard in Partisan Rev. 15 722 Carrying his language and his new philosophy like concealed weapons, the hipster set out to conquer the world.
1965 ‘Malcolm X’ Autobiogr. iv. 59 I saw some of the real Roxbury hipsters eyeing my zoot.
1985 I. Gitler Swing to Bop (1987) vii. 271 There was a famous wire recording of Bird with Dizzy's band... Chicago hipsters would take people to trumpeter Miff Cunliffe's pad..to hear it.
1994 T. Polhemus Street Style 6 Without the Hipsters, Teddy Boys, Beats, Rockers,..Hippies, Punks..and all the other streetstyle originals..most of us would be left without anything to wear.
2010 N.Y. Mag. 1 Nov. 34/3 What was it about the turn-of-the-century moment that made it so clear..that the character [sc. a white subcultural figure] had to have this name, the hipster... The hipster..was someone else already. Specifically, he was a black subcultural figure of the late forties.
(Hide quotations)

b. More generally: a person who follows the latest trends and fashions, especially one having a self-conscious sense of being outside the cultural mainstream; someone who is (or is regarded as) hip, cool, or sophisticated.Since the late 1990s often used to denote a type or stereotype of relatively affluent young urban males adopting aspects of bohemian or alternative lifestyles (such as vintage fashions, facial hair, artisanal food and drink, etc.), in a manner often (depreciatively) considered vogueish, pretentious, or superficial.
1989 Spectator 15 Apr. 39/3 The hipsters will all be talking about the nose-flutes of Burkina Faso.
1990 J. Burchill McLaren's Children in Sex & Sensibility (1992) 97 It was amusing to watch how, suddenly, hipsters and Right-Ons became such finicky eaters.
1995 New York 10 Apr. 3/1 A new generation of hipsters is making Jon Bon Jovi cool again.
2015 Saga Mag. Oct. 87/3 The urban bearded hipster..has already clasped craft beer to his hairy chest.

B. adj.1
Of, belonging, or relating to a hipster or hipsters (sense A. 2); designating or characteristic of a hipster.
1947 Billboard 2 Aug. 40/2 It had a long-time recess before it went back to catering for the hipster trade.
1952 J. Kerouac Let. 10 May in Sel. Lett. 1940–56 (1995) 347 His buddy, an Indian goateed..hipster-junkey, in fact opium eater, barefoot and tattered.
1958 New Statesman 6 Sept. 292/3 The anthology is valuable for a speculative essay by Norman Mailer on ‘beat’ or hipster culture.
1959 ‘F. Newton’ Jazz Scene 291 Jive-talk or hipster-talk is..an argot or cant designed to set the group apart from outsiders.
1967 Lancet 15 July 150/2 The ‘hipster’ movement in California..seemed to be an outright rejection of accepted standards and values.
1973 Amer. Scholar Spring 313/1 A hipster avant-garde, a group refusing to accept standard American values as permanent.
1985 I. Gitler Swing to Bop (1987) i. 17 The hipster mentality of a body of white musicians who grew up in the wake of Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker.
1997 Daily Variety (Nexis) 19 Sept. 5 Two hipster women living in Gotham who find a purpose in life when they follow a serial killer.
2013 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 15 Sept. (Review section) 9/3 My girlfriend..told me mesh jerseys ‘are kind of hipster now’.

 

I heard a lot about hipsters but I don't pay too much attention to it or what they do. I've met some people and they were stuck up, drank tea or coffee and was very competitive on what kind of music they listened too. "I used to like the band, before it got cool." I could be completely wrong about this though.

 

I sure do miss groove grunge, surface noise, wow and flutter, tracking distortion, eq curve aberrations, amplification noise, cleaning, de-static-ing, flipping in twenty minutes, and making sure they're put away in plastic sleeves immediately after use, and shan't forget groove jumping from listening levels too great for the tracking arm to follow the groove...

okay, NOT!

 

Thank you Orleans Wordsmith for your insight. And Duncan's entry from a dictionary.

I was not aware of the wider meanings of hipster----though now that I think about it----I guess I do remember the term being thrown around by the old jazz crowd and the likes of Cab Calloway.

In my own usage and understanding----a hipster always fit into the definition of 2.b. in Duncan's post, with an emphasis on the superficial and trending. In other words-----a hipster was a wannabe hippie. They try to fit in and make the scene, but they don't commit. So many of them are just trying to be hip. Some may be hip, but just can't go all the way because of life.

 

I've not used the term much nor hung around a crowd who does but I would have expected it to be used primarily as you described, at least in the recent past. I listen to jazz but never paid attention to the term being used in the jazz context; it's interesting to learn about though.

 

My understanding goes back to the 70's. But they all seem to be the same today too. As far as those that wear a beard to be anti-establishment and then go to work as corporate yes-men, that's not cool. I had a long career in the stock market and my hair was not always as long as it is now, but certainly long by corporate standards, but I still shook things up where ever I was. I stood up for customer's rights, I stood up for employee rights. I spoke out for whatever I saw was wrong based on a 60's mentality of fairness. I was never status quo.

 

Cool. I don't subscribe to the lemming mentality either. Bleh! I like it when people strive to be individual, not copy-cats who purport to be different. Respectfully individual. Considerate. Well meaning and not blindly self-interested. Subservient to a higher cause/power.

 

A bit sad that in 2018 being gay is still thrown around like an insult. Are you saying that all men who call themselves hipster are actually gay or do you mean "gay" in the 1990's sense that their interests are not interesting to you. It seems like the latter to me.

 

Ahhh the age old question:



C/S,
Rev J

 

I was thinking the very same thing. I was also thinking that the request for help understanding the concept would be a bit more heartfelt, but words/phrases such as "retarded gay sh*t" make me recoil.