Yesterday, @NYULocal (if you're not following them on twitter, do so promptly) tweeted: "Gallatin panel discussion tonight on, 'Hipster Culture and its Legacies.' I bet there'll be vegan cookies." (Props to witty references). A talk about hipsterdom: the "definition" of the NYU community. The NYU non-community. I had to go.
Hipster: The rebel. The creative. The fraud. The artsy. The different one. Beards. Moleskin journals. Skinny. Fake glasses. Hand me-downs. All of the above apply. But none give a proper definition.
Let me explain...
The discussion panel was led by three NYU professors-- sociologist Stephen Duncombe, Nina Cornyetz, Hallie Franks a
nd Becky Amato, who was also the mediator. Two of them are self-proclaimed hipsters.
Duncombe first introduced the concept of the bohemian as a way to contextualize hispterdom. The bohemian movement aroused in the Parisian art world in the mid 19th century as a form of rebellion to the bourgeoisie. Bohemians were everything the bourgeoisie were not--while the bourgeois was soft spoken and proper, the bohemian was loud and improper.
During the 1940's, as Duncombe explained, while segregation and racism were at it's height, the white took on the role of bourgeoise, and the black that of the bohemian-- the other. In 1944 the word hipster made its way to the dictionary and since then it has remained linked to the black culture.
The underlying idea is that the bohemian, the black, the HIPSTER is a definition of the self that arises as an opposition to another entity. Duncombe said it best, "It's a dance between two antagonists."
The hipster is born as a reaction against a counterpart--usually against the bigger fraction of society. Against the mainstream.
Franks contextualization went even father back in history. She referenced the Greek Empire and argued that Socrates himself was a hipster. The founder of western philosophy saw his fellow Athenians as selfish--readily concerned with wealth and pride-- and so he removed himself from his society. He distance himself from the theater culture which stood at the center of the male Athenian community.
An interesting theory. But nothing tops what came up next.
The entire room--
unsurprisingly "hipsters" in it's majority-- went silence as images of Asian girls, their faces covered with a metallic brown powder and their eye lids with a thick white paste, walked around the streets of Tokyo. (watch the youtube video here) Professor Cornyetz presented this video on the "Ganguro women"-- a 90's trend in Japan where women wore "westernized" sexy clothes, bleached and straightened their hair and wore massive amounts of dark make up in their face to resemble black faces in America.
Black skin in Japan obviously does not foster the same connotation as it does in the states. With the idea of Japanese having "yellow" skin, they are excluded from the white vs. black struggle.
The Ganguro come into effect as hipsters within their own culture. In Japanese culture the ideal beauty has always alluded to the whitening of the skin-- the Geishas. The black skin is a counteract to the idea of the beautiful woman. It's also a breaking point from Japanese traditional culture.
But we were there to talk about Brooklyn and having no money for rent. So why do we care about Bohemians, Socrates and wannabe black Asians? Because they were all rebelling against the norm and in doing so they trace back to the core of hipsterdom.
Transfer to 2010. Contemporary New York. What are Jack Kerouac's wonder children, who live on the other side of the river, rebelling against?
One student in the discussion said the rebellion is against the lack of interpersonal relations (facebook, twitter and the like have done a successful job at minimizing this type of rapport). This brings forth the idea of a "nostalgic pursuit", the quest for "what it was" which leads you to defy "what is." This might explain why vintage (i.e. previously worn items) might sell for more than brand new clothing.
The question of authenticity was also brought up. In the globalized world we live in-- where each time we resemble more to one another and cultures merge and disappear--wanting to be unique is not all that rare. And if in fact, we agree with the nostalgic argument, then hipsterdom, in the NY-NYU sense could almost be interpret as the one "culture" that is trying to preserve it's genuineness in the city's melting pot. Hipster's legitimacy lies at their never-ending quest to be different.
That. Or it could also be just a trend.
But the fact is the defining of one self is a lifelong pursuit. What's the point of rejecting society and the mainstream? Eventually the hip and the different become popular and conventional and we're back to where we started.
So, where does this leave us? If the hipster is the underdog, but I see them as the mainstream (especially in NY) who's the hipster? Them, me or you, who sees beyond the both of us?
So the question remains as Duncombe said -- "who is it that actually lives in Williamsburg?"
