Spring Break
Arbitrary Argument: Hipsters vs. Scenesters
Ruben Casas and Alex McElroy
Issue date: 5/30/08 Section: Diversions
So if you get those aspects down, there is one more thing left to accomplish: the effort. This can be the most challenging part of becoming a Hipster. There's a fine line between putting in just enough effort to look deck and nowhere near the amount where you're actually trying. Learning to walk this tight rope can be very challenging, but is incredibly necessary.
Hipsters can smell posers like scenesters can smell the posers who are actually depressed, not just morbid over the impending two-week loss of their Xbox 360 because they didn't call mommy to let her know the movie was running late.
So my advice to you is be careful, don't show any emotion as the Hipsters you covet let you in to their circle. Nod, maybe shake your head when they give the invite, but whatever you do, don't thank them. It's the surefire way to get sent back to where you were: leaning against the glass window of Starbucks, shivering while internally judging everyone around you. If you're forced to return to this world, shunned by the Hipsters to forever walk as a callous, rail-thin mope - then you're nothing more than a scenester. And there's nothing more in than that.
Scenesters
Unlike members of other post-modern subculture social groups (i.e. emo kids, hipsters), the scenester is s/he who most heavily relies on a fashion aesthetic to announce his or her adherence to a particular "scene," most often a musical one, though the role of music cannot be underemphasized enough for a scenester.
Ironically (and perhaps paradoxically), a good or even sensible taste in music is not requisite to belonging or identifying with a particular scene. In fact, current trends (and the research that supports it) would indicate that music and music appreciation plays almost no role in the scenester "scene," and that if music shows weren't a convenient gathering of several hundred people in which to be seen and to see, music would be completely irrelevant to the scenester. Sartorial image, combined with as many pairs of eyes as possible to consume that image, is paramount to the scenester. Therefore a band is only as good as the size of the crowd it draws. Never mind how good or excruciatingly derivative the music is.
Hipsters can smell posers like scenesters can smell the posers who are actually depressed, not just morbid over the impending two-week loss of their Xbox 360 because they didn't call mommy to let her know the movie was running late.
So my advice to you is be careful, don't show any emotion as the Hipsters you covet let you in to their circle. Nod, maybe shake your head when they give the invite, but whatever you do, don't thank them. It's the surefire way to get sent back to where you were: leaning against the glass window of Starbucks, shivering while internally judging everyone around you. If you're forced to return to this world, shunned by the Hipsters to forever walk as a callous, rail-thin mope - then you're nothing more than a scenester. And there's nothing more in than that.
Scenesters
Unlike members of other post-modern subculture social groups (i.e. emo kids, hipsters), the scenester is s/he who most heavily relies on a fashion aesthetic to announce his or her adherence to a particular "scene," most often a musical one, though the role of music cannot be underemphasized enough for a scenester.
Ironically (and perhaps paradoxically), a good or even sensible taste in music is not requisite to belonging or identifying with a particular scene. In fact, current trends (and the research that supports it) would indicate that music and music appreciation plays almost no role in the scenester "scene," and that if music shows weren't a convenient gathering of several hundred people in which to be seen and to see, music would be completely irrelevant to the scenester. Sartorial image, combined with as many pairs of eyes as possible to consume that image, is paramount to the scenester. Therefore a band is only as good as the size of the crowd it draws. Never mind how good or excruciatingly derivative the music is.
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Emily
posted 5/30/08 @ 8:16 AM PST
Don't forget- a true hipster never admits they're a hipster, unless it's to be ironic in a meta-hipster kind of way.
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