James M on being hip
Hipster-ism. n. 1. A largely generational and metropolitan-centered identity-set whose discourse is typified by irony and fixation with the superficial (clothes, music, hairstyle of an “indie / alternative†variety,) which is awash in self-serving cynicism (e.g. we can’t change anything, so we might as well just get drunk and mock those why try to) and which defensively shrinks from all expressions which could be characterized as “sincere.â€
From Subject-and-Object.
James is a film maker on the West Coast. His film about the Veterans and Survivors March for Peace and Justice (Mobile to New Orleans) is linked at the Insurgent American Video section. He is working on future AV concepts for Insurgent American.
Randy Morris:
I’ll post here since the WordPress site isn’t fully developed yet. Also, the link to the Vets’ March film on James’ site isn’t working.
James, thanks for posting the stuff on “Hipster-ism”—I’m familiar with the concept, just not exposed to it much. Here in Wyoming we still have overt racism and misogyny, and I am constantly poking the kids who hang out in our store with verbal sharp sticks about their casual use of slurs of every sort.
Like you, I have a hard time synthesizing the “why” of the offense I feel when confronted with this “Hipsterism”—I just know it’s wrong and it infuriates me that others continue to deny the fact.
Randy
6 April 2007, 10:56 ameoinmonkey:
Spot on. Well done. I am so fucking sick of “ironic” hipster types who dont even really seem to know what they are feeding into, or have any knowledge of how the world they claim to distain even came about, or how it functions.
“The difference here is, between misogynist and racist jokes, the former will be told in hipster circles with women present, and the women are expected to tolerate it. The latter, I guarantee you, will not be heard in earshot of a black person. Maybe it’s worth discussing why that is.”
-something to do with the likilihood of getting your ass kicked (verbally as well as physically, not to mention justifiably) by one group and not the other, perhaps?
6 April 2007, 2:13 pmEliot:
For years various writiers and culture gurus have jumped on the hipster bashing train, so this isn’t really a suprise. Like some previous examples of hipster bashing, this is full of vitrol and misunderstanding. Pretty funny stuff really. (I don’t consider music a superficial phenomenon for instance, which is less a misunderstanding of hipsterdom than human culture in general (or does this writer consider culture itself superficial?))
“(telling racist and sexist jokes,) it represents … the idea that we, as a society, have progressed so far beyond the civil rights movement or the feminist movement that we can mock them”
To me it doesn’t represent that at all, it implies that all those present (or the intended audience of the media) are known to be politically leftist and therefore no one is worried about people getting upset by percieving the joketeller to be genuinely racist or sexist. So really when this shows up in media it’s probably just an imitation of private jokes.
The larger meta-joke is that racism and sexism are still so totally present in our society. It is pointing out the humor in absurd stereotypes of the past and present, not questioning the existence of bigotry. I don’t know how I personally could even contemplate a life dedicated to societal change if I restrained from absurdist humor at times. The tragedy of the injustice all around us is simply too great. I am not worried that I am desensitizing myself (or my friends) to the suffering of others when I make jokes in which asian people are universally hardworking students who have constant anxiety about dishonoring their families and jewish people are secretly shapeshifting cyclopic lizard beings from outer space.
Often it is a non-white person telling the worst racist jokes they can think of (racist against their own creed or others) to see how uncomfortable they can make their white friends. This is pretty hilarious in my opinion. Eventually you become desensitised to this (but not to expressions of actual racism!)
I’m sure there are plenty of apathetic “hipsters” out there and plenty of sexist ones. As this blog never tires in pointing out (and I applaud this) sexism runs deep in leftist cliques, “hip” urban youth being no exception.
Also, siting peoples spiteful comments on the internet as evidence of an entire demographics attitudes (when the true identity of the poster isn’t even possible to know) is I feel a flawed aproach.
Some bright young kids of my generation have adopted an individualist attitude and feel these questions of race and sex are irrelevant to them. This is sad but I feel eventually many of these people may come around. But reactionary policing of language isn’t a tactic to convince them or many others. Language, it’s content and structure is instrumental in how we think and act in the world, I understand that. But do you really think the answer is to re-stigmatize these words?
Is there really no place in the revolution for irony?
MODERATOR’S REPLY: Eliot, you would do well to stop and think about the difference between “racism” and white supremacy, between sexism and patriarchy. You might also try to give us some kind of defintion of what it is you refer to when you say “the left.” Certain kinds of irony can be a luxury of those with social privilege.
7 April 2007, 12:57 amRequired:
Oh God, eoinmonkey you are so fucking right. I too despise these tools and also share the sneaking suspicion that the likely hood of an ass kicking dictates who it’s cool to mock.
7 April 2007, 6:10 amTimothy R. Anderson:
On April 9, 2003 Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq was forced out of power.
On April 9 , 2007 there is to be a large
political demonstration in Iraq for the followers of ‘ radical ‘ man al-Sadr to express themselves . What is interesting to me is that this is not being discussed. It is not being highlighted. I will go ahead and guess that the mainstream American media will NOT be highlighting the fact that on April 9, 2007
some of Iraq’s non-American persons will be
saying, in a clear manner, that they want their own country for themselves.
As for ” hip ,” well, I’d hope everyone
thinks I am hip. Two hips actually.
Timothy R. Anderson
7 April 2007, 1:06 pmstacia:
Good article, but ‘hip’ is far, far more than an irritating, localized, downtown urban phenomenon. I would say that the cynical, jaded, sarcastic, believe-in-nothing attitude forms the basis for our (meaning American) entire mass-marketed culture at the moment (with no relief in sight), that is also being aggressively promoted globally. There is no area—geographically, politically, or culturally—where hipness has not thoroughly penetrated. It is the soundtrack for corporate advertising and the content of many (or most) movies and tv shows, including those aimed at very young children. Starting in the late 70s, the music scene, the drug culture, indeed the entire youth culture, among other things, were drained of its counter-cultural content that it had had since the 50s and 60s and put into the service of consumer capitalism. Qualities like loyalty, sincerity, honor, and integrity are simply no longer useful to or promoted by corporate capitalism, and are portrayed as decidedly unhip. Or they hire Tom Hanks and sentimentalize the old-fashioned virtues, but with such heavy doses of racism and sexism that nobody wants to go near them, anyway. For the most part the left has bought into this uncritically, and abandoned those ‘old-fashioned virtues’ to the religious right, which as we know, dubbed them ‘family values’ and used them to their own ends.
To my mind, though, loyalty, sincerity, honor and integrity should be revolutionary values, and it’s time we took them back.
7 April 2007, 4:34 pmThe discussion that happened on this site about the youth culture, and particularly about the discipline of the youth culture was incredibly timely for me. The point was made that the youth culture is not just as a phenomenon, but a discipline, with the major commandment being “Thou shalt not connect.†Thou shalt not connect one thing to the other, or an isolated event to a larger trend, or a single word or phrase to a larger, perhaps unexamined, belief. This commandment against connection is very entrenched, even when it’s devoid of potentially political content. As an English teacher when I might ask a class, “So what idea might this image represent, as a metaphor?†students can get upset, even hostile. “It doesn’t mean anything!†they insist. “It’s just random!†They don’t like interpretation, because interpretation is connection. And if there is political content, the hostility gets even greater.
I believe this notion of ‘hipness’ or coolness is not just part of the discipline of the youth culture, it IS the discipline. It is the way the commandment is enforced. Young people police each other for coolness, and it is vicious. They punish each other with ridicule, which carries with it the threat of isolation. For a young person, this is no small thing. Somewhere in the back of our consciousness, ostracism from the group represents a threat to survival itself, so it is very effective as a disciplinary instrument.
Randy Morris:
Stacia, thank you…what a wonderful elucidation.
Randy
7 April 2007, 9:43 pmSteve from Keene:
Well…Stacia’s observation does ring true…We might add, in addition to the conformity of cooliness, the influences of the electronic media…video games…Internet blurbs…the time-consuming MySpace malarky…Pretty hard to form a coherent thought while so overwhelmed with images, noise and useless info…The post-literate society we are becoming will enhance the march to fascism.
8 April 2007, 11:53 amskol:
Holy crap, Stacia hit the nail on the head. So relieving to hear that from a teacher, too. I lived my entire High School existence trying my hardest not to reveal anything about myself. This is part of my personal neurosis, but I tend to take things very personally, and the thing I feared most through K-12 was being judged. I was absent half the time, the only shirts I wore were of one color, I tended not to talk, etc. So the way out was to keep my head low. Didn’t work, because I still judged myself by their standards.
I do hope something can be done for those who had Bush/Cheney bumperstickers on their backpacks (or Ford Explorers in the parking lot) and Animals/Kurt Cobain/Whatever t-shirts on their bodies. Get them to connect their own dots, because I can’t think of a better way of doing it (in my position)… Last thing I want to think is that they’re actually a lost cause, whatever I mean by that (Maybe I’m just as judgmental. Ugh. This whole thing is a knot).
Excuse the ramble.
8 April 2007, 9:12 pmCharles:
Don Imus is being a hipster in his incident.
9 April 2007, 7:56 ameoinmonkey:
I also like Stacias’ observation. I should add that I am British, grew up there, but have lived (and taught college students history and culture) in the midwest, and spent time in Australia. Everywhere you go you hear the same “it doesnt mean anything” version of culture; either that or its potentially more dangerous, and infinitely lazier-minded counterpart, “everything is connected” conspiracy-theorism. My favorite example is the “its just entertainment/escapism” defence of movies/TV/anything else- even retro-actively encompassing clearly racist movies from the past, mainly because of the massive disconnect that exists between younger people and the history of their own culture. Aparently, I am “reading too much into things” to point out that Disney films (for a single eg) made in the 40s/50s might just contain racist imagery, like scat-singing apes who just want to be like ‘real’ people. Its even harder trying to point out racial/political overtones in modern films, because “thats all behind us now”, etc etc. ‘Postmodernism’, to use just one annoying descriptor of how everything really means nothing, is the greatest excuse for lazy thinking since the invention of theology.
9 April 2007, 2:24 pmDustin:
This is not merely an American phenomenon. Spend enough time in Western Europe and you’ll see the rampant hipsterism –the crude jokes, the cynicism, and the insincerity. Perhaps that’s why one sees so much politics of the comfort zone in Europe. The two fit together nicely.
9 April 2007, 2:29 pmjen:
It is settled then. We must burn an effigy of a hipster!
9 April 2007, 5:05 pmCharles:
FAIR on Imus
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3082
Racism Is to Be Expected From Don Imus
10 April 2007, 11:02 amCBS, NBC, media pundits complicit in talk host’s bigotry
John Heuer:
Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr brought the Make Hip Not War tour to North Carolina A & T University on March 27. According to Rev. Yearwood ‘hip’ means “to inform” and ‘hop’ means “action.” Hence ‘hip hop’ refers to “inform for action.”
Why did the Hip Hop Caucus bring the tour to NC A&T? Because 47 years ago 4 A&T students sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro and bent the long arc of history in the direction of justice. 2007, we believe, is our ‘lunch-counter moment”…our opportunity to call out the crimes of the Bush/Cheney administration, to bring down this regime and hold the criminals accountable for their lawlessness.
10 April 2007, 12:03 pmeoinmonkey:
“It is settled then. We must burn an effigy of a hipster!”
Gosh! How frightfully ironic of you! Tee hee!
10 April 2007, 2:18 pmDeirdre:
I am not sure that the difficulty in answering questions requiring interpretation, referenced in stacia’s is necessarily due to hostility. I am a graduate student in sociology and as such I have to teach undergraduates. I also have difficulty soliciting answers from students but rather than hostility I think that it may be due to a lack of experience in critical thinking and self expression. These skills are not developed within the American public school system and I might venture, based upon my own experience, they are discouraged. Practices that discourage students from speaking and applying critical thought are often carried out by school faculty and administration.
10 April 2007, 8:53 pmskol:
One of the comments at Subject & Object:
“I find it disheartening how many of my twentysomething friends chalk up the insipid, woman-loathing “Family Guy†to ironic humor. How many beatings, killings and humiliations of female characters have to occur (at least several times per episode–no exaggeration) before it is no longer just “pointing at†misogyny?”
Family Guy is, imho, one of the best examples of hipsterism in its rampant “ironic humor” and ubiquity. If you catch an episode, you’ll get damn near the full picture in no more than one half hour.
11 April 2007, 12:18 ameoinmonkey:
“I also have difficulty soliciting answers from students but rather than hostility I think that it may be due to a lack of experience in critical thinking and self expression. These skills are not developed within the American public school system and I might venture, based upon my own experience, they are discouraged. Practices that discourage students from speaking and applying critical thought are often carried out by school faculty and administration.”
True, true. But you wont find critical thinking encouraged anywhere else in the mainstream either, and self expression seems only to mean choosing what to wear and what music to listen to these days. Woe betide anyone who doesnt have a fixed, simple, easy to categorise answer to the question “so, what are you into?”
11 April 2007, 10:32 amEliot:
ELIOT’S REPLY: As I understand it White Supremacist Patriarchy is an ideology of privilege held by many of those who hold (varying degrees of) power over women and non-white people. Obviously they have power over other white men but these subordinates get to be part of the white supremacist patriarchy too as compensation (with the category of “white people” in constant flux according to the political alliances of the elite.)
The past and continuing existence of this culture has produced a litany of derogatory jokes, the punchline often involving the inferiority of those not in the WSP or simply featuring degrading treatment of them. Nowadays these jokes are also told in an allegedly ironic context, though the irony (indeed if it can be said to exist at all) is probably missed by many Family Guy viewers.
This in turn may be making it more acceptable to tell racist and sexist jokes again, outside of that irony bubble which is in fact very porous and subjective. This may create a culture of vague hostility (against non-white non-men) that young impressionable people grow into, shaping their expectations about treatment in the world in general. I really feel like people haven’t been connecting the dots in their arguments about exactly how these jokes effect us negatively, it is just assumed that they will, so I tried to do that here, maybe someone could chime in with their interpretation?
As for “the left,” it’s obviously a vague term encompassing many various sentiments that can be put in polar opposition to various sentiments often viewed as “conservative” or “right-wing.” I didn’t mean to be any more specific than that. Usually these sentiments include active support (whether this is simply vocal support or activism) for the equality of men and women, whites and non-whites, and even though many on the left no longer believe the government should have any role in creating a more equal world, you still don’t see anyone on the “the right” claiming this.
11 April 2007, 2:48 pmCharles:
Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr brought the Make Hip Not War tour to North Carolina A & T University on March 27. According to Rev. Yearwood ‘hip’ means “to inform†and ‘hop’ means “action.†Hence ‘hip hop’ refers to “inform for action.â€
^^^
Unfortunately, use of “hipster” for misogynist and racist style is theft of the root word “hip” from left, or at least Black English, uses. “Hip” is Black slang from the fifties or earlier. To be “hip” was, as Yearwood said, to be “in the know ” about the latest Black cultural themes. Countercultural whites styles such as Beatniks and then, of course, Hippies, were hip, to some extent, and that represented a certain level anti-racism and integration of the races.
But “we” don’t control the culture making apparatus, and evidently the rightwing has stolen “hip”. That ain’t cool.
11 April 2007, 3:24 pmJames M:
Sorry to chime in late on this –
First, I have to say it’s been very amusing to see my name and the word “hip†used in the same sentence. Second, I’ve been surprised (though in retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have been) at the level of resonance this seems to have with people. As Stacia points out, it’s not such a localized phenomenon, and I guess my misperception came about because here in the Bay Area the attitude has reached such a high level of saturation. It makes sense to me now that those of an activist / social justice-minded bent would have been butting their heads up against this wall of detachment and irony for a while now.
A major question for me has been, “How did we get here? What’s underlying all this?†I think Stacia again hits it on the head. But there are also usually, in my experience, attempts made by hipsters to explain themselves with a bunch of what sounds like Existentialism or Post-Modernism 101, by which, I get the sense, I’m supposed to be impressed. But to me it seems like there’s not so much a coherent philosophy as an inclination toward coprophilia – meaning the ideals and values of my generation have been so inverted by preoccupation with irony that now we only idealize crap. The less value or meaning or virtue something has, the higher it is exalted. Hence the preoccupation with kitsch and “bad†culture, hence the reflexive recoiling from making connections to larger ideas that Stacia describes.
The next question is, “What’s to be done?†Burn the hipsters in effigy? I’ll admit to having contemplated worse than that in my time, but these days some friends and I are starting to experiment with the idea of engaging this mentality in a less-confrontational way. We’re part of a warehouse art collective that lies in the very heart of the (gentrifying, of course) hipster-bohemian art-gallery zone in Oakland, and we’re going to have our first show in May, the title of which will be “Embrace Sincerity.†The idea is to communicate meaningful things and make meaningful connections, and I think it quite possible that the local hipster culture could interpret that as a full-on frontal assault on them and their non-values. What I’d rather have happen, though, is for it touch something that’s been repressed in all these negativity-obsessed people, and maybe to elicit them to shed their fear of social ostracism and come out from their cages of irony.
Perhaps I’ll report back when it’s over.
11 April 2007, 3:58 pmJames M:
To Eliot’s 1st comment:
1) Music is not in itself superficial; slavish fixation with and adherence to prescribed and seemingly arbitrary dictates of acceptable and “in vogue” kinds of music, as well as the often-observed elitism surrounding them, are.
2) Yes, there is a place for irony. Never said there wasn’t. But like most things, too much of it gets to be toxic and is not part of a healthy diet.
3) The conversation with my friend wasn’t meant to serve as “evidence of an entire demographics attitudes.” It was an exchange that happened to occur on the day the entry was written. The post was not a scientific survey, just one anecdotal observation out of countless I’ve witnessed; I wasn’t writing a book-long definitive study of hipster-ism, just a humble little blog entry.
4) I think there’s a world of difference between acknowledging ethnic and cultural differences through humor, and telling a joke that specifically reinforces white supremacy. The jokes I heard at the party I referenced were of the latter category, and pretty much turned my stomach. If the tellers of these jokes were so ironically distant from the subject matter, so free and clear from potential charges of racism, I wonder why the jokes were told in such hushed tones, and the laughter that ensued had such a nervous character, when there wasn’t a black person at the entire party? I mean, if we’re all such fine upstanding leftists, we should be able to make all the white supremacist jokes we want, right?
12 April 2007, 3:19 amEliot:
To James M.
That elitist treatment of music really bothers me too. I feel that the enjoyment of music is a sort of secular spiritual ritual and that attempts to impose rigid (often corporate designed) subcultures onto what should be primarily a celebratory/creative activity is pretty depressing.
Why were the jokes told in hushed tones? Because that is part of exploring anything taboo, that it is somewhat socially dangerous. This discussion reminds me of that great TMBG song “Your Racist Friend.”
“Can’t shake the devil’s hand and say your only kidding”
The guy in the song IS a racist. Whether those hipsters (or whoever they were) at the party are genuinely racist is uncertain. Probably not, they just didn’t feel they were somehow “reinforcing white supremacism” in the privacy of that party surrounded by people who don’t likely share the views of the originator of these jokes.
I guess I’m just WAY more concerned about the engrained psychological impulse in many people to demonize some outgroup to solidify their tribal/national unity, because this leads to concious pro-active racism as well as nationalism etc. This psychological mechanism seems designed to avoid reflection on both your own group and your own self. Thus fascism constructs itself covertly under the guise of the ultimate defense against the ultimate threat.
If the only reason someone doesn’t “act racist” in a flamboyant manner is because they are afraid of breaking a social taboo that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to commit violent vigilante acts or (if they are in position of decision making) restrict access of certain resources from whole populations based on racial-cultural background.
This blatant systemic racism (not micro-faux-racism at parties)and the terrorism that supports it is still seen as a present problem (not fodder for jokes) by anyone who gives a damn. If someone already doesn’t give a damn, are you proposing this is the fault of the cultural influence of The Family Guy?
13 April 2007, 5:39 pmeoinmonkey:
“Whether those hipsters (or whoever they were) at the party are genuinely racist is uncertain. Probably not, they just didn’t feel they were somehow “reinforcing white supremacism†in the privacy of that party surrounded by people who don’t likely share the views of the originator of these jokes.”
Actually, Id say that as white people surrounded by white people, they probably were, and still are, and always will be- certainly if they never bother to examine their inner thoughts and feelings and strenuously deny any ‘bad thoughts’ on their part. This whole “Im not a racist, but…” thing, lets call it the Don Imus defence this week, doesnt cut any slack. I know very few white people (or people in general, but it is white people who matter here and in general, due to the nature of power and priveledge) who arent somewhat racist. Its the people who strenuously deny that that might even be the case who are most suspicious. To use Imus as an example again, he went out of his way to stress how NOT a racist he was, despite obvious “humourous” public statements to the contrary, then in a moment of exasperation with Al Sharpton blurted out “You just cant win with you people!” That sounds pretty much like your standard unexamined prejudice to me, just like the people who tell racist jokes in a “clever, subversive” way, in hushed tones and when no-one who might possibly take offence is within hearing (we assume, because how often do other white people take offence at racist jokes directed at non-whites, really?). You cant hide this sort of bullshit behind “confronting taboo” or “exploring the forbidden” or “being so right on you are right off” or any of those post-modernist, “hipster’ excuses. If you want to confront a taboo, say something that the majority of people around you wont like- something like “are we being racist telling these jokes in a priveleged, all-white environment?” You wont win any friends doing that, I can tell you- people will resort to lazy excuse pattern number two, “grow a sense of humour, dude… stop bringing us down, man… well, you obviously missed the point, square.” (yes, I know no-one talks like that, before anyone feels they have to point it out).
As for this “picking on a sub-group is akin to racism and reinforces blah blah blah”, well, not really. No-one is claiming we should discriminate against “hipsters” (for want of a better word- perhaps we should just say “trendy wankers”, or is that too British?) and “hipsters” are NOT discriminated against in the first place. Therefore, any whinging about the troubles the priveleged trendy face because of forums like this one seem a little toothless.
And no-one is proposing that The Family Guy is the reason behind any of this- that is, as Mr Goff like to point out, a Straw Man argument. Everyone posting has been pretty clear that the problem is reinforcement of prejudice and stereotype by lazy thinking and lazy attitudes, not the creation of said prejudices and stereotypes. And reinforcement might not seem as bad, but it is, as AA would put it, enabling those with a problem.
13 April 2007, 8:30 pmskol:
…they just didn’t feel they were somehow “reinforcing white supremacism†in the privacy of that party surrounded by people who don’t likely share the views of the originator of these jokes.
What white supremacy? The first thing you learn about privilege is that you don’t have any, and the second thing you learn, provided you’re white or male, is that you have way too much. Most people only know the first bit, so what white supremacy? What reinforcing? You can’t know you’re reinforcing something you don’t know exists. For that matter, you can still give a damn and not know what to give a damn about.
13 April 2007, 9:39 pmeoinmonkey:
You can still give a damn and still be part of the wider problem too- as anyone who has ever been to a protest march or hung around with political fanatics will have noticed.
An anarchist freind of mine told me an anecdote the other day, about why she was unable to return an item of clothing (a black face mask) I had lent her a couple of years ago. She participated in “building something” for a direct action, then was told to “keep an eye out for the cops” while THE BOYS went and set it up. One of them even had the balls (gendered metaphor used conciously) to borrow said item of clothing from her so he could cover his face. Then didnt return it. These assholes sound like part of the problem to me, and fuck all their “direct action”, whatever the hell it was.
14 April 2007, 11:05 amBob:
Hip means aware. Irony functions on duple, or multiple meanings. It’s not possible to be hip, or ironic, and meaningless.
Why validate the corruption of language? These ‘hipster’ values that have everyone’s panties in a wad are the ordinary bourgeois values, channeled through an affected, vacuous, pop culture cynicism. They’re neither hip, nor ironic.
“Cynicism” itself is word appropriated long ago, and no longer salvageable. The original Cynics were mockers of bourgeois pretension. That meaning is long lost.
“Hip” is probably also lost in mass culture. “Irony” we can’t afford to lose as a word, or as a function of language.
20 April 2007, 9:19 pmJames M:
Having been born in 1976, “hip” has no special meaning to me, other than that which was described in the post. I honestly don’t care what it means or meant to those who were born before me; all I know is that I’ve inherited this word in its current form (and it probably re-entered popular usage as an ironic epithet — ironically enough.) Languages are dynamic systems, and I’m not responsible for safeguarding the supposed purity of certain words.
The “panties in a wad” statement strikes me as macho b.s., by the way. Don’t want to speak for the moderators, but I’ve noticed that tends not to fly here.
22 April 2007, 5:07 amBob:
Yes, “hip”, as you define it, came into its current inverted meaning (or non-meaning) around the decade you were born., although the process probably began much earlier, with the mass media / advertising exploitation of beat culture. “Hip” as I defined it, and as noted by a previous poster “to inform”, continues in its original usage today, although apparently not within your personal orbit.
Yes, language is a dynamic system, adapting with culture, culture adapting with language. But how aware of that dynamic can you be, if you persist in the position “I honestly don’t care what it means or meant to those who were born before me…” ? That doesn’t seem like a tenable position, especially if you intend to posit yourself as an arbiter of what is meaningful, what is sincere, in opposition to your ‘hipster’ chums.
It’s not about “preserving the supposed purity of certain words”. It’s not about a particular word. It’s about whether you distinguish the manufactured language of advertising, of reactionary punditry, of slogans and thought control, from organic language. If the values of your generation have degenerated to non-values, why? Perhaps the cooption and inversion of language is a factor, no? Perhaps the emptiness has little to do with fixation on “irony”, but is rather an authentic, if subliminal, perception that the semiotic environment is, in fact, meaningless.
“Panties in a wad” could of course be macho BS. Or it could just be a fairly benign popular catchphrase. It also might function as a sort of shibboleth, as a rhetorical trick. More often than not, a cigar is just a cigar.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: That one got past us. It won’t happen again. And it is not benign. Use this kind of misogynist “rhetorical trick” again, and we will show readers a moderator’s trick.
It never fails that when we drop our vigilance, the Male voices (caps intentional) furrow in and try to colonize the space with Male Dominator attitude; then when they get called, they adopt the MD alter-ego, Pedantic Finger-Wagger. Methinks we need a long hard look at how to revise and update the rules to leave space for people to stumble and learn, yet balance this space more in the direction of protecting it from this kind of MD influence (which is part and pracel of how men retain their “entitlements,” and why the internet is becoming a hostile place for many women.
22 April 2007, 9:57 pmJames M:
I think it’s safe to say that the regulars here tend not to enjoy participation in online boys’ clubs, where considerate discourse is drowned out by chest-thumping, ridicule of the feminine, and / or “pedantic finger-wagging†— though I will admit I have my own occasional tendency to get unwittingly swept away by that latter current. But when you initiate a comment with a crack about “panties in a wad,†Bob, it indicates to the reader that that’s the kind of game you want to play, and it’s a game (I also feel safe in asserting) that this blog was not created to perpetuate.
The rhetorical trick in question is to deride an opposing opinion as being just so much weak-kneed, but most importantly, effeminate complaining … hence we have Kathy Sierra, for example, being accused of “crying†and “whining†about the misogynistic epithets and death threats aimed at her. However innocent the intent in this case, the outcome is similar – a large portion of the readership tends to feel alienated. I’ve been so used to this being a place of asylum from that kind of thing, I was honestly shocked to see it.
Now here’s where I do a 180 and concede your main point, which I think you made quite well — the cheapening and pollution of meaning by advertisers and NewSpeakers of all stripes has undoubtedly been one of the major causes of my generation’s sincerity-phobia. And in hindsight, I see it’s kind of ridiculous for me to be railing against the co-option of the term “successful†by the wealthy in another comment, and to say that words aren’t worth defending in another.
Here’s my problem: It’s so very hard for me to imagine something like the “organic language†you posit, in the same way it’s hard for me to imagine that there’s a place to go fishing in this country where I’m not in danger of ingesting dioxin or MTBE from what I catch. The pollution is that ubiquitous – when, for example, pornography claims ownership to the meaning of sex, when Hallmark defines for us the meaning of love, when the Bush administration gives new meaning to the term “Healthy Forests.†And, as noted, the very word (“hipsterâ€) used to critique the irony-obsessed is itself an ironic term. We do what we can to excise the really egregiously misogynistic turns-of-phrase, but the scale of the larger battle seems akin to that of detoxifying the landscape – no easy task.
But in that spirit, I’ll give some thought to honoring the true meaning of “hip.†It would help to have a better word for what was defined in the original post … any ideas?
23 April 2007, 10:22 pmRequired:
Just wanted to say that Skol’s comment about Family Guy is on target. You won’t see more women beaten and molested on any other show.
25 April 2007, 3:59 amskol:
And the gross part is that it’s a fucking cartoon. So are the Simpsons and Snow White, and although they have their fair share of isms, Family Guy is, in this era, hard to beat. Before I knew all the shit going on, I thought it was funny (and it exhibits shades of gray, like anything, imo…I really hope I’m not guilty on this one
, even if, uhh, I should be)
I apologize for any elitism I may have exhibited about the kids in Pink Floyd shirts. Somewhere I feel this isn’t right of me. It’s elitist and I wonder if I’m denying some of these people (the ones I don’t trust) actual meaning in their life. To be honest, it was mostly a comment out of spite.
Nevertheless, close to my heart is the idea that maybe there are weak sections, ways in (whatever that means), etc., etc, into the angsty/ennuiesque(new word!) folk that I optimistically believe are just this close to seeing the full(ish) picture provided enough info (As suggested by an evil old man at IA). These “ways in” I hold very important, and I believe it must happen on their turf, since, imho, you may call them solipsists but they’re solipsists for a reason that surpasses just merely upbringing.
One of the things that that comes to mind to me is that there will approach a point where the pattern will just become too obvious to ignore, and swaths of people will connect the dot between their own existential yadayadas and the system as a whole (which is a heckuva lot easier than connecting the dots between a system you do not believe yourself to be a part of… See Goff’s “Elaborate Hypothesis” wherein a young woman says she doesn’t believe in “woman” anymore). Again, optimistic…I do not know if history supports this. Like Stan, I want to see the youth liberated from The Youth.
James: Lieronic Hypesterism? No? Okay…
Holy rambling armchair revolutionary rhetoric, batman!
/ramble
25 April 2007, 8:21 pmjohn steppling:
i will comment late in this thread….which probably is dead at this point. Its an interesting topic….but its semantic issue. *hip* need not be cynical…or a pose per se. I see the rise of the *hip* coming from black culture…Muddy waters was hip…james brown was hip….it was symbolic resistance. IT was also totally sincere.
Irony is the new post mod cynical stance…which is conformist….but Hip doesnt have to be. The word has been co-opted to a degree by *hip hop*….but thats another topic……and I am referring to the origins of the term. Defiance is hip…..the outsider myth….etc. This was an underclass phenomenon…connected to folk lore and myth right from the start.
Miles was cool…but he was also hip. Jimi Hendrix may have been cool, but he wasnt hip. Why? Intriguing….but *hip* is about a refusal finally……though this definition I think is lost. And today what passes for *hip* is commodified hip. And you can sell hip….not real hipness. Lenny Bruce was a hipster…..for sure. Was he cynical? no.
26 April 2007, 6:09 amjohn steppling:
i need to add….Jimi took the money…..played music that to some degree he didnt believe in (listen to the garage tapes of him playing with Pharoah sanders to see what I mean) but Miles never compromised. Hence, miles refused to sell out.
hence, miles was *hip*.
and i should add, again, that today we have a very generalized marketed version of this…so I dont disagree totally with a lot of these comments. I think the death of sincerity is a big blow to art in all senses. Might be that Jackson Pollack was about the last totally sincere artist.
26 April 2007, 6:12 amRequired:
I just have to talk about VICE magazine. I would probably place that as the print equivalent of Family Guy. It’s the most vapid hollow elitist crap. But people eat it up. The magazines most popular section is the “do’s and don’ts” where people send in pictures of people (whom they may or may not know) to be rated. Kinda like a fashion SS, encouraging people to dob in dissidents. Whole books have been devoted to compilations of this crap.
28 April 2007, 11:41 pmskol:
The thing about Family Guy is that it can be genuinely funny, and these hip kids can be genuinely good. I think this is a difficult thing to disabuse ourselves of in this generation. And it’s such a massive gray area that I find it difficult to know how separated we all are/can be from it.
). I wonder how much just a little direction will take them? And where to?
2 May 2007, 6:52 pmEoinmonkey had said you can still give a damn and be part of the larger problem. Can you give a damn and still be in a position of oblivious and lazy thinking? I guess so, but it’s a step forward. Give them the right means, and you’ll have so many more of the right people on your side who never thought of a side to be on. But there aren’t many points of gravity. Nothing CURRENTLY suffices, imo. The structures are in place, but everyone is so spread out (on the web; at home, they’re rather close
eoinmonkey:
“Eoinmonkey had said you can still give a damn and be part of the larger problem. Can you give a damn and still be in a position of oblivious and lazy thinking?”
I think thats more or less the same thing, isnt it? Im not too optomistic, personally, that goodwill can win through, even with every young western person on the web. Lazy thinking begets lazy conclusions, which in turn leads to bad results. I am often more annoyed by people on the political left and their shoddy reasoning and blind adherence to received wisdom than I am by the worst scumbag college republicans- the lefties are supposed to know better, right? Ultimately, it doesnt matter what the basis of your thought is, if you allow yourself to be led by the nose by fashion (even an unfashionable fashionable political viewpoint, like so many radicals) then you will end up a blind follower and definitely part of the problem. I guess perhaps the problem is human stupidity, and no political, religious or ethnic group has a monopoly on that.
3 May 2007, 6:08 pmskol:
To be clear, I don’t mean ideological direction… I literally meant hyperlinks to places like IA; nor do I mean a virtual army of good-willed young westerners who can’t connect their own dots within the context of their life, and not using some big abstraction that works as some mega-conclusion that they may pretend fits themselves and others perfectly. What I would like to see is more good-thinkers, or people who would make some effort otherwise to lead themselves, however they please, instead of being led by the nose anyhow. Media and ad agencies have said these people covered, and they distract them from the reality of the situation: peak oil, global warming, housing bubble, what-have-you, all colliding on their lives. But “we” (or maybe I’m alone here) really don’t have any fuller picture, although I could be wrong.
8 May 2007, 3:05 amIt’s kind of a vague (stupid?) thought.
Randy Morris:
Hey skol…
I think we DO have a fuller picture, we just don’t have a crystal ball; and that’s where acceptance often seems to break down if you offer an alternative to the info being spoon-fed over the airwaves—if you can’t predict the stock market accurately over the next three months then your particular world view can’t possibly be valid. Never mind that the establishment itself must directly manipulate the markets to give them any semblance of rationality or long-term viability.
Having a “fuller picture” is certainly no panacea. What it has done for me is help me realize (finally—oh cruel hubris) that my ability to impact large scale politics is nil and that I can make my best effort right here in my own struggling community. And you all here have been a BIG part of coming around to that.
Keep writing, skol. I’ll keep reading your thoughts.
Randy
8 May 2007, 5:01 pmRequired:
Annoying Ironic White liberal Hipster: We should all be less sensitive about “racial humorâ€. Everyone should be able to make fun of everyone! After all, that’s equality.
Astute Person: If it’s equality you seek, will everyone own the television stations and magazines from which this “fun†will be made?
Annoying Ironic White liberal Hipster: No silly, that would be communism.
9 July 2007, 10:03 pmskol:
Oh, no, it’s been bumped! I don’t mean to cut in on Required’s astute (;)) observation, but I feel I need to bring the comments before that (regarding me, o cruel hubris) to for an ounce of closure to my angst-ridden brain (o woe is me).
(run-on-sentence-ramble follows:)
It’s true, I want a panacea, but only for myself. I want the dams destroyed, I want us to “devolve” into a simpler life for all. I even want windows gone so birds won’t die mistaking them for air. The complexities of such a change are unfathomable, like a mile high wall of wires, concrete and girder preventing us from true progress. But I know reality doesn’t work this way, in the grand scheme of things, but it sure looks that way day to day. I have a ways to go. I have participated in very little: I do not attend peace marches, I do not attend local meetings, and that hypocrisy is almost to palpable to bear. I’m relatively cozy, despite the debt and the fear hovering over our heads.
This is one of the few places where I feel safe. I’m like the hanged man tied by his feet, viewing the world from a different perspective, but still stuck to stay the same, with all the ennui and stagnation (a good pun, imo).
(ramble mode 5/5 to 4/5):
I’m looking for commonality. That’s here, to a great extent, but on a regional level it’s very hard to find on the most mundane of social experience. I’m very much in my head, safe and sound and comfortable. Who else is? Who else sees this great divide between lack of personal action and the shit stuck in their head? I’d wager a great many, and I hold true what I’d said before that these people are either low on the list of priorities (whatever that means), or extremely hard to ferret out. That’s my only goal currently, and I’ve made some headway profiling this segment on myspace (a very depressing site). On that front, I’m not looking for a panacea, just some commonality to be shared around. This society is very alienating. Maybe it’s just me. This site has opened up all these avenues and thoughts (bar none) most are oblivious to*. Creating a community of like minds is all I’m looking for, and what many others are seeking. It’s not a small step, but an important one: connecting the disparate groups into a community for the future.
I’ll quit while I’m maybe-ahead. Some peace and quiet with those one can love and cherish outside the norms of the artificial norms we’ve been created to believe is all I want, and what everyone needs.
(not a ramble):
I ain’t no scholar, mind. I’ll hit submit before…I….proofread..to..carbon….argh!
* FS seems to be reflecting a lot of the trends current, I’d say. Maybe I never noticed them before before I came here, though. Progress is being made, no? I wonder how much of this (what I’ve said) is even necessary. With luck, it’ll fall into place on its own, but I don’t want to count on that.
10 July 2007, 9:19 pmLinda c:
My beautiful daughter got sucked into the roll of “working for the party”. She was headed into a career of politics and devoting all of her time to “the man” which was the Democratic party. I guess being “hip” in a way. That was until Katrina hit – our relatives were affected – we were affected personally as a family – and our help was denied at gunpoint. Then 5 of her best friends were sent to Iraq at the same time – on the same day.
Now she and I are very “community oriented”. We have realized that our help is needed here at home and maybe her political aspirations will grow into a wonderful platform for her to grow upon. She now works for and volunteers her time to much more “community commited” projects.
Yes, skol – this is one place that will open the mind and the thought processes. I come here when I have time to contemplate on how I can grow into the person I really want and need to be. Then if I can help make a difference for just one other person in “our” community hopefully they will “pass it on”.
11 July 2007, 9:57 amLenny Bruce:
Great post. I really enjoyed it. I will have to bookmark your site for later.
21 April 2008, 11:48 am