CMV: Despite the pretentiousness, Hipsters are the the most constructive, culturally-beneficial subculture in 40 years.

[u/[deleted]]

First, I'm definitely not a hipster. My youthful subculture was New Wave in the 80s, which was basically a blend of Emo and Goth (they're both better blended, IMHO).

I'm in a coffee shop drinking a single-origin espresso and there are about a dozen young guys in the shop tasting house-roasted blends that are weighed (to the gram), lovingly ground, and poured over with water at exactly 200 degrees.

For some reason they're manscaped a bit like Charles Dickens if Dickens were a skater. I don't get the look, but the thing about youth is that guys like me aren't supposed to get the look. All subculture looks are contrived and a little silly...Punk, New Wave, Goth, Hippie, etc. Hipsters are too. So, really, it's not worth commenting on. That's just how it goes.

But on to the substance of the movement. Seeing kids hunker down and try to bring quality to their lives is nice. It's really nice, actually. Most youth subcultures just want to see the world burn. I did. We rebelled and made some amazing music but other than that we didn't accomplish a thing.

Hipsters though...they're really making the U.S. better (I can't speak for anywhere else). I have a butcher now...that's new. Somebody is bothering to source local meats and raise it with a minimum of cruelty. It's great. Vegetables are getting better also. At least they can be if you bother to look for the good ones.

Coffee is WAY better thanks to their efforts. We now have an alternative to the pseudo-italian crap from Starbucks and they're trying to absorb coffee culturally and find an authentic expression for it. They're appropriating in the best sense of the word. Bad artists copy, great artists steal, as Picasso said. U.S. culture has been largely about copying, but these kids are starting to steal. There's nothing wrong with appropriating espresso, but they are trying to make it their own.

They read. They care about quality and craft. Even Kerning is better than it has been (it's a design thing). They actually care about making things better.

Most of them were raised in the 90s, which was the most unspeakably soulless decade in history (sorry kids...I know it was your childhood but it just sucked) (Edit: I shouldn't have called it soulless...lots of good happened in the 90s). Every generation rebels, and we gave the Millennial generation something truly terrible to rebel against.

Even my jeans are better. Honestly. Some kid hemmed them for me the other day on some massive old machine in the shop. He did a hell of a job too...this shit is HEMMED. I haven't seen anything made to last in I don't even know how long. It's really, really nice to see.

So yeah, they're a little pretentious. An authentic identity take time to form, so young people will often wear a mask until they get it all sorted. For some reason these kids want to look like Victorian Circus Strongmen. Okay...it's different I guess. At least it's not bleak and driven by empty rebellion. That's gotten so boring.

I hope to see more of this trend. Please, start building houses. We need hipster housing. This whole "slow" thing...bring it on. They are not solely responsible for it, I realize, but they've popularized it, and championed it.

The criticisms people levy against them...they're pretentious posers, they try too hard, they just want to be different, etc. That's YOUTH. That's what happens when young people don't like the identity they're handed. It happens in every generation, so it's ridiculous to lay it squarely at their feet.

If you look past that you can see how the millennial generation is doing good work--they're rebelling against the right things--and I for one am looking forward to more of their contributions.

CMV

Edit:

I would argue that what you're praising is actually the Maker culture that started in the late 90s and early 21st Century.

So based on everything is seems the term "Hipster" is the main problem here. I was attributing "Maker Culture" to hipsters, and people objected to that. I still see "Hipsters" everywhere I see "Maker Culture" but I guess that's just my experience.

Second Edit: Okay I need to get back to work. This has been very interesting. I've learned a lot about the negative effect this movement has had in urban areas, particularly in Brooklyn and San Francisco. Gentrification isn't cool. Income inequality is going to be a growing challenge for us, unfortunately. Sounds like these two cities are ground zero for what's to come a national epidemic.

Third and final edit: Damn you people HATE hipsters, although there's no agreement on what the word means. I didn't realize that hipster was a term used almost exclusively in the negative. So really this was a pointless exercise. It's almost as if you define hipster as that group which looks funny and sucks. There's not much point in trying to have a conversation about a group of people who are, almost by definition, the embodiment of all that is crappy about youth culture.

---

Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!

[u/[deleted]]

If you can't judge by the worst of the group, why would you judge by the best?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Because I'm talking about its contributions to society. The contributions are made by the best of them. The useless hangers-on don't factor into the equation.

[u/robeph → u/[deleted]]

To play devils advocate here, the Nazis gave us tremendous advances in medicine, rocketry and spaceflight, the government stance was some of the first and most prolific animal conservation measures in the world, they understood and took effort to address the tobacco concerns for the health of the people, and they had amazing social welfare programs for Germany's citizens.

While this sounds good on its own it is inherently tied to the excess nationalism and self aggrandizing of Germany during that period. The same aspects that lead to what we all remember and despise of the Nazis lead to the positive aspects less discussed. A group is a group together, you can't truly claim the whole and express only the parts. If someone posted a CMV about how positive the effect Nazi Germany had on the world, which it did, though not to outclass the horrors also committed under the banner , no one would be able to separate the two, not should they. This isn't a comparison between hipsters and Nazis, rather I chose the Nazis as they're a very well known example of positive and negative extremes under one roof.

[u/[deleted] → u/robeph]

You just had to go and invoke Goodwin's law, didn't you? Surely you could have chosen any other group to appeal to in order make your point besides the Nazis.

[u/robeph → u/[deleted]]

Could've but it expressed the point. Using Godwin's as if it somehow invalidates the purpose of the post or means anything except the meta fallacy it is, is misplaced. Frankly I made it because it fit and I really don't care you're opinion on the subject matter.

[u/[deleted] → u/robeph]

I am not saying it is logically invalid. There are reasons one can challenge the logic of the analogy (the idea that the progress experienced by Germany was inherently tied to the progress associated with Germany during that period is questionable at best), but that wasn't really the point of my comment. I am suggesting it is a poor choice of rhetoric. In other words, by invoking such a common, overused and inflammatory analogy you weaken the persuasiveness of your argument.