Recently, I read an article in Adbusters about how our generation’s hipster counterculture is basically a signal of the decline of western civilization. Yes, this made me want to giggle, too. The author claimed that hipster culture is uniquely vapid and self obsessed, unlike past counter cultures that valiantly crusaded against their parents’ values in order to spread, uhm, revolution. It seems that all hipsters are hopelessly vain and unoriginal.... oh, are we ever doomed!
Guess what? NONE of the above criticism is unique to hipster culture. At all. The punks in the 1970’s are used as an example of “good” counter culture in the article, a counter culture that really stood for something and had meaning. Does this author truly believe that all of the punks in the 1970’s were working to promote equality among the social classes in order to improve society? Isn’t it more realistic to believe that many of them were following a trend, trying to break away from their parents, and doing what they thought was cool, like the hipsters are doing now? The author claims that hipsters use emblems of the working class, like Pabst beer and v-neck t-shirts, as fashion, therefore draining them of significance. This isn’t a unique “flaw” of hipster culture either: in the 1960’s, for instance, it was popular for affluent, white teenagers to wear African and Asian inspired ethnic clothing. Interestingly enough, that type of clothing is still considered ethnic and particular to those geographic regions. Likewise, working class men of past generations can hold on to their v-necks and Pabst. And, of course, no two hippies or punks looked alike, right? Of coooooourse not.
The hipsters are a group of youth like any other group of youth with common clothing, music tastes, and behavior—that is why we are able to categorize them as a subculture. I doubt that adolescent psychology has rewired itself in the past decade to bring about the “decline of western civilization.” You know what will really bring about the decline of western civilization? This: 
We have better things to worry about than a group of American Apparel clad kids destroying life as we know it.
redpanda
2 comments:
Hear hear! She makes me laugh.
I agree that older generations are too quick to condemn whatever form the 'youth culture.' That is how it has been for ages past, and so it is now.
I find your take on the modern youth culture rather distasteful. You equate the modern youth culture with that of the 70's, demonstrating that neither possess any unifying cause more spectacular than the simple desire for rebellion against established order and the complex desire to fit in. I believe you succeed in demonstrating this.
Where I find fault with your discussion of youth culture, is that after stripping it of any worthwhile meaning, you embrace it. Are you proud to be part of a culture of social congruity and juvenile rebellion?
As a final note, I would like to speak in defense of Palin. It has been impossible in recent days to so much as cross the street without hearing Palin's name marred. This is it is because it popular and in style to make fun of her. That is to say, slandering Palin's name is approved of in local culture. I would challenge you to be original in your targets. Or at the very least give reasonable support and arguments when you speak ill of somebody.
-Balin
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