I recently finished a book published by n+1 entitled "What Was the Hipster? A Sociological Investigation." In three parts, the first transcribes the New School's spring 2009 symposium on the subject matter, the second is three written responses to this panel and the final third (and by far best) part is composed of four essays discussing hipsterdom with expressions like "Williamsburg Year Zero," "the polaroid palette," and "behind and above them, Animal Collective."
I didn't find the symposium and its responses particulalry interesting (although the Jace Clayton aka DJ Rapture's Peruvian observations on neo-colonialism in the music biz was great), but the last four essays are really hilarious and informative. Robert Moor refers to his dictionary and thinks about the differnce between the douchbag and the hipster. Dayna Tortorici looks at the role cameras and blogs have in creating the female hipster aesthetic (a thin palette of muted ambers and blues and lo-fi rawness rooted in basement porn and crime scene photography to reveal a bored-looking deer-in-head-lights pouting female's sexy authenticity). Mark Grief does a great job using a whole bunch of humor and insight to question the viceness of Vice, the irony of the ironic t-shirts, the significance of turning 30 and gentrification. While Christopher Glazek compares Hasidim to Hipsters and uses Williamsburg's bike lane controversy as it's main point.
Really great stuff! And on that note here's a pretty good add on the subject matter:
Really great stuff! And on that note here's a pretty good add on the subject matter:
