After the Hipster Dickhead...

It starts off like a car ad, but actually it's another youth sub-category appropriating a derogatory term to ironically stigmatize itself.  And like the dickhead hipster, it's sort of funny:

What Was the Hipster?

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:

The Exclusive Look of Indie Music - Tribal Beats and Possessed Singers

The launch of The Dø's latest video Slippery Slope happened yesterday at noon (very exciting says the web). And I thought the greatness of the web was it's so-called un-exclusivity. If the song itself sounds like M.I.A. meets Beach House, the 'exclusive' video reminded me of the other dozens of videos illustrating the recent material coming out of 'indie rock' (heavy beats, fragile voices and vintage tones): the ethnic 'tribal' looking thing, the geometrical prints, the monochromatic backgrounds for the choreographed scenes, the victimized yet praised singer, the coloured tinted screens, that regal animal set free and the intricate costuming of the main character pouncing around like a wild sorceress. Needless to say the video's creative sensibilities leave me speechless:

Two examples of the same successful recipe: Florence and the Machine's The Dog Days are Over and Yeasayer's Ambling Alp.

NEW AGE FUN with a VINTAGE FEEL!!!

This is to American Apparel's bankruptcy, the New York Times' 20s something article and the death of the hipstamatic application: