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What Was the Hipster? A Sociological Investigation
by
Mark Greif ,
Kathleen Ross , Dayna Tortorici , n+1, Christian Lorentzen, Jace Clayton, Reid Pillifant, Rob Horning
,
more…
Who was the turn-of-the-century hipster? Who is free enough of the hipster taint to write this history without contempt or nostalgia? Why are we tempted to declare the neo-hipster moment over, when the hipster's "global brand" has just reached its apotheosis? A panel of n+1 writers, including Mark Greif, Christian Lorentzen, and Jace Clayton (aka dj/rupture) invited the pu
...morePaperback, 175 pages
Published
September 15th 2010
by n+1 Foundation
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Rather than write anything else about this odd but entertaining little book, I will post the beginnings of a Facebook conversation that developed about it tonight after I finished it. It's currently stopped because I was too tired to keep it going, but hopefully I'll have some time (and others will have some willingness) to keep it going over the next day or two.
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Micah: Just finished "What Was the Hipster? A Sociological Investigation," a 190-page excursion into 21st century hipsterism. It osci...more
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Micah: Just finished "What Was the Hipster? A Sociological Investigation," a 190-page excursion into 21st century hipsterism. It osci...more
So, I got it, thinking it was supposed to be funny. It wasn't. It was a combinations of articles and a forum (which I'm not even sure ACTUALLY happened) about hipsters. They were acting like this was a summit on an important issue. As someone who recently conducted a ridiculous amount of research for my thesis on human trafficking, this read like a pamphlet composed after a meeting at the UN on a conversation to stop child abuse. Except that's a subject that matters. These are hipsters. It's not...more
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If the book contributed more essays to balance out a complete transcript of the n+1 panel on hipsters at the New School, I'd be inclined to give it another star. Unfortunately, I think this portion and the two reviews that accompany it offer the most nebulous and least interesting viewpoints on the subject at hand, even if one of the audience members is a friend's brother and a report is filed by a casual acquaintance. I was also surprised that few contributors touched on digital and social medi...more
2 likes · like · see review
Before I write anything, let me specify that I’m a little (in size, in age less so every year) girl from the Old Continent. And yes, this premises is necessary so that I can write freely about What Was The Hipster? and not feeling guilty even if I have no business in holding opinions on such matter.
Before moving to the US I heard the word ‘hipster’ a few times, but mostly I saw it on magazines and in my mind I started to link it to a certain fashion style. In late August I crossed the ocean and...more
Before moving to the US I heard the word ‘hipster’ a few times, but mostly I saw it on magazines and in my mind I started to link it to a certain fashion style. In late August I crossed the ocean and...more
Somewhere between irreverence and academia, there is this book. Absolutely wonderful. It may seem like a self-indulgent exercise in developing a taxonomy of hip, but it really is an intriguing and eye-opening look at the socio-cultural movement that is hipsterism. A series of essays, a transcribed discussion from a New School debate, and a series of response essays. The best: probably, the identification of hipsters as promoting an infantilized, entitled white-ness, politically nihilist, represe...more
"[H]ipsterism strikes me as what happens when white folks become aware of power and inequity---but then say, 'Well, what are we supposed to do? Throw our hands up and mug for the cameras.' Any relinquishing of power is inevitably an aesthetic gesture."
"[The douchebag] is everything he has been taught to be; he does everything society asks of him. And for all of this effort, he assumes that he will be granted a slight, unspoken modicum of respect and admiration.
Yet this respect---respect predica...more
"[The douchebag] is everything he has been taught to be; he does everything society asks of him. And for all of this effort, he assumes that he will be granted a slight, unspoken modicum of respect and admiration.
Yet this respect---respect predica...more
by the end of this book i felt about the word 'hipster' the way i felt about the word 'vagina' at the end of watching 'the vagina monologues,' which is: able to say it without feeling awkward / laughing like i would have beforehand.
the discussion around which the book is centered features a few interesting ~2 page theses, but no real coherent discussion seems to happen. which is fine.
feel this book will be important as a historical document of 1999-2009 New York City, but also could contribute t...more
the discussion around which the book is centered features a few interesting ~2 page theses, but no real coherent discussion seems to happen. which is fine.
feel this book will be important as a historical document of 1999-2009 New York City, but also could contribute t...more
Lo acabo de terminar.
Me lo regalaron en mi cumple, y nada... mayor sensación de haber perdido el tiempo mientras lo leía no he podido tener (a excepción de algún momento en que no he podido evitar la "risa" por tantas paridas irónicas y petulantes juntas...).
En definitiva, la mayor mierda que te puedas echar a los ojos.
Para los que duden, antes de ponerse con esto, hay mucho donde elegir...
(Y no es que no me gusten los ensayos, es que para ser un ensayo, no hay por dónde cogerlo).
Me lo regalaron en mi cumple, y nada... mayor sensación de haber perdido el tiempo mientras lo leía no he podido tener (a excepción de algún momento en que no he podido evitar la "risa" por tantas paridas irónicas y petulantes juntas...).
En definitiva, la mayor mierda que te puedas echar a los ojos.
Para los que duden, antes de ponerse con esto, hay mucho donde elegir...
(Y no es que no me gusten los ensayos, es que para ser un ensayo, no hay por dónde cogerlo).
very interesting book. the original panel, transcribed at the beginning of the book and providing the framework for the remainder of the analysis, failed entirely. it suffers from exactly the same self centeredness that it claims to abhor. the panelists being up the issue of class dynamics, only to ignore them for the rest of the panel.
fortunately, the responses to the panel make up for nearly every deficit in the original conference. overall, however, the entire body of work adds little new to...more
fortunately, the responses to the panel make up for nearly every deficit in the original conference. overall, however, the entire body of work adds little new to...more
Wednesday, Feb 16 at 7 pm Denis O’hare (True Blood and Take Me Out) and others perform luminous classic tales and exciting new stories from the latest emerging Russian writers. The evening will be guest curated and introduced by novelist Anya Ulinich (Petropolis) and Keith Gessen, novelist, translator (There Once Lived A Woman Who Killed Her Neighbor's Baby by Ludmilla Petrushevskay), and editor of the literary magazine, n+1.
Equal parts funny and obnoxious, I can't help but be amused that this treatise serving as a sort of ethnography of the modern hipster, manages to also be the very distillation of hipsterism itself. But because I think that the panellists are achingly aware of this, I give it a general thumbs up. As one reviewer said, I think I like the idea that this exists more than I actually enjoyed the work iteself.
I enjoyed the fact that this book exists slightly more than I enjoyed the book, but it’s worth a read if you’re interested in or amused by the hipster thing. The “academic without the rigour” style is well pitched, and although the transcript of the event is a bit dull (or real, I guess) it’s a useful centrepiece. Kept me amused for a couple of days.
Interesting, though somewhat shallow, examination of the contemporary iteration of the “hipster.”
I still feel like I did before I read the book that if so many people can be lumped into the term “hipster” these days, there is no way that all of them can really be that hip...
It was interesting getting a little more insight into the origins of the term.
I still feel like I did before I read the book that if so many people can be lumped into the term “hipster” these days, there is no way that all of them can really be that hip...
It was interesting getting a little more insight into the origins of the term.
En liñas xerais, hipsters falando sobre hipsters, para un público hipster. Logo dun comezo prometedor, pronto pasa a ser máis un brainstorming ca un libro, e aínda que aparecen algunhas ideas interesantes, están lastradas pola desorde e a falta de profundidade. Pouca solidez, e nada que non vaias aprender se googleas un pouco o tema.
I read a few Goodreads reviews of this title, and it seems like everyone was sort of lukewarm about the book. Most people thought it was clever, but they also seem disaffected by it, like it was too frivolous to care much about. So I just want to say that I think the book is fantastic, and I think it's important. I'm a sucker for generational and sociological investigations like this one, and I like how seriously the book takes the hipster phenomenon. It's smart. It's fun to read. And I think I'...more
read this for dude theory research, they are on to some things and off on others, the articles in the back were way more interesting that the symposium transcript, more consistent. the book itself is nicely designed, seems like the right size for that sort of thing..
Totally great, but only if you care about such things. If you don't care about the evolution of hipsters, the care and meaning of kitsch, etc., etc., I imagine this would be a maddeningly self-important read.
More a transcript of a discussion than a book, though nonetheless an interesting discussion of the complexities and contradictions of the cultural performance that is early-21st-century “hipster”.
An interesting introduction to various arguments and opinions even if it was short on concrete conclusions. Greif's essay "Epitaph for the White Hipster" was the highlight.
I got so confused at points because I had no idea what they were referring to half the time. Also, a lot of the writing was like an 11th year students' sociology essay - way too much use of a thesaurus. The last essay about the community battle between the Hasids & Hipsters in New York was hilarious, though.
I did not like this book. I really enjoyed the beginning, but found everything went downhill after that. I really disliked the discussion, as I found it preachy, and condescending. Also, I would say that's how hipsters would mostly describe themselves, therefore it's point is moot.
A lot of them are simply wrong but its an interesting look from the inside of hipsterism.
An enjoyable one-day read with a good history and plenty of navel-gazing-avoidance laughs.
In true hipster form, I found it entertaining -- in an ironic way, of course.
This is a fun pseudo-intellectual deconstruction of the "hipster."
Interesting look at how to define a group that doesn't like definition.
Interesting.
En abril de 2009, un grupo de investigadores de la revista n+1 organizaron un panel de discusión en la New School de NY con la idea de definir quién fue el hipster contemporáneo (el que vivió de 1999 al año de publicación del libro, 2010). Este libro es un transcrip de las opiniones de ponentes y público de ese panel. También incluye ensayos de académicos y otras cosas por ahí. So far, so very good.
Who knew that the much-maligned hipster could generate so much provocative discussion around issues of culture, gender, race and consumerism? A surprisingly interesting and educational read.
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