Okay so I have had a serious catch up with films and documentaries whilst being stuck inside, avoiding the cold! A documentary film i haven been wanting to see since it was first shown at the start of the month on BBC4 I have finally now been able to catch up on! The Hipster Handbook presented by the legendary Peter York. He is intrigued to finding the obsession with the ‘Authentic’ lifestyle. York is more than happy to mock the subculture whilst also carefully taking i apart into areas that everyone can understand.
According to York, hipster beards, lumberjack shirts and tattoos are an attempt to fill the ‘masculinity gap’ in a world where many urban-dwelling men work in front of a computer screen. He portrays male hipsters as a reaction against the later-day metrosexual’s ‘sharp’ looks. But a glimpse inside a Shoreditch barber’s shows us just how ‘cultivated’ the hipster look really is, with a mass of expensive grooming products used to create the latest beard shapes. Overpriced coffee shops and organic products are also all part of the ‘look’ or ‘lifestyle’.
This show changed my perception of the typical ‘hipster’ it showed the difference to an actual hipster (Peter York’s version), who naturally uses these particular products, goes to certain places and is genuinely interested by this lifestyle compared to someone who tries to look like one but doesn’t follow the lifestyle to go with it. Unlike the original ‘hipsters’ of the 1940s, who rebelled against all aspects of the society around them, contemporary hipsters typically seem to express their non-conformism through shopping whether it’s for retro styles or artisanal produce).
Contrasting against this particular stereotype, i recently read an article on mrporter.com about how we re all considered hipsters today. There’s no Shoreditch House in Milton Keynes just yet, but it’s getting there, insists Mr York. “You have to know the difference between a trend and a fad,” he says. A fad is rolled up jeans. A trend is a way of living shaped by major socio-economic forces.” This statement is so true yet only obvious when compared to Yorks view. Its strong statements like this which illustrate how dominant the cultural stereotype has actually become. Some shops will describe their products ‘vintage clothing’ as part of the masculinity gap. The traditional masculine workwear style of the hipster has been confused today with the generalisation of vintage clothing, which only parts meet to this specific stereotype. There is also the question today as to whether the ‘hipster’ is an extended adolescence of most young people, even entering their thirties. York describes this as “people living a sort of student life well into their thirties, putting off the big decisions… Hipsterland, like the gentrified Williamsburg, is a place where you never have to grow up.”
I personally believe that it is technology that has recreated and expanded the ‘Hipster’. Without technology others would not be able to pick up these trends and of course how would they be able to Instagram pictures of them sitting in edgy coffee shops.
morgan reese 