What do hipsters and pornography have in common?

 

What do hipsters and pornography have in common? As the saying goes, you know 'em when you see 'em. That was the joke moderator Christian Lorentzen used to kick off the eight-person discussion "Look at This F*ing Panel: A Sociological Investigation of the Hipster" Monday night at UCLA.

The panel, inpsired by one held last year at NYU by n+1 magazine, imported many of its panelists from New York. A notable exception was L.A.'s Mark Hunter, the photographer also known as the Cobrasnake. Wearing tattered denim shorts and an American-flag shirt, Hunter spoke up idealistically for hipsters as people who were inspired and creative, getting some of the night's warmest applause.

But that came later. First, the panel struggled to agree on a definition of today's hipster. As Lortentzen joked, a hipster is easier to recognize than to define -- and the eight panelists never came to a consensus.

Gavin McInnes, co-founder of Vice magazine, maintained that hipster was just the latest youth movement in the tradition of greasers, rappers, mods, hippies, punks -- all focused on music, fashion and fornication. He left the rest of the panel a little stunned -- in part because his riff on fornication seemed hard to argue with (who, apart from Christine O'Donnell, is against fornication?) and in part because he had strutted onto the stage shirtless and took his place at the panel wearing nothing more than pants and tattoos.

Is a hipster any different from a yuppie? If so, what separates them? Alexi Wasser of the blog imboycrazy.com  gave a ringing endorsement of what she called the hipster aesthetic -- "I see a dude wearing dark denim and white tennis shoes, that's great! He's a babe!" -- while decrying a negative hipster attitude. Andrea Bartz and Brenna Ehrlich of the tumbler-to-book "Stuff Hipsters Hate" (not to be confused with "Stuff White People Like" or the popular blog-to-book from which the panel name was taken) also criticized negativity and apathy within hipster culture.

Chrisopher Glazek, an assistant editor at n+1, noted that last year's panel made connections between hipsters and gentrification -- an issue perhaps more pressing in Williamsburg and other areas of Brooklyn than in Los Angeles, and one that may have been a bit lost on the young students in Westwood. Glazek tied gentrification to the phrase "white power," which set off McInnes -- who was easy to set off, frequently throwing the panel into high-key chaos -- on a riff that ended with hipster armies wearing American Apparel Brownshirts.

Mary Corey, a lecturer in UCLA's history department, finally got a chance to speak. "Hipsterism has a rich and vital history that has nothing to do with ruining Brooklyn," she said. McInnes reiterated his point that it was just another youth movement and that all youth movements were about music, fashion and fornication, even those we think of as more political. Corey was shocked. "If Angela Davis is reduced to a hairstyle --" she began.

"Who's Angela Davis?" Tao Lin interjected, scoring an easy laugh.

Lin is the author of several books, including "Shoplifting From American Apparel" and the new book "Richard Yates" (not to be confused with the actual author Richard Yates). He speaks in a slow monotone, much like comedian Steven Wright and with the culture-jamming inclinations of Andy Kaufman. Lin, who Lorentzen says has been described as "inauthentic, confusing and alienated," has a devoted hipster fan base -- there was enthusiastic applause when he spoke. (Lin also has detractors; during the Q&A, a questioner equated "Shoplifting From American Apparel" with "a literary bowel movement.")

When pressed on how he defined "hipster," Tao Lin demurred. "Like all categories, I try to stay away from it." He continued, mumbling half-finished sentences into the microphone.

McInnes jumped in. "I can't tell what you're saying!" he blurted, complaining about Lin's mannered speaking style.

"That's my trademark," Lin replied, monotonally.

Applause.

The panel moved back into intellectual territory when the question of the avant-garde was raised. Corey traced hipsters back to the beats, then back to Norman Mailer, and the ideas in his problematic essay "The White Negro," and back to the 1920s. In those periods, the things we might see as hallmarks of today's hipster -- interest in culture and progressive ideology -- were present, under different names. She was on the point of saying hipsters and the avant-garde were the same thing when the conversation was derailed -- yes, again by McInnes -- exasperated by the application of hipster to other time periods and cultural moments.

If the panel was not able to come to a consensus on the definition of hipster, it did leave the audience with this overview: A hipster is, by definition, someone 18 to 25  years old with an interest in music, fashion and fornication; with progressive ideology (there are no "tea party" hipsters); with a weakness for criticism and apathy; and with the desire to be creative and connected.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Waiting for the hipster panel at UCLA. Credit: Carolyn Kellogg / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Nathan]

Gentrification not applicable in Los Angeles? Huh?

Do you ever make it east of La Brea?

[Shelley]

As someone who writes about people who could hardly bear to think about themselves, much less talk about themselves, what I'm struck by in this event is the incredible...self-consciousness.

[Alan]

Give me strength. A rose by any other name is a rose. As a "new wave-er" of the 80's not a punk thrasher, they are just our youth and latest music crazy (the inde), the only differences are 501s not stretchy jeans. But I'm amazed the same time honored "chuck taylors" make the cut. The only thing missing is the "rat tail" and disenchantment at nuclear proliforation (just a different thing to be bummed about). This too shall pass. Whats next Dippster?

[reynard seifert]

i guess that definition means next year is the year i won't have to hear people whisper something something hipster when i walk down valencia, good to know

[hipster nation]

the village voice in new york city also had someone cover it too. is gavin mcinnes that absurd?

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/10/the_ucla_hipste.php

[blurg]

panel last year was at The New School, not that boring place down the block.

[student]

i was there, it sucked. mary corey and chris glazek -- relegated to the far edge of the table -- were visibly disappointed with the discussion. gavin's an idiot. bought n+1's new book though, so far so good

[Dan]

Hasn't this whole concern and discussion about hipsters ran its course and been beaten to death by now? Yes, it was funny in 2004 and getting a little tiring by 2006, but now it is 2010. Who still gets this concerned about it? Can't they come up with any other possible idea for a discussion?

[Roz in Koreatown]

williamsburg hipster gentrification = echo park hipster gentrification. straight out. anyone who says that hipsters haven't gentrified echo park hasn't spent very much time there and definitely didn't grow up there. it doesn't surprise me that one of the hipsters didn't know who angela davis was. so telling. okay hipsters. that's pathetic.

[Rush]

Hipter is a regressive movement, not being able to have an original identity, it borrows from the colorful past. It's popularity is what makes it so prominent. Many other groups have such identity issues and often borrow from a movement that best represents their personality while proclaiming their own identity as "originality"; though they are more of a cliche role.

sex is the leading driving factor.

[Matthew]

The panel would have been far better if it was just Corey, Glazek, and Lorentzen. McInnes repeatedly asked why, at 40 years old, he had to defend youth culture, when it was apparent to everyone that it is because he is functionally a child. Wasser repeated (again and again) that she like "babes." There wasn't much enlightening to that.

The real disappointment is that the NYC panel was very, very good. Both serious and humorous, with real ideas discussed at length. Thankfully they've transcribed it into a book; a recommend it.

[Jasper]

This article seems a lot like the panel, scattered. It's hard to define what is hipster is when you are a hipster, so why have a bunch of hipsters talk about themselves?

[Lizzie]

Really? I thought hipsters were 45-year-olds in vintage CBGB T-shirts and"ironic" eyeglasses who don't want to accept that they're middle aged.

Also, I think the defining characteristic of hipsterism is a fondness for irony.

[Nikki Taxx]

Nice to know UCLA is on the cutting edge of socially-minded research.

At least hippies were friendly. And a tad more stylish.

[JDF]

What Shelly and Lizzie said.
And how many on the panel had new books, etc. published recently?
This wasn't a thought experiment made manifest, it was a PR event.
And this?: "She was on the point of saying hipsters and the avant-garde were the same thing when the conversation was derailed -- yes, again by McInnes -- exasperated by the application of hipster to other time periods and cultural moments." What time periods? Because here's a news flash-- "Hipster" has been appropriated by the Gen-Whatever media to try to create a story/movement/hype over and over again. "Hipster" is a term 50 years old. It's like The Believer's Heidi Julavits and "snark." The word had its own meanings before she tossed it out to a shallow and hungry media to gobble up and regurgitate to those that don't care if their ideas are recycled and will accept whatever is fed to them. And allow me to offer a final kick in the crotch to any who think the painfully meaningless panel covered in the article is more than a sales pitch for author and publisher product. There is nothing ironic about it -- it is undiluted BS. (And I'm sorry to see N+1 as part of it -- I've always respected the publication and those who produce it. Have things in the lit world really sunk so low?) Here's a definition for "hipster": those that can't come up with new ideas, so they steal the old and claim them for themselves. Bleh.

[Adrian]

Hipsters are:
Those who are desperately trying to be "different" and in doing so end up thinking, sounding, and looking alike.
Also, they are the ones people can point and laugh at, and still be politically correct.

[innercity]

Hipsters are lemmings desperately in need of being seen as cool, with-it, so forth. They act like they & they alone discovered such things as "eyeglasses" and "blue jeans" and "haircuts," but for anyone with even 1/5 a brain, they come across as foolish and self-absorbed, no more.

[Joshua]

how, in gods name, does anyone have a serious discussion on this topic? hipster is a youth trend just like the 1000's of youth trends before it. some people like it, some people hate it, but sitting around talking about it si the most damned pointless thing you could spend an evening doing. go to the lounge and have a beer.

[hipsters who think they are, and those that just are]

Hipster is a self-conscious cultural type, who wears certain clothes/tats/whatever, sort of like modern "punkers" _must_ wear leather, torn something, and a mohawk. In other words, it's a copycat cultural signifier, and that's fine.

Traditionally, a "hipster" was someone who defined themselves in terms of the culture, but at one edge of it. Embracing it, but at a distance that allowed the 'hipster' to make a comment on it, while also defining himself as something different. Alternatively, the hipster was someone who just _did_ that, without any planning or self-consciousness at all (outsiders noticed and branded the person as a "hipster").

It's an elusive idea. Lizzie (commenter below) certainly has got something in the note that "the defining characteristic of hipsterism is a fondness for irony." (Whether "defining" or not is debatable, but certainly an important element in the conversation.)

Progressive politics ain't got nothin' to do with it AT ALL. (Hipsters frequently run counter to type in all things, including politics.)

[chrissy]

these comments have already addressed more stuff than the panel did, but still all very negative. someone there did point out that there's a difference between the "hipster ideology" and hipster fashion. hipster fashion is indeed variable, but i think it can pretty much all be described as referencing or copying a past style -- from 40's plaid to 90's floral. and i do think that many people are wearing these styles because they like or identify with the era they evoke and i think that's great. it's about as close to a respect-your-elders vibe as we're going to get from young people in this country.