the hipster vacuum
i don’t get or read Adbusters magazine anymore, because it was just so…..overbearing. and drumbeat. and depressing. and during the year or so i did subscribe to the print version i wondered if reading it every month was affecting my world view a little too much. but i still subscribe to the RSS feed and click over to the website once in a while, because while i find the imagery and language too much to deal with on a regular basis, especially in the print version (100 PAGES OF DOOM!), the content and values are still right in line with how i think, and they still say the things i have been trying to say, just always so much more pointedly.
We’ve reached a point in our civilization where counterculture has mutated into a self-obsessed aesthetic vacuum. So while hipsterdom is the end product of all prior countercultures, it’s been stripped of its subversion and originality, and is leaving a generation pointlessly obsessing over fashion, faux individuality, cultural capital and the commodities of style. — Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization
it appears to me that post-9/11, the ambient insecurity in our culture has brought about the return of materialism in a big way. much like anorexia is not about food but about control and anxiety, national insecurity has manifested itself in various ways in our culture, most prominently through xenophobia (fear of “the other”, e.g. anti-immigration) and consumer materialism (propagated by our own government…remember this? and most recently via the “stimulus package”). not that materialism in america ever went away, but americans are currently more hyper-obsessed with their brands, their celebrities, their media, their image, and their possessions (including home-ownership) than ever before, and we have more and more tools every day to feed those obsessions. unlike previous periods of extreme aestheticism in western culture, this is not just the upper class. the lower classes are just as obsessed with their gucci ripoffs as the upper class are with the real thing. and yet for many, it feels like a vacuum. this culture continually keeps sucking things out of us: our money, our time, our individuality, our creativity, our passion. what we’re left with is a mass of confused, isolated people with lot of debt and insecurity, with closets and garages full of crap. kids are dropping out of school like flies, our healthcare costs are through the roof, and like Al Gore said: “The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton.”
the article pokes at the specific “hipster” trend (see: american apparel) and its rehashing of everything retro, but i’m applying it to my own scene as well, cuz it fits:
Lovers of apathy and irony, hipsters are connected through a global network of blogs and shops that push forth a global vision of fashion-informed aesthetics. Loosely associated with some form of creative output, they attend art parties, take lo-fi pictures with analog cameras, ride their bikes to night clubs and sweat it up at nouveau disco-coke parties. The hipster tends to religiously blog about their daily exploits, usually while leafing through generation-defining magazines like Vice, Another Magazine and Wallpaper. This cursory and stylized lifestyle has made the hipster almost universally loathed.
in my own scene, this debate over the value we place on our specific forms of fashion and style and image gets rehashed every few months, and now that we’re in The Month of Burning Man, it’s coming up again as there are multiple “playa fashion” events every week, and people are wondering whether burning man is about personal expression, or really just one big fashion show where the HAVEs try to outdo the HAVE NOTs. is burning man anti-consumer as it claims to be, or just its own version of hipster? i’m tempted to go totally anti-fashion this year at burning man. i want to get a pair of coveralls, and just wear that all week.
Filed in burning man, culture and random linkage, most linked/commented on | Comments (20)We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.
20 Responses to “the hipster vacuum”
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Wow, the coveralls idea rocked my world when I read it. Nothing says counter-counter culture at BM like wearing coveralls all week long.
I’ve often thought that if I ever go back to the playa, I’d go naked all week long, to make a similar statement.
if i thought i wouldn’t be harassed and photographed 1000x a day by going naked all day long, i would consider it, but unfortunately burning man is also no longer a place where i feel comfortable being naked in public.
OMG. The coverall idea is so badass. Would it defeat consumerism though bc you have to buy coveralls? Srsly, I love that idea on so many levels. You just articulated a lot of what I feel and haven’t been able to put into words. I think that materlism of the counterculture is to keep their monkey minds occupied w. stuff rather than fomenting a revolution. I think that’s true of the whole country. As long as we are consuming to keep our seratonin releasing and our brains happy, we won’t ever need to sit down and take stock of what’s really happening. It’s like the country is attending some consumerist Irish wake, getting drunk on posessions while the United States’ casket is in the room. You grew up in a super-rural area as did I. I wonder what you think of materialism/yuppie bullshit through that filter? Growing up somewhere where materialism was kept to a dull roar really put shit into perspective for me. As a kid, so much was off my radar for various reasons: isolation, economic, etc. When I was growing up, I couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of there but now I am so grateful for how I was raised. Also: I would love to attend Burning Man, but the cost of it is so redic it’s just not possible for me. It’s not the tickets, but the peripheral bullshit: glitter and tents and water and drugs and this and that and this. I just got an email from my local hooper listserv for a Burning Man bootcamp, to get bodies into shape for BM. There was a lot that bothered me about the email, but this line in particular got my blood boiling: “Get rid of those “jigglies” so you can look your smokinest in your tight daytime outfits.” WTF. Way to promote body positivity in your community, Mr. Heady Burning Man Personal Trainer.
Simplicity is the only real measure of beauty.
perhaps post 9/11 ambient insecurity plays a mitigating part in instigating materialistic tendencies, but having to constantly think about our “selves” as we perpetually groom our personal profiles on facebook and myspace and everywhere else is really enough to exacerbate our narcissism without needing any kind of political factors. after all, is our time’s ambient insecurity all that different from the cultural anxiety of the cold war? or from ancient civilizations’ dread about pissing off the gods? i think the effects on our social psychology have pretty much been the same for thousands of years.
americans like to blame the faults of human nature on capitalism, but self-obsession is a *human* behavior–and one we’re quite strongly predisposed to. hence, as you say, the world is filling up with more and more tools to enable (and encourage) that fixation.
we don’t just want to be “individuals” we want to reconcile our individuality with belonging to something bigger too, and short of standard-issue enforced uniforms–which not many people decrying hipsterdom, or any other kind of aesthetic expression, seem to be crying out for–”materialism” is the name of the game.
ps. thre is nothing anti-consumer about burningman, or anything else that defines a lifestyle. who would think that kind of stuff, anyway?
that self-obsession is a natural human behavior, i agree, but how that manifests itself is environmentally determined, and while “capitalism” may or may not be the cause of an unhealthy level of naval-gazing, it sure as hell likes to enable it.
as for “who would think that kind of stuff, anyway?” — i know there is nothing anti-consumer about burning man (see all my previous blogs about burning man). in the past 4 years i’ve spent more money on burning man than anything else in my life, and i know i’m not in the minority on that.
who does think it are the people who are being sold the idea of burning man: the idealists and seekers of utopia. and the people who don’t understand that loading your car up full of shit before you head to the playa does not make it an non-consumer event, it just means you just did all your consuming before you got there. the people who WANT burning man to be anti-consumerist believe that it is, just like the people in the article who don’t want to believe their little subculture is a trend will say they aren’t hipsters.
yeah, but those people are getting what they’re paying for
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Man, that stings.
which part?
i had an idea to make a plain outfit that is just me-colored – e.g. clothes that exist only to prevent nakedness (b/c i also would not feel comfy naked at bm all week) and wear that the whole time, on the theory that i couldn’t possibly look more boring than i would wearing something that completely blends in to my skin. i’ve thought of doing this, both for bm and for parties, and it is funny how that idea now generates as much anxiety as it once did for me to think about calling attention to myself with costumes (which was actually a lot, when i first started going in 2000). anxiety because i’ve so relied on clothing/costumes to pass the “see, i’m interesting! i belong here!” test and i know i’ll freak when i make myself look boring and i have to either pass the test using some other talent, or not care about the test. eek.
would love to chill with you in said outfit while you’re in coveralls, tho i think we’re visiting opposite halves of burning man this year, so maybe we’ll repeat the performance another time. when we were building the soap factory, though, i wore my overalls for like 3 months straight, and i freaking loved it, so enjoy the coveralls
. and thanks for the post!
the space cowboys, DDI, and the flaming lotus girls as entire camps have all sported the coveralls look on the playa in the past (orange and black tend to be popular). however, their year round mentality tends towards anti-fashion.
however, ms. leblanc, you’re a different story. that would blow my mind.
if it would blow trix’s mind, i think i have to do it.
Coveralls are awful hot, in the temperature sense. Do you go out during the day? You’ll need a second outifit if you do; not that that will be trouble for you to dig up.
You wrote
“and people are wondering whether burning man is about personal expression, or really just one big fashion show where the HAVEs try to outdo the HAVE NOTs”
Does fashion equate to personal expression? I don’t think it does. Fashion, or the lack of it, can be interpreted as a component of personal expression, but there is more to it than that. It is possible to treat burning man as just a giant fashion show, because there is some incredible clothing there, but it is also possible to find people to exchange ideas with new people, and to express things through elements of camp design and your interaction with neighbors.
Also, it seems that many people equate caring about material goods with consumerist materialism. I can’t in good conscience argue that the burn is anti consumerist, but there is an opportunity to try and make your gear and your camp as functional as possible. This goes against the oppulence that many camps engage in, and can be anti fashion as well (fewer outfits and accessories), but leaning towards minimalism has its own rewards.
You probably have time to stitch up a simple linen robe (monk style with a rope belt, for example), for when it’s warm. Linen is a good fabric for the desert.
-dc
interesting post, as i’ve been thinking about “uniforms” lately, how useful they can be when individuality is focused on non-aesthetic things. there’s something to it…
my camp in 2005 had matching coveralls, complete with spray-paint eggplant art and each of our names on the front. We wore them to build camp, and many just wore them throughout the week, and i wore them when building langton. love them. once you get a pair, reasons pop up to wear them. so comfy, and liberating.
also must add that i loved brendan’s all-white approach last year.
coveralls have been purchased.
and yes, DC, i realize it’s really hot during the day as this will be my 5th burning man. however, much like desert dwelling humans worldwide, i have found that having light layers and my skin covered helps keep me cooler than being skantily clad. i bought lightweight and very roomy coveralls. who knows; maybe i won’t wear them as much as i think i will, but i’m pretty intent at this point to avoid the over-costuming tendency and just wear simple, comfortable clothes and minimal, if any, hair/make-up doings. no glitter and tulle for me this year…. minimalism will be key to keeping my sanity, both in camp and in wardrobe.
and yes, i agree, “Fashion, or the lack of it, can be interpreted as a component of personal expression” but that it’s not all of it. obvi i am generally really into fashion as my own favorite form of personal expression and for someone like me burning man is like MECCA for costumers, but as kelly said, @ burning man there is a very high correlation between how “cool” you look and how “cool” people assume you ARE, and therefore people tend to use the superficial to pass the “see, i’m interesting! i belong here!” test, just like in other scenes there are similar things (sexy garb @ clubs, hippie garb @ hippiefests, goth garb etc). any time there is a “scene”, there is the associated fashion, and people in those scenes judge each other based on how well they assimilate into those fashions. deny it all you want, but it’s true.
wardrobe is a HUGE part of how we express ourselves, so i’m pretty torn on this feeling, but i’m really questioning how and why i participate in that part of my life right now. i’m pretty sick of fashion being the ONLY gauge of personal worth in certain communities (and also a little sick of being gauged by it myself), to the point that i’m disinterested in participating in that this year on the playa.
basically, i’m extremely over the “burnier than thou” thing and trying to be accepted/acknowledged/noticed by various tangents of the burning man community; i just want to fucking relax. could i do that and NOT wear coveralls and bring all my fun stuff? i could try, but costuming is a very personal thing, and i think it’s easier for me to detach and relax if i just decide to not participate and say to hell with it, i’m just going to be dirty all week. will my friends and campmates treat me differently? i sure as hell hope not; it’s the attention from strangers/others/photographers that i’m just wanting to avoid. (see: year 2006 blog when i got super annoyed with all the “can i take your picture?” tourists).
does anyone have any comments on the rest of the Adbusters article outside of the burning man commentary? i think it was super interesting.
I’ll bite.
It was an interesting and well written article, but I do think some things are overlooked. To begin with, why assume that this is “counter-culture” and not simply “culture”? He mentions Disco as having had a purpose (in its dance) but there was nothing counter-cultural about Disco. In fact the narcissistic fashion and drug use were similar to today’s scene even if the details are different. Secondly, marketing does play a role, but this is not new. There has been an ever increasingly efficient process of “marketing to the movement” that dates back to when coke said it was “the real thing” (talking to hippies who were looking for genuine experiences and not the fake lemming social tripe… sound familiar? — This was repeated during the hip-hop days by Pepsi with “I like the Sprite in you.”). Marketing now is viral and instantaneous which gives it a ruthless efficiency, but the concept of marketing to the masses with a feedback loop of “what is hip?/we’ll tell them what is hip” is as old as marketing itself. So what we are likely going to see is that it may be a while before a more authentic countercultural movement comes along. Disco WAS a rebellion against the hippie movement but it wasn’t long on philosphy (or anything other than cocaine and primping, really). At the time it was seen as a sign that movements had lost all authenticity and that is why it was so despised. But never before had a shallow movement been given such deep analysis (the “me-generation”), and I suspect this is more of the same. And lastly, it is true with ANY movement that there is a small minority of authentic movers and a large group of lemmings. I knew many so-called punks in the early 80′s. None of them actually knew or embraced the working class nihilistic roots of the movement but many wouldn’t be caught dead without safety pins in their ears. This is not the downfall of civilization or a harbinger of such. It is more likely simply a culturally boring mish-mosh time, the calm before the storm of a more legitimately purposeful and grass roots movement that could rightly be called counter-cultural.
thx jon – always good to have your perspective from a few years down the road.
for another blog response check out http://www.al3x.net/2008/07/on-hipsters.html
(thx ariel for the link)
Amy, that blog response was excellent, thanks for the link. And btw I try to minimize my pollution of this blog because it is most valuable to me for what it exposes me to and not for what it allows me to say. I have read a few blogs from time to time but for whatever reason I find that your mixture of personal report and the people who visit here and the links you include expose me to a very concise and informative mixture of emerging culture. I have not had the same “hit rate” with other blogs. I have learned (and thought about) so many things that pertain to our social and technological path that I can’t begin to summarize it all. Keep being interested and you’re sure to remain interesting. Thanks!
thx jon – that’s great feedback, and really means a lot.
as for your “polluting” this blog with your comments – i always find your comments insightful. don’t hold back too much!
I boycotted blinky lights and fun fur this year.
This article speaks to me a bit because I love innovation and experimentation: mechanical inventions, sculpture, fashion, music… these are my highest priorities on the playa. Hipsters experiment a LOT (well, at least the ones I know in Vancouver do)… and so do Burners. Yet I know very few Hipsters who go to Burning Man. Why do they dislike each other so much? Is it the generation gap?
For starters, all the Burners I know make waaaaay more money than the hipsters I know. The hipsters might have come from a middle or upper class family, but because they’re spending the vast majority of their time either working a low paid service job, starting a ‘zine, running an underground art/music space, practicing with their band, playing dodgeball or DJing on Serato… they really don’t make enough to travel 1,000 km + the $300 ticket.
Meanwhile I know lots of Burners who work well-paid professional jobs and they look forward to BM every year as somewhat of a vacation from their cubicle.
The average burner is roughly 32 years old, while the average hipster is more likely to be 22 years old.
http://afterburn.burningman.co.....demos.html
I’d guess the average burner would probably pick dubstep as their favorite electronic music genre. Hipsters might name some obscure genre like Italo or Swedish Balearic… but eclectic and indie might be a better description.
The majority of Burners graduated with at least a Bachelors degree. I doubt the same is true for Hipsters (unless you count art school).
But what really separates the two is EXCLUSIVITY. Hipsters have no problem with Radical Exclusion. Burners pride themselves on Radical Inclusion.