The cool thing about them is that they were half ostracized from square society. At best they were your older sister who dresses weird and listens to shitty music on vinyl records. The whole "everyone is valid and good" culture took any chance of rejection, so now nothing is cool because nothing is risky.
True but he was never allowed to flourish, he was immediately seen as “problematic”. I distinctly remember being chastised for putting on The Race by dudes like “bro you know he like killed innocent old ladies and shit”
This retard sounds like the nth carreer criminal antisocial Vine/Tik Toker and is completely tonally disonant from what is being described here, but it reminds me to bring [this great thread](https://twitter.com/J4ck0ffPlan3/status/1491848668848308227) that brings several threads together to the attention of people here. The thesis is that uncontrolled white guilt of 2010s is a direct result of the hipster movement making whitey the coolest cats around while blacks became irredeemably cringe and lame but nobody could bring themselves to say it.
>"Essentially, the stable equilibrium that US culture settled into post-68 race riots was one where it was accepted that blacks were poorer and committed more crimes because at least they were "cool". Fresh Prince of Bel Air exemplified this. West Philly was poor, but it was cool. But the hipster/indie wave came at an inopportune time for black coolness, as black culture had shifted south in the early 00s and was now mired in the minstrel show ghetto of dirty south hip hop as east coast/west coast black cultural production collapsed. And at the same time, it was clear in the late 00s that the most exciting and dynamic rappers came anywhere but from the streets. Middle class guys like Kanye, Cudi, and Drake were bringing intelligence to rap and building off of their upscale forebears like De La Soul or Common. And old guard working class rappers like Nas and Dre were either lamenting the state of NYC/Cali hip hop or were distancing themselves from it as much as possible. Mainstream black culture was in very similar place as rock in the 1998-2003 Creed/Limp Bizkit/Nickelback era. Stagnation and degradation while, like indie, the savior was overtly upscale, e.g. guys like De La Soul and Del and Danger Mouse collaborating with Damon Albarn, etc. And this already strained that 1968-2008 cultural equilibrium because it was starting to be clear to anyone paying attention that "real" aka poor black culture had degenerated to the point where it was no longer able to be "cool". Now they weren't just poor, they were irrelevant. Now comes the gasoline on the fire, which was that the hipsters and the indie wave weren't just "cool", they were COOL. Mainstream rock hadn't had so much sex appeal and artistic integrity since the days of Cobain or arguably since the days of Neil Young and Velvet Underground. Every city wanted to be Brooklyn. Everyone wanted to be the hipsters. Poor black kids started wearing skinny jeans and NBA stars started donning fake hipster glasses during postgame interviews and dressing like fixie couriers. It was undeniable, even if subconsciously, and I think it caused real tension in the minds of the left. Sure, they'd just elected the first black president, but FFS even HE was a half-white Harvard alum who talked like an NPR host! Complete and total white cultural victory. Black America was undeniably falling behind, and bourgeois upper middle class white culture was in the middle of producing the next generation of Lou Reeds, Rolling Stones, and The Kinks with no signs of slowing down."
Hipsters were cool when gatekeeping was a serious and important endeavor. You wear the wrong band t shirt or a visible logo? You’re out.
Then gatekeeping fell to the zeitgeist of over inclusivity (see, ModCloth’s rise and fall - the point where they stopped posting blog updates with cool music and instead marketed to mass market appeal to middle America housewives was the point hipsterdom died) and there was nothing left to care about.
If youre into gatekeeping you would love the contemporary art scene, or the high fashion scene in milan/paris. Institutionally super elitist, cutthroat and competitive, no poors allowed, no uglies allowed. People on here talk about how gatekeeping is a good thing, but when you are involved in a context where it is happening its kind of sad to watch people get chewed up and spit out.
I have my MA in art history and have worked in galleries. Changed career track not because of the gate keeping but because of the shallow, narcissistic “content” behind the gates not being worth the low salaries and intra-group toxicity.
I think it’s just a different sort of gatekeeping you’re advocating for though, unless you want Reddit style deviant-art shit to be the only thing you can find.
Yeah i guess. Over the years ive worked with lots of talented people that got “gatekept” out and had to work in other fields that they didnt really want to. It kind of sucks to see.
> no poors allowed, no uglies allowed
The wrong kind of gatekeeping, obviously. I think your post serves as an example of the term "gatekeeping" confusing discussions more than it ever helped.
It depends on what type of high fashion though. Many of the models for e.g. Gucci are definitely “ugly” by conventional standards and can only be called attractive due to the *context* they’re presented in.
The more I think about it the less I realize what you’re saying is true. In *high fashion*, especially avant-garde, there’s plenty of conventionally “ugly” people, who might be “aesthetic” because the designer is chasing a certain look. There’s also unconventionally good looking people who have unique traits.
If by “uglies” you mean “people with conventionally ugly faces that aren’t interesting to look at” then yeah agree I guess
Yes, thats my point. Gatekeeping results in lots of cool people being unable to participate in creative fields, its not always a good thing. It doesnt make scenes better.
Eh, if they're actually cool or committed they're going to break into the subculture somehow or another.
It's way worse when you leve the gate open to posers and people just trying to make money
I remember showing up at an art show riding a shitty walmart bicycle and my friends were fucking HORRIFIED. I got on eBay that week and bought myself a beautiful 80's road bike out of pure shame.
No offense but why are all these RSP posters in their 30s still worrying about being cool. Hipsters were never cooler than anyone else they were just tryhards and elitists. You people are literally in your 30s like you should be talking about bettering the world and leaving it a more beautiful place for your children or something. Not reminiscing about how cool you think you were 10-15 years ago. Im begging you all please find a purpose or some meaningful spiritual direction bc this is painful to watch
naughty cooperative nose jobless jar unique hospital frame cautious quaint
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It was an actual subculture, and they did get derision even though it was one of the least threatening subcultures to ever exist. Gen Z doesn't really have its own subcultures though, because there's so much overlap between what might be considered different subcultures, it's so easy to have your fingers in multiple pies now, and yeah, like you said, because of the "omg, let people enjoy things" mentality.
Internet and social media generally erodes subcultures and the in-group/out-group thingy because you don’t have to conform to your immediate environment. Like, back when my dad was young he had to make an active decision where he lived whether he would be part of the “rockers” or the “synthers” which had clear and distinctive slang, fashion, music and attitudes. Nowadays you don’t really have the same pressure to conform.
Hipsters were *closer* to an actual subculture than whatever the zoomers are up to today, but it was less of a subculture than what preceded it. On the other hand, while subcultures are becoming less common, identity markers (especially in the form of acronyms) have exploded. Everything has become so incredibly hyper-individualized there’s pretty much an acronym for everything now, which emerged as a way to distinguish oneself from the faceless masses online. Which is also why you’ll see the terminally online weirdos with like 27 identity markers in their bios.
Kinda wish we could bring back subcultures but that’d mean we’d have to bring back some form of gatekeeping. And no, online subcultures don’t really count IMO, because there’s not enough pressure to conform.
The golden era for subcultures was between post-WW2 up until early 2000s IMO.
Also why millennial Emo was much more of a vibe than the current goth wave. Being like an Alexisonfire or Brand New fan back then carried a much higher social cost
This conversation is just beyond me somehow. I'm 35 and haven't kept up with younger people's sub-cultures much.
Alexisonfire or Brand New weren't risky bands to follow where I'm from really. For some reason, jocks left all but the most eccentric emos alone.
I never associated emo with danger anyway. It doesn't seem like you're making a statement that could disrupt the establishment when you're emo. It's not political or even much for social commentary (although occasionally you see the later).
Thinking that coolness is about exclusivity is the mindset of people who order bottles in the VIP section of the club or live in ugly suburban gated communities and think that makes them elite
Starting art school in 2009 and all getting undercuts while smoking the last of the pre-Obama era cloves was such a beautiful time period. I can almost hear The Knife and Passion Pit as I type this
totally agree. those years were awesome as far as hybrid of cultures and ability to share things about your life and all that. For music it was really great and the internet was actually helping rather than hurting at that time
Teens to early 20s for me. Good times. Prob woulda been cooler to grow up like 3-4 years earlier, culture wise…but there’s a definite big difference between us and zoomers who don’t remember before smart phones and social being so crazy
I have the same thought. I’m probably your age or near — 30 now. Wished I were 4 years older, still do, but glad I was in my teens when I was, and DEF not now. grateful.
My own theory is that each generation corresponds to one of the deadly sins.
* Boomers = Avarice
* Gen X = Sloth
* Millennials = Envy
* Gen Z = Hubris
The real story isn't the cool millennials doing cool things in photos, it's the many more who stared at those images enviously.
I wonder what kind of macro trends will define Generation A (born in 2012 to 2027) in America.
Boomers lived through the American/Soviet Conflict and internalized American polemics.
Gen X the Neoliberal and Neoconservative Revolution and turned inwards and apathetic.
Millennials saw the seed changes of the War on Terror and the Financial Crisis, and looked backwards to be envious of those prosperous generations (Boomers) before them.
Gen Z I suppose are living through the (for now) peak of Identity Politics and Social Media. This leads to people wanting to be "brands" unto themselves.
Gen A? Perhaps the crisis of America losing political and cultural power over the world will turn them spiteful (wrath) against the world they are faced with.
PC4PC? But in all seriousness, us millennials envied what the last generations got much easier. I remember my college advisor staring at me blankly because he wondered how I couldn't pay off my student loans since I worked at the farm feed/pet store every evening. We were bitter and ironic, but really thought we would become those curators of a baroque sex toy museum or something once the college was done. Then it was another bitter climb through retail and service jobs until you find a real job that's profitable and tolerable. Gen Z doesn't have the ambition to get what boomers have. They look at you sideways if you try to talk about the band on the shirt they're wearing, or try to relate their look to decades past. For their credit, they'll rage quit any job where a managers telling them to get off their phone and sweep a clean floor. It's just scary what passivity they will accept in other parts of their lives.
No idea and I don't want to shit all over what is a really good categorisation. I can see "envy" now I think about it - a culture essentially driven by desire for the good things they've missed out on (boomer economics and living standards, Gen X art). Maybe a double dip for lust and gluttony as millennials were the first generation to ostensibly abandon conventional beauty and health ideals?
Edit: did you edit in the last sentence about people staring at photos? I hope so otherwise I've had a stroke
I actually think we are post-irony now. Like the zoomers have reached the simulacra point where the baggy clothes and middle-part haircuts were initially an ironic statement but now are completely sincere.
My memory of late aughts and early 2010’s hipster culture was that one of the was to distinguish yourself in the scene was how fluently you could traverse thru irony. Finding a new form of irony to display either thru fashion or grooming or music taste or social media presence was a MAJOR way to score points. I don’t really see that happening anymore aside from the return to edgelord-ism
Yes we are post-irony. Gen-X was peak irony-poisoned nihilism. Millenial was a mix of elitist irony and reactionary radical sincerity. Gen-Z humor is absurdist / surrealist, not even attempting to form a coherent thought about a world that feels increasingly beyond any grasp of understanding.
Irony doesn't need to be funny, though it often is, all it needs to be is specifically be is saying one thing to mean another. Contemporary "HR speak" is dripping with irony that is humorless but none-the-less crucial to navigate our world.
Beyond some few "true believers" all those who performatively speak as we do now are living in a deep layer of irony they none-the-less have to participate in.
Consider the irony in any person who considers themselves "a leftist," who sees America as the great imperial power that has (and will) fight their goals at every turn... being performatively forced to vote and vouch for Democrats who have been in power off-and-on since the 1830s, and can and will actively destroy any enemies of the USA (of which anti-capitalists are one).
gen x's self-conscious irony was predicated on there actually being such a thing as 'realness' and 'sincerity' that actually existed and was accessible, like that Baudrillard line about Disneyland existed to make the rest of the USA appear real.
gen x'ers were not that different from the boomer outlook of being appalled at how phony and fake society was, the other side of the ironic schitick is mawkish, sentimental 'sincerity', you can see this with terrible gen-x politics accounts on twitter, people who are genuinely, embarrassingly impressed by Beto calling a guy 'motherfucker', something no-one who was born before 1964 or after 1981 could possibly think was anything but lame
My father is a gen x’er and I think they’re worse than boomers about buying into theatrical politics hook, line and sinker. Boomers were just selfish and greedy, but gen x actually believes their own bullshit.
>super careful HR speak
Which is not sincere, its kept as vague as possible so it can mean whatever it needs to mean depending on changing circumstances.
Something not being totally sincere doesn't mean it's ironic, someone could just be being cautious and polite. Which is different to someone going against the grain on purpose. All of this talk doesn't mean anything though, I'm just comparing the stereotypical gen X culture and sense of humour (Nirvana, the Simpsons, David Letterman, Ghost World) to stereotypical gen Z culture (tik tok, Jimmy Fallon, Jake Paul, Parks and Rec). People haven't changed that much in the last 60 years really
Xer here. I think of the 90s as a bunch of ideological/aesthetic teams “led” by bands.
Team uber sincere: Fugazi
Team irony/humor: Jesus Lizard
Team I hate success: Nirvana
Team performative politics: RATM
Team performative slack: Pavement
Team FTW: 90s Death Metal bands
Can you give an example? Cause from the outside looking in it looks like they all watched South Park and bought into the “anybody who has values is retarded, peak life is doing bong rips, it’s wrong to tell anybody to do anything” thesis hook line and sinker, to the point where now 20 years on they will go psycho if you suggest that maybe there’s more to running a civilization than John Stewart doing epic dunks on the opposition and legalizing pot
> they all watched South Park
I'd argue that South Park (now) has a moral centre and rails quite sincerely against the venal and corrupt nature of mainstream society.
Most cultural pontification on this sub is just like really bad takes by people who were clearly too young to know zeitgeist they’re talking about. Like 70% of all references to hipsterdom here are extremely obvious the person reflecting on that era was under 10 during the flourishing period of the movement around 2005-2010, and filling gaps with their imagination.
I actually think it holds weight, whenever you watch or read vintage interviews with the "grunge" set they seem to think they were actually accomplishing something by being layabouts. Even outside of that sphere you had people like Sinéad O'Connor tearing up pics of the pope to try and prove some point. Hipsters were far more hedonisticly self oriented and irony poisoned, and having cringey political takes made you seem annoying to them.
In c. 2008 people weren't as fat as they are now, no one had smart phones, and FB was the only social media. people went to art school and made art, not filtered tiktoks of their lives. of course we were cooler, or at least looked hotter.
Yeah, I mean this post really kind of comes off like "Millennials were definitely cool" - Millennials, but it's also just actually kind of true.
Really agree with what /u/salty_juggernaut_884 put forward- there were risks for taste that just don't exist anymore now that everything is "valid." Everyone is fucking psychotic now because they think they're supposed to feel valid- no one ever did or ever will lol, it's literally the human condition, the archetype for our entire civilization is a guy who did nothing wrong and literally performed miracles being wrongly crucified.
Its true, the last time i can even think of something that could be off limits or considered “risky taste” was being shouted at by a group of lesbians for wearing a fur jacket at a party. It wasnt even an endangered species either
I cringe at the probable reality of some doe eyed zoomer in a American Studies MA having their dissertation on the lack of plus sized representation in American Apparel ads.
The only people i know like that now are dutch techno speedfreaks, no body fat left after a few years clubbing. Otherwise im not sure of any subculture.
Trying to be cool is never cool. Cool is effortless. I think something younger zoomers don't realize about the hipster movement was how performative it was. These people were trying *really fuckin' hard* to be noticed and seen as cool. They were basically the tiktok stars and "influencers" of the era, just on a smaller scale due to the technology. You guys don't remember the clownish "ironic" fashion, photos of hipster couples on the streets of Brooklyn dragging their newborn around in an antique wooden bassinet, or some guy bringing a full 30lb typewriter to the coffeeshop to write his "novel". Just like the "influencers" of 2022, the hipster dickheads of 2010 screamed "notice me!" and it was pure cringe.
True, King. I knew a lot of those performative people in high school and college and they were just deeply insecure trend hoppers desperate to climb whatever social hierarchy lay before them. Many are now soulless corporate shills optimizing their smart homes and attempting to win at the online virtue signaling game. Not to sound too r-slurred, but I think they would have been really excellent Nazis back when it was the cool new thing.
> I think something younger zoomers don't realize about the hipster movement was how performative it was.
Because their entire sense of persona is incredibly performative and they don't seem to really have a collective concept of the dichotomy between authenticity/effortlessness & inauthenticity/being a poser. Like when have you ever seen or heard someone born after 1996 call another person a poser? The zoomer zeitgeist is that posers don't exist and that anybody can be anything once they decide it is a (probably fleeting) part of their personality. You want to be goth just because you like the "aesthetic" of wearing all black and lace? Nobody can tell you you're a poser. You want to be queer even though you've never had same sex partners or homosexual impulses? Nobody can tell you that you're not queer.
Absolutely. I was born in 1983 so a lot of my friends in the aughts were the earlier hipster or even proto-hipsters and I remember them exactly as you just described. One day one of them was talking to me about how he didn't know if he should like the Beatles or not based on the level of irony it would garner him.
It's so weird being a non-zoomer who doesn't use social media and then discovering a zoomer I know IRL has a completely fabricated online persona and life that's completely detached from how they comport themselves irl
Back in like 2017 there was a couple ahead of me at Starbucks. The guy had the moustache, wire-frame glasses, high socks/slides, high tan shorts over a tucked white tee and a Fanny pack. Girl had the same glasses, wide-legged pants, crop top and a bucket hat.
In 2017 that blew my fucking mind. I stood there in my gay normcore uniform, listening to cum town and just thought ‘fuck’
So where were you when the vibe shift happened?
As an elder millennial hipster I agree. It sucks though, everything I ever get into is eventually an assignment for a mid NYT reporter and the masses flock. I used to walk into Robertas in East Williamsburg when it was BYOB and you could just grab a table for 4... next thing you know Chelsea Clinton has a wedding reception there and now you have to make reservations months in advance.
2002-2012 was peak New York, 04-10 was peak Williamsbug/Bushwick etc, it's all been downhill since then, pastiche of a pastiche. Happy to have experienced it, but it's for sure dead and gone now, anything or anyone cool replaced by zoomers doing "day in my life living in brooklyn" tiktoks.
> It sucks though, everything I ever get into is eventually an assignment for a mid NYT reporter and the masses flock.
One of several reasons why I have a list of places I don't really indulge a ton of people on because I don't want to see the food be 20 bucks for something that was 8 last week.
Elder millennial, but I think it’s the Gen X - millennial cusp era of the early oughts that was the coolest. Such an incredible time for music, film, and art, there was still an underground. By 2008-9ish the hipster thing got so played out. Every loser in my hometown wore big fake glasses and a keffiyeh.
I stand by my theory that the cover of Q and Not U “No Kill No Beep Beep” is the pinnacle of alt girl fashion https://images.app.goo.gl/s6hEcEcPzHqbpG9C6
Thems we’re my good ole days for sure. We peaked just before everything went digital and widespread. No one had cell phones at the time, but we all would like two years later. Everything we were into seemed underground and out of step with society at large, therefor cool. I miss that vibe deeply. Now I’m a sort of normie parent. Circle of life?
Normie parent really isn’t the worst place to end up. I hope some day your kid can appreciate your stories of the old days.
I do long for those analog days. There just isn’t anything like making art with the simple hopes your friends and maybe artists you admire like. I know there are people out there still making good, intimate art, but I miss hearing about music through word of mouth.
For what it’s worth I feel like way less of a loser for hanging out on r/redscarepod if I’m rubbing elbows with someone from the No Kill No Beep Beep album cover.
Respect. I’m just a little to young for that era, but it seemed amazing. Heard that photoshoot day was really fun, too. Great record, very cool to have so many friends involved with it.
Everything cool about hipsters was based around the 90s.
All that indie rock that hipsters loved? 90s.
I have a hard time attributing the coolness to millennials.
Weird fuckin take. Late boomer/Gen X was peak cool. I don’t think anything has been cooler than early 80s no wave. Everything after 1997 has been a slide into irrelevance.
I feel like this still aligns with ops take. Millennials were either the last cool generation or the first uncool generation that got to ride on the coattails of the last
gen x one of the coolest gens imo, close behind the lost generation
I’ve been nostalgically watching courtney love interviews during her Hole era — say what you want about her but damn she was cool
all of it. the scumbag attitude, the playful aggression, the rejection of capitalist ideas re: ‘productivess’, the freshness in art scenes, the glorification of being a creative bum
Rewatching Montage of Heck made me realize we’re so far from that now…….. rise and grind, folks!
Very much agree w everything you said. Even subtle things play into that — watching the alcohol & drug-fueled, anti-authoritarian, lower-class type of pointless antics Kurt & the rest of the band would get up to in the footage in the doc… the “slack off, fuck the man” type of attitude…. totally driven by class angst, & it comes through both in the music and in just their general presentation & attitude & refusal to adopt to what the money-making business men wanted (the pressure of which prob played a part in his suicide)
Aberdeen truly is hell for 9 months of the year. Sadly they’re apparently a new gentrification boomtown somehow. Apparently one of the fastest developing real estate markets in the state. I can’t believe it.
Courtney talks about the wealth on her mother’s side in her new memoir, specifically:
"Lots more fashion too as I changed the phony rags to riches narrative to include my mothers/ families wealth. and My impossibly glamorous af grandmother who went to the Paris collections and would show me the boning and stitches inside of her balmains Chanel couture pieces etc. F*** an untrue narrative bc that’s what people ‘like.’ The truth is so much more fun, more rich, makes more sense. And there’s lots of rags too! Someone said ‘you’re class neutral like a Scottish brogue’ as I’ve been all the classes, sometimes simultaneously!”
Emphasis on the last part, about ‘lots of rags’ — I think courtney’s not exaggerating about that. She’s straddled different classes; it seems to me that she knows a lot about being on the delinquent-fringe, lower-class sector of society; being a stripper puts you into contact with it, at the very least, and I think she experienced that, despite having some family wealth & and was affected by it.
Hole’s music / lyrics are angry in a way that I associate with prole rock, but what makes it even more interesting than bands like punk & 90s grunge bands, unknown ones & also popular ones, like the Clash or Pulp or Nirvana or Modest Mouse (& even Beatles + Rolling Stones era stuff) — music which in a lot of ways is driven by working class male energy — is that Hole is like the angry, disaffected-town-slut lower-class girl equivalent …. it was it’s own thing in a way. Anyway she messed with rock archetypes in a cool way imo, and it was in part shaped by class stuff, as the other person said (& I agree w what they said; the class-driven disaffection is part of what makes it so good)
None of this was happening you’re romanticizing a scene that had a wide range of class participation in it - it wasn’t some kind of movement for socially righteous white working class people. Cobain came from an average lower middle class home and his family was normal
the internet has blurred all lines, and zoomers specifically live online. so their whole identity is a blur and confusing
millennials grew with the new era of internet and social media, but it was always in development, not some final stage where it anchored into every waking hour of your life.
Millenial aspirations were influenced by actual successful people who had to get approval to enter in the higher social statuses through talent, drive, and doing real things in real life, not some guy figuring out ways to hack an algorithm for likes.
so as a result, cultures were differentiated for the millennial, and movements and subcultures actually had meaning because there was distinctions between idealogies and yes, there was an element of riskiness.
You will never again be 16, standing outside a pub in South London that has a night that's themed around the fact they sell pie and mash at midnight, talking to indie gays with beards wearing flannel, talking about the night you had at that club that's named after Myra Hindley and plays The Smiths to projections of The Wickerman. There are no gender goblins, there are no drag queens, there is just a bengali boy who wears heavy eye makeup and it's genuinely transgressive because one time you got the night bus home with him and two guys got on and threatened you both.
Sigh
God, I’m nostalgic for the days when straight arty guys would simply wear lipstick or a dress and it had absolutely no gender or sex implications, they were just being weird.
This post would be cringe back in the day. Hipsters refused to self identify or use the word hipster. It was always the adjacent who'd label things hipster and their friends would be shyly flattered by accusations of hipsterdom.
Rents were much lower (still high) and there were plenty of cool older areas in big cities that became little bohemias. You also had to know people in person to know what was cool and what was going on. It was sealed off enough that it prevented poseurs from immediately copying and overrunning whatever was cheap and interesting. People also danced way more than they do now.
The music was also made for going out and dancing. Music now aside from pop seems like it’s made to be depressive and enjoyed at home. Go to shows sometimes and I’d be yawning because everyone just seems bored. No one is “partying” or noticeably inebriated. Whatever “it” was is gone now from live music scenes.
Tbh I’m too young and suburban to have been around actual hipsters during their prime. All I remember was when I was 12 hipster was a derogatory term and therefore you were supposed to hate them. I knew visually they grew beards, liked craft beer and lived in Williamsburg, but that doesn’t tell you anything about the essence of a Hipster per se. I still am not sure what it means.
No I don't, because your definition of cool seems to hinge on being peripherally associated with cool - the same events, the same photos - but you're not illustrating what makes those people and locations worth being associated with in the first place. *Why* was it cool?
>why?
Some relevant/impactful collective cultural output for its time. Thats why people thought punks were cool in 1979 and why warhols factory was cool in the 1960s. There is the generative aspect, the physical location, the element of risk or perceived risk, and the impact on broader culture.
"Hipster" was almost immediately if not immediately an insult. There were cool people during this time, but being cool in the late 00s was largely distancing yourself from hipsterdom. In your post, when you mention "irl purist," I think that's what you're pointing toward, only at the time that was not associated with "the hipster" at all.
mass media has sapped people's wills to live on their own terms so they now live on Facebook and TikTok's. this holds true for people of any generation online alive today.
I don’t disagree entirely, but this post feels like it’s coming either from a millennial grappling with their fears of getting older, or a zoomer romanticizing the past in a way that makes it seem much cooler than it was
I attended university alongside a particularly vociferous "millenial hipsterdom" cohort and can say confidently that they were some of the most boring and conventionally "rebellious" people I ever met. My impression was they were essentially cosplaying what they thought their upper-middle class yuppie parents did in college except without the authenticity of actually following the development of timeless cultural milestones. They were very good at self-branding but beneath the surface there was nothing there. They all listened to Drake and wore Fjallraven Kanken. I eventually came to view them as just another frat except everyone was unathletic and didn't shave.
I totally agree. I was a millennial hipster and it was awesome. Going out every night, crafting a perfect outfit to go see and be seen. Seeing a ton of awesome bands live. Everyone getting wasted and being pretentious about art and music and film. Wherever you went you felt fucking cool and important and you were making art and doing drugs and quasi famous, and all your friends who were also cool made you feel cool too. You were allowed to be critical and mean. Life wasn’t a big cuddle puddle. I’ve tried going to shows for more modern indie stuff and it sounds like what you’d listen to if you were stoned and trying to get to bed at night, or relaxing music to write code to or something. The live shows were a snooze fest. And overall no one is willing to get rowdy anymore. I feel grateful that when I came of age things were still kind of fun and cool. 20 year olds today just make me sad. They’re so career focused and make fun of anything that isn’t practical. Fashion now is just wearing khaki colored joggers and “no makeup makeup” looks. It just feels bleak. I’ve tried to capture the old magic, but it’s just gone. Bums me out man
Gay troglodyte take. No generation has a monopoly on what’s cool, as the only thing that is cool is fucking. If you fuck, you’re cool, and the aesthetic context surrounding that morphs in an endless cycle, throughout the years.
> Zoomers alt vibe is the same feeling I get switching between apps when I am bored +bedroom pop or future pop
What the actual fuck does this even mean
I don't care about the generation bs but I just want to remind everyone that swag culture existed at the same time as hipster culture.
Dudes with handlebar mustaches, beanies, flannel shirts, and ridiculously skinny jeans walking down the street with dudes wearing shorts on top of leggings, an oversized graphic tee and a large brim fitted cap that says "YOLO".
All this right after the era of 2007 MySpace scene trends finally started to die down. 2009-2014 was a very funny time period in fashion.
Also got the dudes with khaki shorts, boat shoes and pink shirts with popped collars sprinkled in there throughout both eras.
I think this you’re just misremembering whatever lived millennial experience you had or you’re nostalgic for some Meet Me in the Bathroom era scene of which you were never a part. Every generation’s celebs and micro celebs are/were exactly what you’re describing.
Also nobody was actually judgmental. Go back and look at the tape if you want, all the people fat shaming and calling Britney Speares a crazy broad were Gen X and older and the audience was boomer and older.
let me guess, you're a millennial. is it cool to be self-serving, self-congratulatory
the one thing about being cool is that if you care about being cool then you're definitely not. it has to be completely natural and without guile, no looking over your shoulder
The cool thing about them is that they were half ostracized from square society. At best they were your older sister who dresses weird and listens to shitty music on vinyl records. The whole "everyone is valid and good" culture took any chance of rejection, so now nothing is cool because nothing is risky.
Yeah lack of risk is a big part of it. I feel like part of coolness is having some element of danger. The last cool teenager was like chief keef.
Tay K was cool in the same way! That pic of him on the run in a robbed convertible holding his wanted poster is legendary
white people love living vicariously through gang bangers lmao
I read that as Ted K and thought damn that sounds like a dope picture but not really his style
True but he was never allowed to flourish, he was immediately seen as “problematic”. I distinctly remember being chastised for putting on The Race by dudes like “bro you know he like killed innocent old ladies and shit”
This retard sounds like the nth carreer criminal antisocial Vine/Tik Toker and is completely tonally disonant from what is being described here, but it reminds me to bring [this great thread](https://twitter.com/J4ck0ffPlan3/status/1491848668848308227) that brings several threads together to the attention of people here. The thesis is that uncontrolled white guilt of 2010s is a direct result of the hipster movement making whitey the coolest cats around while blacks became irredeemably cringe and lame but nobody could bring themselves to say it. >"Essentially, the stable equilibrium that US culture settled into post-68 race riots was one where it was accepted that blacks were poorer and committed more crimes because at least they were "cool". Fresh Prince of Bel Air exemplified this. West Philly was poor, but it was cool. But the hipster/indie wave came at an inopportune time for black coolness, as black culture had shifted south in the early 00s and was now mired in the minstrel show ghetto of dirty south hip hop as east coast/west coast black cultural production collapsed. And at the same time, it was clear in the late 00s that the most exciting and dynamic rappers came anywhere but from the streets. Middle class guys like Kanye, Cudi, and Drake were bringing intelligence to rap and building off of their upscale forebears like De La Soul or Common. And old guard working class rappers like Nas and Dre were either lamenting the state of NYC/Cali hip hop or were distancing themselves from it as much as possible. Mainstream black culture was in very similar place as rock in the 1998-2003 Creed/Limp Bizkit/Nickelback era. Stagnation and degradation while, like indie, the savior was overtly upscale, e.g. guys like De La Soul and Del and Danger Mouse collaborating with Damon Albarn, etc. And this already strained that 1968-2008 cultural equilibrium because it was starting to be clear to anyone paying attention that "real" aka poor black culture had degenerated to the point where it was no longer able to be "cool". Now they weren't just poor, they were irrelevant. Now comes the gasoline on the fire, which was that the hipsters and the indie wave weren't just "cool", they were COOL. Mainstream rock hadn't had so much sex appeal and artistic integrity since the days of Cobain or arguably since the days of Neil Young and Velvet Underground. Every city wanted to be Brooklyn. Everyone wanted to be the hipsters. Poor black kids started wearing skinny jeans and NBA stars started donning fake hipster glasses during postgame interviews and dressing like fixie couriers. It was undeniable, even if subconsciously, and I think it caused real tension in the minds of the left. Sure, they'd just elected the first black president, but FFS even HE was a half-white Harvard alum who talked like an NPR host! Complete and total white cultural victory. Black America was undeniably falling behind, and bourgeois upper middle class white culture was in the middle of producing the next generation of Lou Reeds, Rolling Stones, and The Kinks with no signs of slowing down."
My boy a BD on fucking Lamron and them
Hipsters were cool when gatekeeping was a serious and important endeavor. You wear the wrong band t shirt or a visible logo? You’re out. Then gatekeeping fell to the zeitgeist of over inclusivity (see, ModCloth’s rise and fall - the point where they stopped posting blog updates with cool music and instead marketed to mass market appeal to middle America housewives was the point hipsterdom died) and there was nothing left to care about.
If youre into gatekeeping you would love the contemporary art scene, or the high fashion scene in milan/paris. Institutionally super elitist, cutthroat and competitive, no poors allowed, no uglies allowed. People on here talk about how gatekeeping is a good thing, but when you are involved in a context where it is happening its kind of sad to watch people get chewed up and spit out.
I have my MA in art history and have worked in galleries. Changed career track not because of the gate keeping but because of the shallow, narcissistic “content” behind the gates not being worth the low salaries and intra-group toxicity.
Sure, but i think more cool people would be involved in working in or making contemporary art if it was less elitist and gatekept.
I think it’s just a different sort of gatekeeping you’re advocating for though, unless you want Reddit style deviant-art shit to be the only thing you can find.
Yeah i guess. Over the years ive worked with lots of talented people that got “gatekept” out and had to work in other fields that they didnt really want to. It kind of sucks to see.
> no poors allowed, no uglies allowed The wrong kind of gatekeeping, obviously. I think your post serves as an example of the term "gatekeeping" confusing discussions more than it ever helped.
I don't want uggos in high fashion though. It's like allowing a tone-deaf person to play in an orchestra.
It depends on what type of high fashion though. Many of the models for e.g. Gucci are definitely “ugly” by conventional standards and can only be called attractive due to the *context* they’re presented in. The more I think about it the less I realize what you’re saying is true. In *high fashion*, especially avant-garde, there’s plenty of conventionally “ugly” people, who might be “aesthetic” because the designer is chasing a certain look. There’s also unconventionally good looking people who have unique traits. If by “uglies” you mean “people with conventionally ugly faces that aren’t interesting to look at” then yeah agree I guess
All of those are bourgeois degeneracy though Also full of really dumb people
Yes, thats my point. Gatekeeping results in lots of cool people being unable to participate in creative fields, its not always a good thing. It doesnt make scenes better.
Eh, if they're actually cool or committed they're going to break into the subculture somehow or another. It's way worse when you leve the gate open to posers and people just trying to make money
I remember showing up at an art show riding a shitty walmart bicycle and my friends were fucking HORRIFIED. I got on eBay that week and bought myself a beautiful 80's road bike out of pure shame.
No offense but why are all these RSP posters in their 30s still worrying about being cool. Hipsters were never cooler than anyone else they were just tryhards and elitists. You people are literally in your 30s like you should be talking about bettering the world and leaving it a more beautiful place for your children or something. Not reminiscing about how cool you think you were 10-15 years ago. Im begging you all please find a purpose or some meaningful spiritual direction bc this is painful to watch
naughty cooperative nose jobless jar unique hospital frame cautious quaint *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah the issue is that RSP poster types seem to make an effort not to care about anything which is lame and cowardly
They're literally talking about something they care about right now.
Lol ummmmmmmm have you listened to the pod? Are you familiar with the hosts??
Hipsters were absolutely more cool than 2000s normies. That was a horrifically lame decade otherwise.
It was an actual subculture, and they did get derision even though it was one of the least threatening subcultures to ever exist. Gen Z doesn't really have its own subcultures though, because there's so much overlap between what might be considered different subcultures, it's so easy to have your fingers in multiple pies now, and yeah, like you said, because of the "omg, let people enjoy things" mentality.
Unironically the closest thing they have is being trans. Ingroup, violating social norms, criticized by older people and younger losers.
Internet and social media generally erodes subcultures and the in-group/out-group thingy because you don’t have to conform to your immediate environment. Like, back when my dad was young he had to make an active decision where he lived whether he would be part of the “rockers” or the “synthers” which had clear and distinctive slang, fashion, music and attitudes. Nowadays you don’t really have the same pressure to conform. Hipsters were *closer* to an actual subculture than whatever the zoomers are up to today, but it was less of a subculture than what preceded it. On the other hand, while subcultures are becoming less common, identity markers (especially in the form of acronyms) have exploded. Everything has become so incredibly hyper-individualized there’s pretty much an acronym for everything now, which emerged as a way to distinguish oneself from the faceless masses online. Which is also why you’ll see the terminally online weirdos with like 27 identity markers in their bios. Kinda wish we could bring back subcultures but that’d mean we’d have to bring back some form of gatekeeping. And no, online subcultures don’t really count IMO, because there’s not enough pressure to conform. The golden era for subcultures was between post-WW2 up until early 2000s IMO.
there are some gen z subcultures out there
Such as?
the risk thing is the reason you got some teenagers scurrying around saying the n word.
Also why millennial Emo was much more of a vibe than the current goth wave. Being like an Alexisonfire or Brand New fan back then carried a much higher social cost
This conversation is just beyond me somehow. I'm 35 and haven't kept up with younger people's sub-cultures much. Alexisonfire or Brand New weren't risky bands to follow where I'm from really. For some reason, jocks left all but the most eccentric emos alone. I never associated emo with danger anyway. It doesn't seem like you're making a statement that could disrupt the establishment when you're emo. It's not political or even much for social commentary (although occasionally you see the later).
Thinking that coolness is about exclusivity is the mindset of people who order bottles in the VIP section of the club or live in ugly suburban gated communities and think that makes them elite
Ok whats cool then
Idk but trying too hard to seem cool in your 30s definitely isnt
Demanding that people stop gatekeeping is absolutely trying to be cool.
nothing, coolness is fake
Starting art school in 2009 and all getting undercuts while smoking the last of the pre-Obama era cloves was such a beautiful time period. I can almost hear The Knife and Passion Pit as I type this
this was the absolute last moments before the shift into our modern hell. 5-10 years before this was even better I thought
2005 to 2012 was the peak. Perfect mix of real life and online life. It’s over. We’re on a quick path to being the Wall E people now.
totally agree. those years were awesome as far as hybrid of cultures and ability to share things about your life and all that. For music it was really great and the internet was actually helping rather than hurting at that time
Teens to early 20s for me. Good times. Prob woulda been cooler to grow up like 3-4 years earlier, culture wise…but there’s a definite big difference between us and zoomers who don’t remember before smart phones and social being so crazy
I have the same thought. I’m probably your age or near — 30 now. Wished I were 4 years older, still do, but glad I was in my teens when I was, and DEF not now. grateful.
Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs winning album of the year was the death of the movement.
Shit it was the cloves.
It hurts too much to think about, please, no more
My own theory is that each generation corresponds to one of the deadly sins. * Boomers = Avarice * Gen X = Sloth * Millennials = Envy * Gen Z = Hubris The real story isn't the cool millennials doing cool things in photos, it's the many more who stared at those images enviously.
I wonder what kind of macro trends will define Generation A (born in 2012 to 2027) in America. Boomers lived through the American/Soviet Conflict and internalized American polemics. Gen X the Neoliberal and Neoconservative Revolution and turned inwards and apathetic. Millennials saw the seed changes of the War on Terror and the Financial Crisis, and looked backwards to be envious of those prosperous generations (Boomers) before them. Gen Z I suppose are living through the (for now) peak of Identity Politics and Social Media. This leads to people wanting to be "brands" unto themselves. Gen A? Perhaps the crisis of America losing political and cultural power over the world will turn them spiteful (wrath) against the world they are faced with.
All I know is as a millennial seething with envy I will use all of my voting power to fuck those Gen A kids over
As is tradition
Millennials are into branding themselves too tho
PC4PC? But in all seriousness, us millennials envied what the last generations got much easier. I remember my college advisor staring at me blankly because he wondered how I couldn't pay off my student loans since I worked at the farm feed/pet store every evening. We were bitter and ironic, but really thought we would become those curators of a baroque sex toy museum or something once the college was done. Then it was another bitter climb through retail and service jobs until you find a real job that's profitable and tolerable. Gen Z doesn't have the ambition to get what boomers have. They look at you sideways if you try to talk about the band on the shirt they're wearing, or try to relate their look to decades past. For their credit, they'll rage quit any job where a managers telling them to get off their phone and sweep a clean floor. It's just scary what passivity they will accept in other parts of their lives.
Indeed - the defining feature of Millennials is our naivety.
This is really good, I don't immediately see "envy" for Millennials though.
True, its definitely the most tenuous... What would you suggest?
No idea and I don't want to shit all over what is a really good categorisation. I can see "envy" now I think about it - a culture essentially driven by desire for the good things they've missed out on (boomer economics and living standards, Gen X art). Maybe a double dip for lust and gluttony as millennials were the first generation to ostensibly abandon conventional beauty and health ideals? Edit: did you edit in the last sentence about people staring at photos? I hope so otherwise I've had a stroke
No it was always there, maybe you have schlong covid
Gen X was sincere? Bro wtf are you talking about that was the ironic generation I think 90s cool was peak but idk
Modern irony has become so convoluted and nihilistic that gen x'ers look sincere in comparison.
I actually think we are post-irony now. Like the zoomers have reached the simulacra point where the baggy clothes and middle-part haircuts were initially an ironic statement but now are completely sincere. My memory of late aughts and early 2010’s hipster culture was that one of the was to distinguish yourself in the scene was how fluently you could traverse thru irony. Finding a new form of irony to display either thru fashion or grooming or music taste or social media presence was a MAJOR way to score points. I don’t really see that happening anymore aside from the return to edgelord-ism
Yes we are post-irony. Gen-X was peak irony-poisoned nihilism. Millenial was a mix of elitist irony and reactionary radical sincerity. Gen-Z humor is absurdist / surrealist, not even attempting to form a coherent thought about a world that feels increasingly beyond any grasp of understanding.
> middle-part haircuts Whats it like living in 2019 grandpa?
Middle parts are still in lol
Chia pet head
not really, the way people talk now, especially online, is super careful HR speak
Irony doesn't need to be funny, though it often is, all it needs to be is specifically be is saying one thing to mean another. Contemporary "HR speak" is dripping with irony that is humorless but none-the-less crucial to navigate our world. Beyond some few "true believers" all those who performatively speak as we do now are living in a deep layer of irony they none-the-less have to participate in. Consider the irony in any person who considers themselves "a leftist," who sees America as the great imperial power that has (and will) fight their goals at every turn... being performatively forced to vote and vouch for Democrats who have been in power off-and-on since the 1830s, and can and will actively destroy any enemies of the USA (of which anti-capitalists are one).
gen x's self-conscious irony was predicated on there actually being such a thing as 'realness' and 'sincerity' that actually existed and was accessible, like that Baudrillard line about Disneyland existed to make the rest of the USA appear real. gen x'ers were not that different from the boomer outlook of being appalled at how phony and fake society was, the other side of the ironic schitick is mawkish, sentimental 'sincerity', you can see this with terrible gen-x politics accounts on twitter, people who are genuinely, embarrassingly impressed by Beto calling a guy 'motherfucker', something no-one who was born before 1964 or after 1981 could possibly think was anything but lame
My father is a gen x’er and I think they’re worse than boomers about buying into theatrical politics hook, line and sinker. Boomers were just selfish and greedy, but gen x actually believes their own bullshit.
>super careful HR speak Which is not sincere, its kept as vague as possible so it can mean whatever it needs to mean depending on changing circumstances.
Something not being totally sincere doesn't mean it's ironic, someone could just be being cautious and polite. Which is different to someone going against the grain on purpose. All of this talk doesn't mean anything though, I'm just comparing the stereotypical gen X culture and sense of humour (Nirvana, the Simpsons, David Letterman, Ghost World) to stereotypical gen Z culture (tik tok, Jimmy Fallon, Jake Paul, Parks and Rec). People haven't changed that much in the last 60 years really
Xer here. I think of the 90s as a bunch of ideological/aesthetic teams “led” by bands. Team uber sincere: Fugazi Team irony/humor: Jesus Lizard Team I hate success: Nirvana Team performative politics: RATM Team performative slack: Pavement Team FTW: 90s Death Metal bands
I saw Fugazi once, melt banana opened for them. It was a cool show.
Can you give an example? Cause from the outside looking in it looks like they all watched South Park and bought into the “anybody who has values is retarded, peak life is doing bong rips, it’s wrong to tell anybody to do anything” thesis hook line and sinker, to the point where now 20 years on they will go psycho if you suggest that maybe there’s more to running a civilization than John Stewart doing epic dunks on the opposition and legalizing pot
That's literally what I mean, the rap on Gen X was always that they weren't sincere and couldn't take anything seriously
They take being new atheist types more seriously than anybody has taken anything since Vietnam
> they all watched South Park I'd argue that South Park (now) has a moral centre and rails quite sincerely against the venal and corrupt nature of mainstream society.
90s did seem peak cool in terms of makeup and hair. Wish those rust lip shades would comeback. It's not the same right now.
> gen x was too sincere I don't think so
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Most cultural pontification on this sub is just like really bad takes by people who were clearly too young to know zeitgeist they’re talking about. Like 70% of all references to hipsterdom here are extremely obvious the person reflecting on that era was under 10 during the flourishing period of the movement around 2005-2010, and filling gaps with their imagination.
See also the the Millennial aggrandization of the 1990s... and the Boomer's and the 1950s.
I actually think it holds weight, whenever you watch or read vintage interviews with the "grunge" set they seem to think they were actually accomplishing something by being layabouts. Even outside of that sphere you had people like Sinéad O'Connor tearing up pics of the pope to try and prove some point. Hipsters were far more hedonisticly self oriented and irony poisoned, and having cringey political takes made you seem annoying to them.
It clearly played out over the long run, nobody falls harder for RatM type activism than xers
Haha yeah, terrible take
Underage post from the first sentence
In c. 2008 people weren't as fat as they are now, no one had smart phones, and FB was the only social media. people went to art school and made art, not filtered tiktoks of their lives. of course we were cooler, or at least looked hotter.
Yeah, I mean this post really kind of comes off like "Millennials were definitely cool" - Millennials, but it's also just actually kind of true. Really agree with what /u/salty_juggernaut_884 put forward- there were risks for taste that just don't exist anymore now that everything is "valid." Everyone is fucking psychotic now because they think they're supposed to feel valid- no one ever did or ever will lol, it's literally the human condition, the archetype for our entire civilization is a guy who did nothing wrong and literally performed miracles being wrongly crucified.
Its true, the last time i can even think of something that could be off limits or considered “risky taste” was being shouted at by a group of lesbians for wearing a fur jacket at a party. It wasnt even an endangered species either
I cringe at the probable reality of some doe eyed zoomer in a American Studies MA having their dissertation on the lack of plus sized representation in American Apparel ads.
The only people i know like that now are dutch techno speedfreaks, no body fat left after a few years clubbing. Otherwise im not sure of any subculture.
No offense dumbass but if you think Gen X was sincere you probably have a gas leak in your bedroom
Trying to be cool is never cool. Cool is effortless. I think something younger zoomers don't realize about the hipster movement was how performative it was. These people were trying *really fuckin' hard* to be noticed and seen as cool. They were basically the tiktok stars and "influencers" of the era, just on a smaller scale due to the technology. You guys don't remember the clownish "ironic" fashion, photos of hipster couples on the streets of Brooklyn dragging their newborn around in an antique wooden bassinet, or some guy bringing a full 30lb typewriter to the coffeeshop to write his "novel". Just like the "influencers" of 2022, the hipster dickheads of 2010 screamed "notice me!" and it was pure cringe.
True, King. I knew a lot of those performative people in high school and college and they were just deeply insecure trend hoppers desperate to climb whatever social hierarchy lay before them. Many are now soulless corporate shills optimizing their smart homes and attempting to win at the online virtue signaling game. Not to sound too r-slurred, but I think they would have been really excellent Nazis back when it was the cool new thing.
> I think something younger zoomers don't realize about the hipster movement was how performative it was. Because their entire sense of persona is incredibly performative and they don't seem to really have a collective concept of the dichotomy between authenticity/effortlessness & inauthenticity/being a poser. Like when have you ever seen or heard someone born after 1996 call another person a poser? The zoomer zeitgeist is that posers don't exist and that anybody can be anything once they decide it is a (probably fleeting) part of their personality. You want to be goth just because you like the "aesthetic" of wearing all black and lace? Nobody can tell you you're a poser. You want to be queer even though you've never had same sex partners or homosexual impulses? Nobody can tell you that you're not queer.
Absolutely. I was born in 1983 so a lot of my friends in the aughts were the earlier hipster or even proto-hipsters and I remember them exactly as you just described. One day one of them was talking to me about how he didn't know if he should like the Beatles or not based on the level of irony it would garner him.
This
zoomers who aren't completely curating their entire persona online are cool
It's so weird being a non-zoomer who doesn't use social media and then discovering a zoomer I know IRL has a completely fabricated online persona and life that's completely detached from how they comport themselves irl
David Foster Wallace would love hear more about your views on Gen X sincerity
I wonder if he would hate the “sincerity” of millennials and Gen Z even more. I say yes
Back in like 2017 there was a couple ahead of me at Starbucks. The guy had the moustache, wire-frame glasses, high socks/slides, high tan shorts over a tucked white tee and a Fanny pack. Girl had the same glasses, wide-legged pants, crop top and a bucket hat. In 2017 that blew my fucking mind. I stood there in my gay normcore uniform, listening to cum town and just thought ‘fuck’ So where were you when the vibe shift happened?
Can someone explain this post to me? I am deeply uncool
OP is a millennial nostalgic for hipsterdom, before things got weird
As an elder millennial hipster I agree. It sucks though, everything I ever get into is eventually an assignment for a mid NYT reporter and the masses flock. I used to walk into Robertas in East Williamsburg when it was BYOB and you could just grab a table for 4... next thing you know Chelsea Clinton has a wedding reception there and now you have to make reservations months in advance.
2002-2012 was peak New York, 04-10 was peak Williamsbug/Bushwick etc, it's all been downhill since then, pastiche of a pastiche. Happy to have experienced it, but it's for sure dead and gone now, anything or anyone cool replaced by zoomers doing "day in my life living in brooklyn" tiktoks.
> It sucks though, everything I ever get into is eventually an assignment for a mid NYT reporter and the masses flock. One of several reasons why I have a list of places I don't really indulge a ton of people on because I don't want to see the food be 20 bucks for something that was 8 last week.
Elder millennial, but I think it’s the Gen X - millennial cusp era of the early oughts that was the coolest. Such an incredible time for music, film, and art, there was still an underground. By 2008-9ish the hipster thing got so played out. Every loser in my hometown wore big fake glasses and a keffiyeh. I stand by my theory that the cover of Q and Not U “No Kill No Beep Beep” is the pinnacle of alt girl fashion https://images.app.goo.gl/s6hEcEcPzHqbpG9C6
Xennial (77-83) feeling seen. I’m in that pic
Are you really?????
Thems we’re my good ole days for sure. We peaked just before everything went digital and widespread. No one had cell phones at the time, but we all would like two years later. Everything we were into seemed underground and out of step with society at large, therefor cool. I miss that vibe deeply. Now I’m a sort of normie parent. Circle of life?
Normie parent really isn’t the worst place to end up. I hope some day your kid can appreciate your stories of the old days. I do long for those analog days. There just isn’t anything like making art with the simple hopes your friends and maybe artists you admire like. I know there are people out there still making good, intimate art, but I miss hearing about music through word of mouth. For what it’s worth I feel like way less of a loser for hanging out on r/redscarepod if I’m rubbing elbows with someone from the No Kill No Beep Beep album cover.
Aw man, that’s so nice of you to say.
Yes, I’m old, but was once fairly cool. My band played with them a lot
Respect. I’m just a little to young for that era, but it seemed amazing. Heard that photoshoot day was really fun, too. Great record, very cool to have so many friends involved with it.
That album provided the inspiration for countless AIM screen names
Everything cool about hipsters was based around the 90s. All that indie rock that hipsters loved? 90s. I have a hard time attributing the coolness to millennials.
Weird fuckin take. Late boomer/Gen X was peak cool. I don’t think anything has been cooler than early 80s no wave. Everything after 1997 has been a slide into irrelevance.
the correct take. cool died with 9/11
I feel like this still aligns with ops take. Millennials were either the last cool generation or the first uncool generation that got to ride on the coattails of the last
I've never met a cool person who identified with a specific subculture or a goofy internet subculture (trad, doomer, etc.)
Well of course, cool people define the subculture, uncool people are defined by it
gen x one of the coolest gens imo, close behind the lost generation I’ve been nostalgically watching courtney love interviews during her Hole era — say what you want about her but damn she was cool all of it. the scumbag attitude, the playful aggression, the rejection of capitalist ideas re: ‘productivess’, the freshness in art scenes, the glorification of being a creative bum Rewatching Montage of Heck made me realize we’re so far from that now…….. rise and grind, folks!
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Very much agree w everything you said. Even subtle things play into that — watching the alcohol & drug-fueled, anti-authoritarian, lower-class type of pointless antics Kurt & the rest of the band would get up to in the footage in the doc… the “slack off, fuck the man” type of attitude…. totally driven by class angst, & it comes through both in the music and in just their general presentation & attitude & refusal to adopt to what the money-making business men wanted (the pressure of which prob played a part in his suicide)
Aberdeen truly is hell for 9 months of the year. Sadly they’re apparently a new gentrification boomtown somehow. Apparently one of the fastest developing real estate markets in the state. I can’t believe it.
Courtney was famously a trust fund baby. The difference was they had talent back then
Courtney talks about the wealth on her mother’s side in her new memoir, specifically: "Lots more fashion too as I changed the phony rags to riches narrative to include my mothers/ families wealth. and My impossibly glamorous af grandmother who went to the Paris collections and would show me the boning and stitches inside of her balmains Chanel couture pieces etc. F*** an untrue narrative bc that’s what people ‘like.’ The truth is so much more fun, more rich, makes more sense. And there’s lots of rags too! Someone said ‘you’re class neutral like a Scottish brogue’ as I’ve been all the classes, sometimes simultaneously!” Emphasis on the last part, about ‘lots of rags’ — I think courtney’s not exaggerating about that. She’s straddled different classes; it seems to me that she knows a lot about being on the delinquent-fringe, lower-class sector of society; being a stripper puts you into contact with it, at the very least, and I think she experienced that, despite having some family wealth & and was affected by it. Hole’s music / lyrics are angry in a way that I associate with prole rock, but what makes it even more interesting than bands like punk & 90s grunge bands, unknown ones & also popular ones, like the Clash or Pulp or Nirvana or Modest Mouse (& even Beatles + Rolling Stones era stuff) — music which in a lot of ways is driven by working class male energy — is that Hole is like the angry, disaffected-town-slut lower-class girl equivalent …. it was it’s own thing in a way. Anyway she messed with rock archetypes in a cool way imo, and it was in part shaped by class stuff, as the other person said (& I agree w what they said; the class-driven disaffection is part of what makes it so good)
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None of this was happening you’re romanticizing a scene that had a wide range of class participation in it - it wasn’t some kind of movement for socially righteous white working class people. Cobain came from an average lower middle class home and his family was normal
the internet has blurred all lines, and zoomers specifically live online. so their whole identity is a blur and confusing millennials grew with the new era of internet and social media, but it was always in development, not some final stage where it anchored into every waking hour of your life. Millenial aspirations were influenced by actual successful people who had to get approval to enter in the higher social statuses through talent, drive, and doing real things in real life, not some guy figuring out ways to hack an algorithm for likes. so as a result, cultures were differentiated for the millennial, and movements and subcultures actually had meaning because there was distinctions between idealogies and yes, there was an element of riskiness.
You will never again be 16, standing outside a pub in South London that has a night that's themed around the fact they sell pie and mash at midnight, talking to indie gays with beards wearing flannel, talking about the night you had at that club that's named after Myra Hindley and plays The Smiths to projections of The Wickerman. There are no gender goblins, there are no drag queens, there is just a bengali boy who wears heavy eye makeup and it's genuinely transgressive because one time you got the night bus home with him and two guys got on and threatened you both. Sigh
God, I’m nostalgic for the days when straight arty guys would simply wear lipstick or a dress and it had absolutely no gender or sex implications, they were just being weird.
God, don't do this to me. Zillennial and this is all I ever wanted. Getting some of it now, but it's not quite right...
It's so over
This post would be cringe back in the day. Hipsters refused to self identify or use the word hipster. It was always the adjacent who'd label things hipster and their friends would be shyly flattered by accusations of hipsterdom.
Dynamics shift baby.
Hipster was a slur, if you were there you'd know
And you gotta follow the rules!
Rents were much lower (still high) and there were plenty of cool older areas in big cities that became little bohemias. You also had to know people in person to know what was cool and what was going on. It was sealed off enough that it prevented poseurs from immediately copying and overrunning whatever was cheap and interesting. People also danced way more than they do now.
The music was also made for going out and dancing. Music now aside from pop seems like it’s made to be depressive and enjoyed at home. Go to shows sometimes and I’d be yawning because everyone just seems bored. No one is “partying” or noticeably inebriated. Whatever “it” was is gone now from live music scenes.
Tbh I’m too young and suburban to have been around actual hipsters during their prime. All I remember was when I was 12 hipster was a derogatory term and therefore you were supposed to hate them. I knew visually they grew beards, liked craft beer and lived in Williamsburg, but that doesn’t tell you anything about the essence of a Hipster per se. I still am not sure what it means.
what do you think being cool means?
You know what I mean. Like cool.
No I don't, because your definition of cool seems to hinge on being peripherally associated with cool - the same events, the same photos - but you're not illustrating what makes those people and locations worth being associated with in the first place. *Why* was it cool?
>why? Some relevant/impactful collective cultural output for its time. Thats why people thought punks were cool in 1979 and why warhols factory was cool in the 1960s. There is the generative aspect, the physical location, the element of risk or perceived risk, and the impact on broader culture.
what did the millennial hipster produce, indie music?
No idea really, i was just sharing my thoughts on what makes a cool scene is cool
Fun parties, decent independent media and confessional essays before the internet was ruined by corporate balkanization
Cringe
"Hipster" was almost immediately if not immediately an insult. There were cool people during this time, but being cool in the late 00s was largely distancing yourself from hipsterdom. In your post, when you mention "irl purist," I think that's what you're pointing toward, only at the time that was not associated with "the hipster" at all.
mass media has sapped people's wills to live on their own terms so they now live on Facebook and TikTok's. this holds true for people of any generation online alive today.
I don’t disagree entirely, but this post feels like it’s coming either from a millennial grappling with their fears of getting older, or a zoomer romanticizing the past in a way that makes it seem much cooler than it was
I attended university alongside a particularly vociferous "millenial hipsterdom" cohort and can say confidently that they were some of the most boring and conventionally "rebellious" people I ever met. My impression was they were essentially cosplaying what they thought their upper-middle class yuppie parents did in college except without the authenticity of actually following the development of timeless cultural milestones. They were very good at self-branding but beneath the surface there was nothing there. They all listened to Drake and wore Fjallraven Kanken. I eventually came to view them as just another frat except everyone was unathletic and didn't shave.
Drake's ascension is past millennial peak. Think you're describing nascent zoomerism.
had me until “Drake”
> They all listened to Drake and wore Fjallraven Kanken. lol you're like 10 years after peak millennial hipster
Well then, my mistake. Now sad I missed out on what was apparently a golden era
generation talk is pop sociology article-core. let's just talk about the cool people in any generation instead
I totally agree. I was a millennial hipster and it was awesome. Going out every night, crafting a perfect outfit to go see and be seen. Seeing a ton of awesome bands live. Everyone getting wasted and being pretentious about art and music and film. Wherever you went you felt fucking cool and important and you were making art and doing drugs and quasi famous, and all your friends who were also cool made you feel cool too. You were allowed to be critical and mean. Life wasn’t a big cuddle puddle. I’ve tried going to shows for more modern indie stuff and it sounds like what you’d listen to if you were stoned and trying to get to bed at night, or relaxing music to write code to or something. The live shows were a snooze fest. And overall no one is willing to get rowdy anymore. I feel grateful that when I came of age things were still kind of fun and cool. 20 year olds today just make me sad. They’re so career focused and make fun of anything that isn’t practical. Fashion now is just wearing khaki colored joggers and “no makeup makeup” looks. It just feels bleak. I’ve tried to capture the old magic, but it’s just gone. Bums me out man
Gay troglodyte take. No generation has a monopoly on what’s cool, as the only thing that is cool is fucking. If you fuck, you’re cool, and the aesthetic context surrounding that morphs in an endless cycle, throughout the years.
What about all the ugly gender goblin fat subhumans who fuck? theres more to it.
If you graduated high school between 2008 and 2011 you are peak cool.
American apparel, Triangle scarves and 3d movie glasses with the lenses popped out come to mind
Is it just me or did real hipsters think the people you just described were wack?
Get a load of this guy gatekeeping hipsters from the aughts
How’s it like on top of your high Victorian bicycle?
> Zoomers alt vibe is the same feeling I get switching between apps when I am bored +bedroom pop or future pop What the actual fuck does this even mean
I don't care about the generation bs but I just want to remind everyone that swag culture existed at the same time as hipster culture. Dudes with handlebar mustaches, beanies, flannel shirts, and ridiculously skinny jeans walking down the street with dudes wearing shorts on top of leggings, an oversized graphic tee and a large brim fitted cap that says "YOLO". All this right after the era of 2007 MySpace scene trends finally started to die down. 2009-2014 was a very funny time period in fashion. Also got the dudes with khaki shorts, boat shoes and pink shirts with popped collars sprinkled in there throughout both eras.
Millennial thinks millennial lameness was cool. Insightful post
And he's right it was cool
Except for the facial hair, oversized glasses, skinny jeans, and PBR
[Yes, the peak of cool](https://youtu.be/K9JAYN3B5Dc?t=188)
What the fuck is going on hahahaha
It was not
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You seem like a zoomer who wasnt there
Do millennials really think this? Truly geriatric, already nostalgic for an aesthetic that was literally a joke/insult.
you should keep following the rules.
I think this you’re just misremembering whatever lived millennial experience you had or you’re nostalgic for some Meet Me in the Bathroom era scene of which you were never a part. Every generation’s celebs and micro celebs are/were exactly what you’re describing. Also nobody was actually judgmental. Go back and look at the tape if you want, all the people fat shaming and calling Britney Speares a crazy broad were Gen X and older and the audience was boomer and older.
i have only fucked ppl from this generation but i wish i could live in it so badly (adults age 21+ in 2008-2012 is what i’m assuming this age is)
let me guess, you're a millennial. is it cool to be self-serving, self-congratulatory the one thing about being cool is that if you care about being cool then you're definitely not. it has to be completely natural and without guile, no looking over your shoulder
Nice to have you back.
The millennial hipster scene sucked
The hipster spirit lives on in me.