Hi, I\\\'ve been a H-Word for most of my life — first as a teenage poseur and later as a fully-vested Hipster. (Also, I\\\\\\\'m a cartographer by trade, so I often think of things in geographic terms.)
Awhile back, I was on 4chan and people were making maps of their cities by screen-capturing Google Maps, then drawing on top of it in MS Paint to denote what kind of people lived in different neighborhoods. (As anyone who knows 4chan at all can imagine, almost none of these were politically correct.) One thing that did strike me, though, was that every single city that was depicted, even those with only 100K or so people, had an area labeled \\\\\\\"Hipster Neighborhood\\\\\\\".
A few weeks ago, I saw another article that showed the ethnic breakdown of cities, presented in map form. Each person of a certain \\\\\\\"race\\\\\\\" was a tiny dot on the map, and different \\\\\\\"races\\\\\\\" had their own color so the reader could easily glance, and get a rough idea what was going on.
I noticed that many of the cities strongly associated with hipsterdom had the most stark racial segregation by neighborhood. This led me to wondering if what we call \\\\\\\"hipster\\\\\\\" is just the newest version of \\\\\\\"yuppie\\\\\\\", basically the young, white, educated, white, self-proclaimed elite. (Again: I am one of them, so don\\\\\\\'t take this as a condemnation or a political overture.)
There has obviously been a cultural shift — instead of ascots and tennis courts, the new social currency is obscure sneakers and street cred — but it seems to me that this bluntly simple explanation may be the best.
On Being a Hipster Is an Excellent and Wonderful Thing!
Hi, I\\\'ve been a H-Word for most of my life — first as a teenage poseur and later as a fully-vested Hipster. (Also, I\\\\\\\'m a cartographer by trade, so I often think of things in geographic terms.)
Awhile back, I was on 4chan and people were making maps of their cities by screen-capturing Google Maps, then drawing on top of it in MS Paint to denote what kind of people lived in different neighborhoods. (As anyone who knows 4chan at all can imagine, almost none of these were politically correct.) One thing that did strike me, though, was that every single city that was depicted, even those with only 100K or so people, had an area labeled \\\\\\\"Hipster Neighborhood\\\\\\\".
A few weeks ago, I saw another article that showed the ethnic breakdown of cities, presented in map form. Each person of a certain \\\\\\\"race\\\\\\\" was a tiny dot on the map, and different \\\\\\\"races\\\\\\\" had their own color so the reader could easily glance, and get a rough idea what was going on.
I noticed that many of the cities strongly associated with hipsterdom had the most stark racial segregation by neighborhood. This led me to wondering if what we call \\\\\\\"hipster\\\\\\\" is just the newest version of \\\\\\\"yuppie\\\\\\\", basically the young, white, educated, white, self-proclaimed elite. (Again: I am one of them, so don\\\\\\\'t take this as a condemnation or a political overture.)
There has obviously been a cultural shift — instead of ascots and tennis courts, the new social currency is obscure sneakers and street cred — but it seems to me that this bluntly simple explanation may be the best.