Hipsters
 

I found a pretty funny thread about this stereotype and I would like to venture into it more. Personally, I don't agree with stereotyping people, but every "hipster" I see matches each quality perfectly: starts trends, listens to obscure music, has an elitist attitude, dresses like they are poor (but they spent a lot of money looking like it), artsy, etc. I think people can't be summed up by one word, but this is just a fun thread. Anyways, what kind of music do hipsters listen to? Do they even have a specific genre? Specific band?

Most people would have you believe that hipsters listen to Animal Collective, Wavves, Best Coast, really anything that's Pitchfork-approved mallcore. None of those bands are even remotely obscure, though, so I have no idea why people put these 'hipster' types up on pedestals by saying they listen to things 'you've never heard of'. They obviously listen to pretty popular music; who really hasn't heard of Arcade Fire by now?

I find that hipster is seriously one of the misused terms in the whole 'music' world. It's just like calling somebody a metalhead or a punk - they're just boring generalizations that seriously limit that person's ability to argue back. "If they're a hipster, well hey man, anything they say is just a fake lie man, they don't ACTUALLY like Burzum, they're just putting up a FRONT!" Same goes for metalheads: "Ha, of COURSE he doesn't like the new Wu-Tang, he's a METALHEAD, he can't appreciate anything without detuned guitars!"

Please, for the life of you, don't start using this word to define people. Just help it die off; we honestly don't need to use this term to generalize people even further. If you like music, don't 'join' a clique; talk to people about music, make friends over it, but it's just sad to build a second identity off of it, or to attribute it to other people who you think are 'faking'.

Post-rock and/or noise pop?

pfft, it's a known fact that hipsters like proto-reptile core and ice-folktronic dance ballet hop.

Y'all need to stay updated. Geez. But who am I kidding? Of course YOU wouldn't know that.

Clutnuckle's post basically can't be topped. Agree with him one hundred percent on everything.

I think I have to check that out. Sounds awesome. :D

There will ALWAYS be generalizations of people. While I agree with you on this, I have to say that I said in the beginning that I am against stereotyping people. This is just a fun thread and nobody is being picked on.

Well sure, there will always be stereotypes because there will always be people trying to assimilate you into the newest trend, BUT those generalizations are cultural, not musical. It's "Music Banter". Not "Musical Stereotypes You Give to People to Try to Comprehend Their Listening Habits Banter". I know you obviously aren't trying to hurt anybody, but:

Do you really want to perpetuate that kind of attitude? That's what these kind of threads do. For five-or-six pages, people make genre jokes about hipsters and how Pitchfork gave an album a 9.4 so they have to get it, then it just dies, and the hipsterisms are in their heads. Doesn't really have the intended effect.

Plus it really doesn't inherit musical discussion aside from saying things like "I heard they listen to death metal now. But only OBSCURE death metal like so-and-so. Man, they're so weak!"

This video sums up everything wrong with 'hipster slander': MC Lars is a white guy who cashes in on pop culture by making really cheap (and not very funny) fun of it. Remember when hip-hop artists actually attacked things that mattered? WELL MOVE OVER PUBLIC ENEMY, MC Lars makes fun of the stereotypical Pitchfork hipster with the poignancy of a toddler! I got a cheap laugh out of it the first time I heard it, but it's really not much.

Fair enough. I couldn't even sit through that video...

“Hipsters” are people who try to set themselves apart from what's “common”, no? But pretty much everyone does this to some degree or another. The idea of conformity, being a mindless drone who copies everyone else, makes one sound like an idiot. No one would admit to being this way. So instead we all tend to look for things that can set us apart from one other; a element of distinction-seeking, a way to assert our own individuality, even though we know this will be shared by a certain number of people (but not by everyone). We choose certain tastes that are in direct opposition to other tastes. I'm trying to get through Pierre Bourdieu's classic, 'Distinction' at the moment, which is all about this kind of thing.