FONTANA: I'm a hipster infiltrator

Some of my friends and I have spent years of our lives and an ample amount of our resources trying to successfully infiltrate the dubious, transcendental movement of young people known as “hipsters.” We’ve studied their intricately fluid dialects, the colorful and unique hieroglyphics they don and narrowed down their migratory movements in hopes of locating their hidden settlements and spots of congregation. “Crikey mate, we’ve got a live one here! A real hipster.” And not all our efforts were wasted. Despite our generic upbringings, we have managed, on multiple occasions, to successfully blend in with these creatures (a rather ironic frame of mind considering their spot in society as the counterculture movement of our time). Yet in the process of learning their secret art, I fear that I may have actually become one of them.

Now, if you were to walk into one of my classes on some social cliques scavenger hunt, I would probably be one of the last people you’d pick out as a hipster. I’d most likely be wearing khaki pants, a polo shirt and sneakers. Nothing all that out of the ordinary. But, if you knew the music I listened to, the clothes that I’ve collected and the ideals that all 92 of my personalities scream out in my head, you might think otherwise. And so in some mishap of my sociological endeavors to understand this rare psychological phenomenon, I may have actually stepped into a muddle of radioactive waste, and now here I stand, just one of your Teenage Mutant Ninja Hipsters. You can call me Beirut. And yet can I claim to be part of a group that I outwardly hide from, yet internally can never escape? And now for a big ol’ slice of double standard pie, with some whipped paradox on top, of course. What is this “hipster” identity?

This is a question that has plagued society for, well, as long as hipsters have existed. And it’s been no help that the definition of a hipster as transformed more than the Animorphs did during our entire childhood. This social group, since its birth during the 1940s, has grown on an advanced evolutionary timeline and has manifested, currently, as our “contemporary hipster.” The uncertainty of this group’s standards and trends has birthed a large collective of criticism. While many past counterculture groups have found themselves under fire from “Big Brother” or “the Man,” our revolutionary hipsters find themselves surrounded by enemies on all sides, made up of conservatives, past rebels, and even fellow hipsters.

A major part of the stigma of hipsterism is the critical view of the movement itself: selling out to everything their supposed to be fighting against. And from the ashes rose up Urban Outfitters. Many critics, from all circles of society, wonder where that old American spirit has gone and what’s happened to our once rampant amount of Antidisestablimentarianism. The tectonic uprising of the hipsters comes in on the Richter scale at about a leaf falling from a tree rather than the American preferred standard: A mosh pit of elephants. Capitalists see hipsters as simply another market to be exploited while other communitas shake their heads in disappointment at the conformity of these self-proclaimed nonconformists.

I’ve even found that many hipsters don’t like recognizing themselves as part of this group. I learned this fact the hard way, after being stared down and glared at by numerous shoppers in a thrift store in Chicago’s Wicker Park for nonchalantly dropping the “h-word.” I’d recommend not calling a hipster…a hipster. Many people feel it’s a derogatory term while others own up to it. Some who live what I would deem this life will swear they’re not and point out someone at the same festival or party, dressed in a very similar manner, and bobbing in an almost mirror-like fashion and label them with this crème de le hip. It’s hard to find hipsters who want to be hipsters. And I’ve certainly heard the argument that anyone who claims to be a hipster simply isn’t, that they’re probably just some bored suburban kid with too much time and money on their hands looking for some “cheap” entertainment.

But I think this nonconformist ideal, no matter how lost in its own uncertainty it is, has an important role to play for our society and our generation. Although this youthful community is often overtly judgmental, with its melting pot of qualities, it has allowed hipsters to appear in all shapes and sizes and come from all walks of life. And hipsters are notorious for shaping the course and desires of our future with an effortlessly imaginative fist.

Hipsterdom may just be the over-the-counter-culture medicine our decaying world needs.

David Fontana is a sophomore at the College of Arts and Sciences and a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at fontad5@bu.edu.