It’s one thing to read a webcomic about hipsters and still feel superior, but when you realize that you could easily be mistaken for one on the street, then you’ve got a real identity crisis on your hands. It’s not like it’s your fault, necessarily; the hipster identity is an expansive and all-consuming social category that seems hell-bent on incorporating every other subculture into it. Nothing like that can survive, ultimately, because it’s completely meaningless, but waiting this whole past decade for it to die sure felt like an eternity.
I do think it’s on its way out, though. Once Greg can be mistaken for a hipster, it’s really just a matter of time before the whole institution collapses.
Writing from the vantage point of a near-crippling age, it seems that the whole "being a young person" + "embracing a certain fashion / style" + "listening to a certain kind of music" cannot be escaped. Hipsters are the descendents of the first wave of punk rockers (a little before my generation– I grew up with American hardcore) and the grunge kifd (a little after my generation– and more metal).
The first punks are most likely the descendents of the aesthetic marriage of English mods + American rockabilly types (from earlier generations).
As a hipster, you've got Elvis (hair product), Pete Townsend (those avant-blazers), Johnny Rotten (sloganeering t-shirts), Kurt Cobain (shaggy haircuts, flannel), and a little bit of Carnaby Street Bowie (scarves) in your DNA. That's not so bad.
oh god yes this is my favorite comic ever. I got giddy just reading the mention of 'my awesome life' before scrolling down.
Also, bart, you're crazy and overanalyzing hipsters, much like they would do. There's no great intelligence nor inspiration in a movement that is entirely typical. Young people are useless at a lot of things, and instead of just enjoying being young, they constantly, through ages and cultures, try to legitimize their egos with some exclusionist movement.
tl;dr: hipsters suck
That's just what a hipster would say.
I thought this comic was a dig on me and my gray/black scarf, until I caught the punch line. 2-hit combo.
I know I've linked to this before, but I really can't tell you how perfectly this article sums up everything I feel about hipsters: http://nymag.com/news/features/69129/
It's now required reading for TSB, or at least for the strips about My Awesome Life.