Sonic Youth Gossip - View Single Post

noumenal · 04.24.2006, 01:09 AM

Hey guys, here is a diagram of hipster celebrities (celebrities liked by hipsters) made by Bill Wasik (a senior editor of Harper's Magazine):

The community of hipsters is defined by Wasik as a "generational cohort. . . of educated young urbanites with strikingly similar tastes." They are usually between the early twenties and middle thirties. Wasik states that the main force behind hipsterism is the "drive toward deindividuation."

Here is Wasik writing about hipsters and music:

"Even as they might decry this drive toward unanimity, they continually embrace it and re-embrace it in an enthusiastic, almost ecstatic fashion. No phenomenon of recent years illustrated this point as clearly as the aforementioned Strokes, who for most of 2002 held the top-band spot in hip*sterdom. This was a band that, albeit enjoyable and skilled, had been clearly manufactured precisely for hipster delectation. Moreover, the hipsters were well aware of this fact, and they complained about it incessantly even as they cued up the record at parties and danced with special abandon. Indeed, one could perceive something palpably different, something animal, in the hipster species when the Strokes came over the speakers; and it was, I think, the reckless, self-abnegating joy of this simple unanimity, of oneness for its own sake. The Strokes made a natural object of this unanimity because their sound—derivative candy, 1970s punk simplicity dressed up with some 1990s indie-rock aloofness—was an easy common denominator. They were no Pixies, no Fugazi, no Joy Division, no band to which pledging allegiance implied the endorsement of a principle. They were, moreover, easily discarded, and the top-band mantle has been passed many times since then, in rapid succession—to equally derivative groups possessing the required sheen of sophistication, such as Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Bloc Party, and, as of this writing, an outfit called Clap Your Hands Say Yeah."

Let's not have a debate about what hipsters are; that's been beat into the ground.

I like his diagram and I think it's fun to try and figure out where certain artists lie on it. Where does SY lie on the diagram? (I'm not asking about personal opinions, but rather where you think the general population of young in-the-knows (hipsters) would place SY.)

What about the people already on the diagram? I think that Wes Anderson, Sarah Vowell, and David Cross are all placed perfectly.

04.24.2006, 01:09 AM	#1
noumenal expwy. to yr skull Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 1,855	Hey guys, here is a diagram of hipster celebrities (celebrities liked by hipsters) made by Bill Wasik (a senior editor of Harper's Magazine): The community of hipsters is defined by Wasik as a "generational cohort. . . of educated young urbanites with strikingly similar tastes." They are usually between the early twenties and middle thirties. Wasik states that the main force behind hipsterism is the "drive toward deindividuation." Here is Wasik writing about hipsters and music: "Even as they might decry this drive toward unanimity, they continually embrace it and re-embrace it in an enthusiastic, almost ecstatic fashion. No phenomenon of recent years illustrated this point as clearly as the aforementioned Strokes, who for most of 2002 held the top-band spot in hip*sterdom. This was a band that, albeit enjoyable and skilled, had been clearly manufactured precisely for hipster delectation. Moreover, the hipsters were well aware of this fact, and they complained about it incessantly even as they cued up the record at parties and danced with special abandon. Indeed, one could perceive something palpably different, something animal, in the hipster species when the Strokes came over the speakers; and it was, I think, the reckless, self-abnegating joy of this simple unanimity, of oneness for its own sake. The Strokes made a natural object of this unanimity because their sound—derivative candy, 1970s punk simplicity dressed up with some 1990s indie-rock aloofness—was an easy common denominator. They were no Pixies, no Fugazi, no Joy Division, no band to which pledging allegiance implied the endorsement of a principle. They were, moreover, easily discarded, and the top-band mantle has been passed many times since then, in rapid succession—to equally derivative groups possessing the required sheen of sophistication, such as Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Bloc Party, and, as of this writing, an outfit called Clap Your Hands Say Yeah." Let's not have a debate about what hipsters are; that's been beat into the ground. I like his diagram and I think it's fun to try and figure out where certain artists lie on it. Where does SY lie on the diagram? (I'm not asking about personal opinions, but rather where you think the general population of young in-the-knows (hipsters) would place SY.) What about the people already on the diagram? I think that Wes Anderson, Sarah Vowell, and David Cross are all placed perfectly.
	\|QUOTE AND REPLY\|