From Adbusters:
Ever since the Allies bombed the Axis into submission, Western civilization has had a succession of counter-culture movements that have energetically challenged the status quo. Each successive decade of the post-war era has seen it smash social standards, riot and fight to revolutionize every aspect of music, art, government and civil society.
But after punk was plasticized and hip hop lost its impetus for social change, all of the formerly dominant streams of “counter-culture” have merged together. Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.”
I have to admit my enjoyment of the hipster scene back in Philadelphia as well as here in Toronto. Although I don't consider myself a hipster, I enjoy the dive bars, the young good-looking crowds and the often electronic music. Every time I go out to some hipster event, I think to myself about the opportunity to politically organize the crowds of intelligent, well-informed 20-somethings. The problem is that I haven't yet figured out how to inject progressive political activism into this hipster world.
Adbusters, whose cover story on Hipsterdom sparked this post, takes a unsurprisingly critical and pessimistic view.
Hipsterdom is the first “counterculture” to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.
An amalgamation of its own history, the youth of the West are left with consuming cool rather that creating it. The cultural zeitgeists of the past have always been sparked by furious indignation and are reactionary movements. But the hipster’s self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution. Western civilization’s well has run dry. The only way to avoid hitting the colossus of societal failure that looms over the horizon is for the kids to abandon this vain existence and start over.
Adbusters laments our "defeated generation" that is too afraid to create our own authentic counterculture. First, I can't disagree more with the fact that we are defeated. Have you seen the level of activism among millennials in the US? Our generation is well-informed, caring, and using the new tools at our disposal to effect real change, instead of feeding into some new counterculture movement that will inevitably be co-opted and sold back to us. Second, the whole notion of effecting change through some authentic counterculture has not worked for the last 20+ years. Remember all those culture jammers and anti-globalization radicals that Adbusters exemplifies? What have they achieved?
Instead of worrying about how Hipsterdom is growing into "a global phenomenon that is set to consume the very core of Western counterculture" we need to reevaluate what actual value comes from these countercultures. In my view, all of this focus on creating and sustaining these subcultures opposed to the "mainstream" is just a distraction from achieving real political change.
Cross Posted at Progressive Dispatches
