The monetization and conversations surrounding the supposed Hipster Narrative play to each other way more than cultural critics such as Sean Doherty might think.
Is it just me or does it seem like every time you pick up a paper some old prick is telling us how to live? The latest was Sean Doherty in this column on Coastalwatch. Now, full respect to Sean. He’s a legend of the game and his biography of Michael Peterson was pretty much the reason I got into surf writing. But either he’s getting desperate in middle age or just wants to pick a fight, because his latest softly-softly hedging of bets as to whether hipsters are a cultural cancer or just young people too cool to care, is not only weak but toxically arrogant. Where does the generation above get off thinking we need their approval? As if their generation is so holy their validation is necessary for us to exist. Get fucked.
My name is Jed Smith. I’m 27, and I grew up in Bondi Beach, one of the true preserves of the hipster, or so they tell me. But I remember a time before the hipster. I remember when the first General Pants (i.e Urban Outfitters, or Top Shop for those overseas) opened in the suburbs, replacing the Lebanese restaurant on the corner. I also remember when a bunch of filthy North Shore nerds landed on my street and started flogging shredded jeans with flies on the arse for four hundy a pop. They were called Whobi before changing their name, and they had a music spin-off called Gang Gang or some shit, comprised of a bunch of early thirties kiddy-fiddlers who came up with the idea of having a hell little party on stage while the rest of us looked on from the dance floor.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the dawn of the hipster was upon us. These pricks had fully cracked the code. They’d realized the secret to eternal youth and they were taking it, and us, to the bank. It was a simple formula: create a scene that excludes people, sell a product that promises to include you, and push the idea among the people you’re selling to that they’re an unimaginative, ugly, insufficient cancer on the face of human history. If you’re only as old as you look and feel, then the secret to eternal youth (and wealth) is to simply make everyone around you feel like shit and feel like they look like shit! Genius!
Doherty is part of this machine. His assertion that we are what we wear (or ride) is such a superficial piece of shit argument. I don’t even know where to start other than to point out the great irony in his idiocy, and that of the hipster narrative in general: THAT YOU’RE JUDGING US ON HOW WE LOOK.
If you wanna talk about the superfluousness and superficiality of contemporary youth culture, look no further than the kleenex you’re writing on, aging scribes.
Such dross, such pointless dross… and not to mention the ignorance. Fear not for our generation, men of no hair. We have caused no stock market crash, created no housing bubble, spawned no generation of swindling bankers or Islamic militants, overseen no reign of Paul “Sarge” Sargent, and sure as hell haven’t tried to sell out surfing to Northern Europe, China and Russia. We’re still dealing with the hangover from your exorbitant living and resource grabbing.
If anything, our yearning for individuality, and our ability to artfully curate a pastiche of lessons learned (both stylistically and philosophically) from eras past is getting us closer to the truth than any generation before. We are the first generation to accept and celebrate difference on a global scale. And that can’t be a bad thing.
What Sean and his generation doesn’t seem to get is that contemporary culture is a far more fluid and interchangeable thing than eras gone by. We borrow more because, via the internet, the past is more accessible. We are vultures of culture, picking the eyes out of human history and bringing the best that was into the present. No need to fumble around in the darkness of human invention, and add ever more trash to the shit heap of human evolution (which I’m pretty sure you’ll find in the Phillipines or the great Pacific Rubbish Gyre, if you’re interested). Just re-use, recycle, consume less and – here’s the real masterstroke – work less!
Our ability to cherry pick the best of the best also means we can slip into a different costume every day of the week. Contrary to what Doherty might tell you, this yearning for difference is not a bad thing, nor is it anything new. It’s the most inescapable fact of human existence, for Christ’s sake. We’re all born different. The problem now is that corporations have twigged to it and are selling us individuality. And there is a danger in that. For true individuality must be earned, not bought. When bought, there is the strong likelihood you’ve failed to develop the personal convictions and morality to go with it. Still, the fact that we all look the part means we’re a whole lot closer to the truth than any generation before us.
