Illustration courtesy Adbusters.
Daniel Haddow claimed as much last summer in the countercultural magazine Adbusters. His article has sparked more than 4,000 online comments, perhaps a record for that small-circulation title. Its thesis seems less provocative than perfectly pitched to garner responses from its self-conscious and digitally connected subjects. Here are a few excerpts:
An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.
[...]
The American Apparel V-neck shirt, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Parliament cigarettes are symbols and icons of working or revolutionary classes that have been appropriated by hipsterdom and drained of meaning. Ten years ago, a man wearing a plain V-neck tee and drinking a Pabst would never be accused of being a trend-follower. But in 2008, such things have become shameless clichés of a class of individuals that seek to escape their own wealth and privilege by immersing themselves in the aesthetic of the working class.
[...]
With nothing to defend, uphold or even embrace, the idea of “hipsterdom” is left wide open for attack. And yet, it is this ironic lack of authenticity that has allowed hipsterdom to grow into a global phenomenon that is set to consume the very core of Western counterculture. Most critics make a point of attacking the hipster’s lack of individuality, but it is this stubborn obfuscation that distinguishes them from their predecessors, while allowing hipsterdom to easily blend in and mutate other social movements, sub-cultures and lifestyles.
What is particularly interesting is the way the article recapitulates arguments about the “end of art,” advanced by philosopher-critic Arthur Danto in 1984, among others. “But Danto didn’t mean that artists were no longer making art; rather, he was referring to the end of art history,” reports the introduction to a 2005 interview with Danto in The Nation, where he serves as art critic. “Throughout much of this history, artists–from Hellenistic sculptors in ancient Greece to academic realist painters of nineteenth-century France–sought to realistically depict the natural world. But with the advent of Modernism, realism devolved in a rapid denouement–brush strokes became visible and bold, color was expressive rather than authentic and the figure became increasingly sketchy and crude until nothing remained but pure abstraction. By the 1980s, however, this linear progression came to an abrupt end as the art world entered a new, pluralistic era. This era was not defined by a dominant school or movement but was characterized by its lack thereof.” In the same way, Haddow, in his Adbusters article, claims, “An amalgamation of its own history, the youth of the West are left with consuming cool rather that creating it.” Do you agree? Post a comment via the link below or submit an e-mail via the address in the right-hand column.
found this article on YTJ as well, pretty great:
http://www.flypmedia.com/issues/27/#4/1
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Just read it and went gosh, I know why I was poor in the debate class. - When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees. - Abraham Lincoln 1809 - 1865
“Dead end”? No, just a side road that goes to nowhere.
“We will prevail”. That is the motto of Civilization; has always been so.