Your mom is a hipster
“Hipster” can’t be defined like a mainstream word
When I arrived in Mountain View twenty-five years ago, I met a young woman who I’ve intimately gotten to know ever since:
She hates Starbucks. Not because she would rather support a local small business that serves fair-trade organic roasts and sheep’s milk lattes, but because she can make the world’s best filter coffee in her own kitchen.
While she’s eating one meal, she’s thinking about the next. She isn’t always eating, but she believes that every meal should be properly planned to include all food groups and effectively executed to involve only the freshest ingredients.
There was one time she invited me to go berry-picking. She taught me how to find the ripest berries and we plucked and plucked until our hands were stained purple. After a day on the farm, we drove back to her house with a car full of fruit and spent the rest of the weekend making jams and preserves (she insists there’s a difference).
That same year, she decided that buying her kids shoes was a waste of money. “They’ve practically outgrown them before we get home from the store,” she told a friend. What’s nice about sneakers is that they come with an extra pair of shoelaces, typically a color that’s not white. On a whim, she borrowed a craftbook from the library. The next day, she was making shoelace hairclips and the next month, selling them at various community events.
She only wears “real” jewelry; she doesn’t eat meat; she bikes; she knits scarves. I could go on forever but you don’t care. The only thing you’re wondering is,
“Who the fuck is this hipster?”
Well, she doesn’t know what a “hipster” is, but if you really must know, she’s my mom.
Living in San Francisco and maybe other “up-and-coming” (whatever that means) cities, either you’re surrounded by people you consider hipster or you’re “accused” (as if it’s a bad thing) of being hipster yourself. Even the New York Times finds hipsterdom conversation-worthy.
“Let’s look at the facts,” someone once told me, “You love Mac products and frequently spend time in coffee shops. You are an aspiring writer. You are vegetarian, have thick-rimmed glasses, and use non-mainstream websites such as Hipmunk (which now, one year later, is arguably mainstream). You may, in fact, be a hipster.” Apparently the only thing I’m missing is an infatuation with “obscure” music. And a beard. Let’s call this Definition A.
More recently, a designer from a tech startup (who also paints and frequents bar trivia) told me that I am the most hipster person he knows: “You dress well and have hobbies.” Definition B.
Definition C. “Hipster is a set of behaviors and attitudes. The attitude is one of ironic negativity in which, outside of minor nuances, you can’t distinguish between their likes and dislikes. The behavior is doing things that come across as cheap — not shaving, drinking PBR, and wearing ‘old’ tshirts they claim to have ‘had forever’ when really they went rummaging through a parent’s attic.” — Soccer teammate.
I could hit Definition Z if I tried and you conceivably would disagree with all twenty-six definitions. But what’s more important is why hipsters do what they do. Whether or not I am one, everything I do has a reason — cultural (vegetarianism), health-related (glasses), or passion (writing). I get this all from my economical, crafty, foodie mom.
No matter where you live or work, you have those things too. Things you do because they feel right for you. Maybe that makes us all hipster in some way or another.
People who do things they care about. My definition.
Tl;dr — The most ironic thing about “hipster” is that we can’t agree on what it actually means.
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