Hipster Guilt

My roomates and I have recently moved from the northern tip of Manhattan to Bushwick, Brooklyn. Bushwick is a section of Brooklyn east of the trendy Williamsburg and our neighborhood is a particularly interesting area composed of factories and distribution centers, some of which are still in operation and some of which have been converted into artists' lofts. Surrounding this area are the towers of low income housing and neighborhoods full of lower middle class families. This pocket is inhabited by young artists of all sorts who cherish this bohemian and desolate atmosphere and play into it as much as possible through attitude and dress.
We are HIPSTERS. Or so the magazines and newspapers say. This is a particularly derogatory term amoungst the actual renters here, though.

A recent article in Adbusters provoked a conversation about the connundrum of buying into hipsterdom by settling in our neighborhood. The article makes several valid points about the vapidness of this so called counter-culture and how this may effect our societies real need for an active counter-culture to redefine the main stream. He paints some vivid, though selective, images of young hip people at parties and bars turned clubs.

It made me angry to read the words. I protested that I was not vapid and that my clothes and my real estate do not define my politics. But then I realized this was one of his points. I am participating in a sort-of culture driven by a marketing concept that is not original in any sense. My clothes have no kind of submersive comment to them. They are just what I think is cool.

But, where did I get this idea of what I find "cool"? Mostly from the people around me, my roomates and people I see on the street. I think the sillouhette makes most guys look really attractive. It even made some people who I wouldn't find attractive more so. I admit to buying one fashion magazine last spring which made me really excited about wearing shorts that were a little too short for me and finding a bowtie I could learn how to tie. But I honestly cut my pants to make shorts before I saw anyone else doing it, and one pair I've had for years. I have been wearing suspenders for two years ever since I directed a play where one character wore them. Was I a sub-conscious victim of advertising? Of course, how can I claim to not be? We all are.

One day, when I assembled one slighly more outrageous than usual outfit, an English woman accosted me in a store in the East Villiage saying that she worked for foreign fashion magazine that was doing profiles on NY street folk and asking would I be kind enough to let her take my picture. I find the work of a model fascinating, so I agreed. She took some pictures of me on a brownstone and asked me to describe my style in one or two words. I was a little amused. I certainly have never quallified my "style" before, much less in two words. I didn't like to think I dressed all that similarly from one day to the next. I liked to think I was original. I finally settled on "Dorky but Fun" which she scribbled on her form.
What I really meant was "vintage with a twist". What I really mean was "intelligent but cool". What I really meant was "fashion conscious but non-chalant". What I really meant was HIPSTER. Quoting some kind of style I had never really seen before with clothes I had owned for years and calling it new because I was skinny and in NYC.
For me it's fashion. It's wearing clothes in a fun and sexy way so that I feel fun and sexy and come off as fun and sexy to others. It's a creative way to armour myself and a fun way to analyze people I see. I notice clothes and form opinions about people from what they wear. Not with hateful intent, I just like to people watch, to gather things about people's self image from what they wear. How do they imagine themselves? Who are they trying to be? Is that how I come off when I wear something like that?

Hipsterdom is self-awareness. It is being so self-aware that your commenting on your outfit while you wear it. You are the hippest maybe because you are the least fashionable person there. You're so good at being blaise. You're so removed from the situation that you are a standing statue of a person representing nothing but a magazine ad selling "cool". And in Bushwick our brand of hipster is a little more hip. Is this anything new?
Fashion is an image. Which is what a hipster is. It's not a person who is at home with thier little brother, helping out thier roomates, planning thier future. It's a flat picture in a magazine or the flat impression I get when I see someone on the subway. The word "hipster" has a negative connotation because it is an ugly side of youth that comes out when we are most vain, high, pretentious and needy. No one wants to be labeled that consistantly.

I wish I didn't have the scowl most New Yorkers have when going through my day. I wish my clothes didn't amplify my scowl. I wish I could get over my fear of people and talk to my neighbors. I wish my social anxiety didn't come off as self-absortion. I wish I didn't need my armour, but I do.

If you encounter me on the street you will see a hipster. I live in Bushwick. We here are too hip to be hipsters. When you see me, look past my glasses that are too big for my face, and say hi.