In my school, the word âÂÂhipsterâ is constantly tossed around, whether as an aspiration or a derogatory term. âÂÂGod you look like such a hipster,â or âÂÂNiiiiice, lookin hipster today,â mean totally different things. The typical hipster shops at places like Urban Outfitters and American Apparel, but venture into small hole-in-the-wall stores to find special “individual” items to set themselves apart from the hoards more smoking in Union Square. Urban dictionary defines a hipster as “a subculture of men and women typically in their 20’s and 30’s that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter,” but that is no longer the case. Sure, thats the ideal, but hipsters have become as conformist as the abercrombie and american eagle cult we’re all familiar with. Hipsters are also certainly not limited to 20’s and 30’s, there is a new sub-subculture of the hipster: The high school hipster.
The standard fare of a hipster includes a leather bag of some sort (to infuse that vintage, old person feel), the skinniest jeans that legs can fit into and a colorful beanie hat ever so lightly perched atop messy hair. And don’t forget the chimney sweeper shoes stolen right off of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. The ones who are good at working the style eventually move on to the holy grail of hipster-ness: working at a hipster store. If a hipster works at the store they regularly spend hundreds of dollars in, their reputation goes through the roof. Now they have permission to boss around all the lowlier, prospective hipsters–plus the employee discount they can wave in all their friends faces. They also have an excuse to go galavanting around in the items of clothing that their store sells, the more ridiculous ones at that.
Anything Urban Outfitters makes, people buy. If Urban Outfitters made a t-shirt with an image of someone stabbing a baby, people would buy it. And they would wear it with suspenders and a tutu. The ugliest clothing you can possibly imagine suddenly comes back in style, showing crop tops to show off your potbelly and high-waisted mom jeans in an acid wash that are somehow able to be unzipped fully off your body from the sides. No one in their right mind would buy these things, but since the gods at Urban Outfitters have deemed them acceptable to show off in their store windows along with pieces of old bikes and chain saws, $150 is a fair asking price, wouldn’t you say?
American Apparel is in the same boat, enforcing crazy requirements on their employees just because they can. No uglies, no fatties, no chipped nail polish, and no leg hair is only a sampling of their outlandish requirements. Only the best for American Apparel.Yet still, girls and gay men alike are dying to be a part of the lineup, getting headshots taken by friends and begging for jobs at their local branches. The lucky few are worshipped, and seen as the prettiest in the land. The store is outwardly racist, telling their managers not to hire “the trashy kind that come in, we don’t want that. we’re not trying to sell our clothes to them. try to find some of these classy black girls, with nice hair, you know?” Not that it matters. American Apparel is still raking in the cash; all those hipsters have to get their white crew-neck t-shirts somewhere!
The hangout place of choice for hipsters is typically Union Square, overcome with clouds of cigarette smoke, with the occasional waft of marijuana. The place is littered with skateboards and oversized headphones, creating an aura of “you’re not cool enough to be standing here.” They sit on steps people-watching and mocking the Forever 21 across the street–despite the fact that a few of them have probably ventured in for a pair of shorts or two. The scene is found at all hours of the night, getting seedier as the sun dips lower. The whole time, pictures are snapped with their professional grade cameras bought off some poor sucker on ebay. The pictures are aimed for Facebook, and if deemed flattering and artsy enough, a profile picture. Close-ups of bananas are taken, and mocking poses of asians or ghetto girls, which they all giggle madly at. They say its cause they’re truly interested in photography but it’s really just trying to reach the ultimate standard of an Urban Outfitters photo-shoot. Shopping is done 24/7 and once one girl owns a piece of clothing, it might as well be the entire city’s. Once one friend borrows it, she won’t see it again for about six years. “Oh that was yours? Sorry, I’ve just had it for so long!”
Party attire is very different than every day attire for your everyday hipster. Every rooftop party and house party requires a new twist on the old skintight, obscenely short black dress, maybe adding a bag or a new belt or buying the miniskirt version to wear with a lacy top. No matter what it is, it must be tight and short even if its below 20 outside. Partying is done at all hours of the night and all days of the week, even if its beyond me how irresponsible parents today must be. Party clothes must never venture into the daytime clothes territory, though the occasional tight skirt can be acceptable on the slutty ones. Never ever must you be without liquid winged eyeliner, unless you’re on your shift at American Apparel, where such makeup is not allowed. Otherwise, natural beauty is supposed to speak for itself. It rarely does, but foundation can apparently look very natural these days.
The male brand of hipster is very different from the female, though they share the same main values. Never caught dead without skinny jeans, they wear basic bright colored t-shirts bought for $30 each and plaid button-downs bought in every color of the rainbow. The typical hipster guy has a very unhealthy obsession with hightop sneakers known as nike SBs. their bright cotton tops are matched and coordinated around the colors in the nike shoes (no other brand is acceptable) and you are never allowed to wear more than 4 colors at once–including the shade of your jeans. The shoes can run over $100 a pop, but they make it worth it by starting their own buying and selling SBs group on Facebook. The boys transfer hundreds of dollars daily, meeting up with customers and buying them off each other. The cooler ones wear winter hats in every season, covering up their unwashed hair and pimply foreheads. Even though a couple might be secretly smart, all of them must fit into one category or another regarding school. Either you’re failing all your classes or you’re the smart one and you let all your friends copy your homework every single day. The attractive ones have all the girls falling over them, but never date. Why would you buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?
Hipsters are a special genre of student, but are found in basically every New York City School. Most people don’t think that students can be hipsters, but I, for one, have seen it firsthand and know many on the more extreme side.