AIBU to wonder why in God's name anyone would want to be a hipster?

[aermingers]

I thought of this because of the cereal cafe thread (although I think those two seem like nice lads).

I mean, hipsters are a bit of a joke now right? People who are so achingly desperate to be different but they're slavishly following their own crowd like sheep.

I look at them and I just think it's such a pretentious pile of arse and it just shows an obsession with image and outward appearances above all else. And having the right sort of job in 'meeja' or 'creative industries' and hanging with the right crowd. It's sort of a modern type of snobbery which has a lot more in common with their Grandparents obsessions with class and outward appearances by stone cladding their drive and working for the right company and shopping in the right supermarket than they'd like to admit.

I mean, does anybody else look at hipsters and think 'Oh you're so cool' apart from other hipsters? They just seem like the punchline to a joke to me now.

and those two with the cereal cafe, jesus wept

YABU to imagine than "hipster" means anything more than dressing normally and vaguely on trendy for substantial numbers of people. It's pretty mainstream for a lot of people, in much the way being a Boden "type" is for others. It's interesting though how a certain type imagines that hipsters are blithely unaware that they look perfectly normal. Do you think that they haven't noticed all the other people wandering around with facial hair, biker boots and Aeropresses?

Also interesting is how irritated they make non-hipsters. Almost as if there was some anxiety there, or something.

I love beards, the more the merrier!

I got called a hipster for going to a music festival.

The truth is, I drank more Smirnoff Ice than is good for me and mum danced to Calvin Harris. Achingly cool I ain't

*thanks fuck I'm old

the thought of going out and having to fancy some bloke with a big beard makes me puke*

What ssd said

I wouldn't mind hipsters if they stopped looking at every non-hipster like they were something on the bottom of their brogue shoe.

The fake glasses trend really confuses me. I wear glasses as I'm nearly blind without them. I don't mind my glasses, but it would nice not to have everything further than a meter away be indistinguishable. Why would anyone WANT glasses?

After this thread I'm very glad that my DH and friends are happy, non-judgemental hipsters rather than basic bitches!

Had never heard of Basic Bitches before.

Basic bitches are what used to be called Townies so they probably would be the natural rival to hipsters. Traditionally Townies hated Goths and vice versa but you don't see Goths much now in London. If you go to Medway though you will see both.

That's class, chickensleeping.

ShowMeYourTARDIS I love wearing glasses! They are prescription and I can't function without them but I have many, many pairs (God Bless Tesco £15 range!) and I am always very excited to get a new pair...

I don't really know what a hipster is though. I don't think I am one. I wear whatever I find first that fits, and can usually be found in Wetherspoons eating one of their meals that comes with a free glass of Pinot. But I will be doing it wearing very funky glasses.

DH was a hipster before there were hipsters and no doubt he will be afterwards too.

Being a hipster is no different to being a goth, punk or a Boden wearing mummy. We all chose to wear clothes and act in ways that please us and it's very hard to not dress the same as other people.

They are from Surrey but moved to Clapham/Tooting/Battersea after graduating

Tooting? Are you having an absolute giraffe?! No no no my friend, hipsters like to live in Hoxton, shoreditch, london fields, maybe wapping although that's a bit city. Strong and now. Big big big on living in hackney wick. Dalston, obvs. But also now deptford along the river inlet where it's sudenly become uber trendy and arty.

Strong and now was meant to say 'Stepney and Bow'.

Yes, Clapham, Tooting, Battersea is a bit more Boden.

And I don't think you can accuse somebody with a long beard of trying to look as inoffensive as possible.

I like the hipsters, it's just a fashion thing amongst a certain demographic, I really don't see what there is to be annoyed about.
As for the 'looking down', that's hardly the preserve of trendy Londonites, there's dicks in every social group.
They're more design savvy and elitist perhaps, and of course some will be doing it pretentiously in a social-climbing fashion, but I like to see men with a bit of style about them sadly DH loves his hi tech fleeces a bit too much . I think of hipster as the slightly old fashioned sort, the neon/80s ones make my eyes roll automatically (but then they roll at most extreme trends anyway).

Oh they're Hipsters. I thought they were all following a fashion trend inspired by WWI with their Great Coats and king/kaiser/tsar beards.

That Shane off Boyzone is now a hipster. He's a proper knobber.

The Hipster movement has been an absolute blessing for my best friend - he has dressed, acted, spoken and had the same facial hair for as long as I've known him - he's so cool now and has women throwing themselves at him whereas five years ago he was a nerd and couldn't get a date. I am delighted for him

I saw Boyzone on Jonathan Ross on the weekend, one of them was dressed like a hipster (with a disgustingly long beard) and I thought that there is the end of the hipster- an aged boyband member, stood next to his aged, fatter bandmates and Ronan 'middle of the road' Keating. Awful.

Never mind wondering why they'd want to be hipsters, how do you cure it? Are there pills or some sort of Hipsters Anon programme? I really urgently need to know - over the last 3-4 years SIL, my cousin, a couple who are close friends of ours AND 2 other friends have all inexplicably turned into hipsters and I'm worried it's catching (I seem to be immune but I don't want to be surrounded by them). It's not that they've always liked the same things that just happen to be 'hip' now and they don't even live in London (VERY far from it) so it's not a culture thing, but they all seem obsessed with turning into hipsters.

I'm talking about suddenly growing a gigantic bushy beard (men only it seems though) when they hated even being stubbly before, being completely disinterested in music until they 'rediscovered' the record player (can't be an ugly but well performing one though, has to be a cutesy coloured enamelly look one) and playing Paloma Faith out of the blue every time you're round, Instagramming pics of their food and 'fun' selfies of them/their kids all in exactly the same hue (that weird 'vintage' not-quite-sepia Instagram one) yet strangely they don't seem to love photograph enough to take pictures of anything/anyone else, and only going to events that are likely to be 'niche' ad poorly attended.

How do you cure it?

By dropping them from quite high up, Facially

There's a fun app I used have where you see how far you can throw a hipster. Hipster Smackdown, I think it was called. All in good fun, like.

Oh I quite enjoy hipsters - anyone who looks like a cross between a lumberjack and Sherlock Holmes has got to be entertaining at the very least. It's just the next fashion trend, isn't it?

The only thing that can be annoying is the subsection who make out they're the new generation of impoverished intellectuals despite the fact they have a Shoreditch flat paid for by Mummy and Daddy, carry around hundreds of pounds of Apple gadgets and haven't had an original thought since 1996...