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.

Just back from London wnd couldn't keep up with our game of counting the beards. It is weird. Trying to be different and out there but such a sheep and a visible sheep at that. The fad will pass and they'll all be shaving like there's no tomorrow.

I think what happened is that hipster men all starting growing beards because of a love of all things retro, pseudo-intellectual, serious, arty, Scandinavian influenced, hippy, etc etc. So a typical hipster bloke might a few years ago have aimed to look like a beardy, vegan geography teacher or architect with corduroy elbow patches on his jacket, buying music on vinyl, using a clunky old Nokia phone etc, as a sort of nerdy counter culture to the mainstream fashions of the time. But what always happens with these things is that the quirky counter culture eventually becomes the mainstream fashion. What we mostly have now are Hipsters Lite.

The beard was just one identifying feature of being a hipster. Then the beards caught on and now there are beards everywhere and lots of people think they are hipsters purely by dint of having grown a beard.

It doesn't work like that.

I have hipster tendencies. It's okay. I am harmless.

Olivia - brilliant!

Halo - succint explanation, good one.

I was having this discussion only yesterday. I think they are hiding something with those beards, massive chin, no chin, overbite, creepily thin lips. I imagine they must smell too.

Germgirl
"Facial beards". Is there another type?!

Oops! I meant facial hair.

They have invaded my local wine bar.

My friend and I walked in last weekend to be met with a bar full of bearded men with tattooed arms and bad glasses. I must say they all looked very individual. [sorry]