The Modern Hipster is a Spiritual Eunuch

"Hipster," a term which is bandied about like a generic insult with all the meaning and weight of "douchebag" or "dickhead" once had a single, clearly defined, specific meaning. It meant a white person with an appreciation of Black culture so deep that they often didn't even have white friends. The exemplar of this period was jazz clarinetist / saxophonist Mezz Mezzrow who, by the 1920s, declared himself a "voluntary Negro." The term still carried a fairly specific meaning into the 50s and 60s when the racial connotations of the word were mostly lost. "Hipster" still meant someone who was... well, hip. This not only meant that they knew how to dress but they were also hip in the sense of wise or "in the know." The hipster of the 1950s and 60s generally had an interest in countercultural thought, alternative historical paradigms and no amount of ego testing through the always popular means of sex and drugs. He knew more than a thing or two about jazz, poetry, mystic traditions, and things you couldn't get at the local Woolworths. Of course by the 1970s the term was as much of a joke as the culture that spawned it. The dream of the 60s was dead in the face of the Manson Family, Altamont and the landslide re-election of arch-reactionary Richard Nixon.

I remember first hearing the term bandied about with its present meaning about ten years ago. Its present meaning is a narrowly defined, predominantly white subculture filled to the brim with refugees from the emo scene trying desperately to figure out what Rolling Stone will be writing about in five years so they can bitch about how everything they love is becoming mainstream. In one sense it is the logical conclusion of the counterculture. The revolutionaries of the 60s got married, had kids and now talk about teenage rebellion in the context that they have created- the semi-necessary individuation period gone through by adolescents and young adults. But nothing to get terribly bothered about or take too seriously. And in a sense they are correct as most mammal species undergo a similar period. However, I'm going to suggest that there is something more going on here.

The contemporary hipster is a spiritual eunuch. Raised in a society of decadence, their main refuge lies in the realm of irony, whereby they are able to detach themselves from all emotional interaction with art. It seems worthwhile to point out the difference between irony and kitsch. Kitsch is the appreciation of the sublimely bad in art, that which transcends its place as a cultural artifact and becomes a sort of high folk art purely by virtue of its' own tastelessness. Lawn jockeys are an excellent example of kitsch as is Googie architecture. But the contemporary hipster is incapable even of appreciate the beauty of the base. Rather the contemporary hipster abdicates all emotional and spiritual connection by setting his sights on the gutter of middle America a frankly racist appreciation Black ghetto.

The specific examples of the modern hipster's total lack of spirit, soul, anima, psyche or whatever one chooses to term it are plentiful. They have built an entire subculture specifically revolving around not the rejection of decadent art and culture, but a celebration of it and in its worst forms. Perhaps the most damning accusation that can be made against them is that, rather than following the pattern of young people coming of age since time immemorial and creating a new culture with its own, secret semiotic cues and the secondary benefit of horrifying squares, the contemporary hipster has instead cannibalized the past. Whether it be garage punk, classic rock or the dated sounds of indie rock, even the music and culture which the hipster ostensibly "takes seriously" (assuming that they are even capable of such aesthetic connection and analysis) comes from their parents or older siblings generation. With the odd exception (for example the harsh noise and breakcore scenes) much or all of the hipster's cultural consumption is from a bygone age. And he likely cares not at all.

Take as an example of the spiritual bankruptcy and soullessness of the contemporary hipster fascination with religious (particularly Catholic) art. The paintings and prints are stripped of all meaning and context, instead becoming the punchline to a non-existent joke. Indeed, much of the furnishings around the contemporary hipster's dorm room exist merely as visual cues of meaninglessness, as funny and intelligent as the green monkey befouling David Brent's work place in The Office. Or perhaps the more current fascination with the worst of pop rap radio. Rather than connecting with an existing, vibrant culture like hip-hop the contemporary hipster chooses instead to ironically enjoy a racist and misogynist lampoon of that culture, often coming with the explanation (common among hipsters as an explanation for their taste in anti-culture) "it's so BAD... I love it!"

The hipsters' attempting at appropriating blue collar culture speak volumes about their massive insecurities. Trucker hats, once ubiquitous and now a tired cliche verboten for any self-respecting hipster worth their Mogwai bootlegs, serve as an emblem for the culture that even my grandmother could process. Your average hipster has, of course, likely never actually created anything grander than a cup of coffee with his bare hands and feeling that emptiness deep inside themselves offset it by turning the legitimate and authentic culture of hard working people into a joke, an ironic statement meaning absolutely nothing. See also the fascination with Bukowski, one of the few working class poets to emerge in the 20th century and easy enough to alphabetize between Ballard and Burroughs on one's MySpace page.

"By their fruits you will know them." Spend ten minutes talking to a hipster if you can stand it. Count the number of ironic references to subjects that only a depraved person would take any pleasure in. Their politics, if extant, are largely a mish-mash of misunderstood Chomsky, Marxist sound bite sloganeering, and no small sense of entitlement. They know of no avant-garde art or culture, because such phenomenon are truly difficult to obtain and even to understand.

The modern hipster is so depraved that meaningful connection with culture and society is an absurdity, a non-sequitor. Seeing a world filled with the so-called "art" of the mob, debased and decadent culture so completely corrupt that it believes its own pretenses at aesthetic validity, the hipster eschews the hard work of finding or creating an alternative, opting instead for ironic detachment. Indeed, ideas of "culture" and "society" are so much nonsense to them, armed only with a simplistic misunderstanding of critical theory, postmodernism and deconstructionism. They exist in a world entirely devoid of any meaning or value. They are soulless, ball-less and deserve little more than your contempt or a good stiff kick in the teeth. I eagerly look forward to seeing the fruits of several years of capriciousness, callousness and cocaine abuse on my generation whose bourgeois excess and academic flights of fancy exceed anything thought possible by the baby boomers at the depths of their depravity.