The problem with reviewing a question like this is that the definition of hipster cannot be pinned down. It's been tried and there seems to be conflict wherever you look for a definitive answer. For my sake, the term hipster reflects anyone trying incredibly too hard to show that marketing has no effect on his or her purchase decision. It's a little broad I know, considering that someone with little or no money is essentially forced to shop either at Goodwill or Wal-mart (I don't equate the two).
I'll try to paint the picture of the scene: Unkempt hair, corduroy, big-rimmed glasses, cigarettes, thrift store shoes, loud colors that don't match anything, organic food, and of course craft beer.
It felt like there was an air of pretension surrounding me and I wanted to crawl out of my skin and slap my own face. I will allow Mark Greif to explain a little:
One hipster subgroup’s strategy is to disparage others as “liberal arts college grads with too much time on their hands”; the attack is leveled at the children of the upper middle class who move to cities after college with hopes of working in the “creative professions.” These hipsters are instantly declassed, reservoired in abject internships and ignored in the urban hierarchy — but able to use college-taught skills of classification, collection and appreciation to generate a superior body of cultural “cool.”They, in turn, may malign the “trust fund hipsters.” This challenges the philistine wealthy who, possessed of money but not the nose for culture, convert real capital into “cultural capital” (Bourdieu’s most famous coinage), acquiring subculture as if it were ready-to-wear. (Think of Paris Hilton in her trucker hat.)
Both groups, meanwhile, look down on the couch-surfing, old-clothes-wearing hipsters who seem most authentic but are also often the most socially precarious — the lower-middle-class young, moving up through style, but with no backstop of parental culture or family capital. They are the bartenders and boutique clerks who wait on their well-to-do peers and wealthy tourists. Only on the basis of their cool clothes can they be “superior”: hipster knowledge compensates for economic immobility.
I don't fall into any of these categories!! What the hell was I doing there?
It took a conversation with my father to really open my eyes to the whole matter. When I thought about it, I've been spending most of my adult life in the pursuit of coin. I'm an accountant, working in the professional world but toiling away in a disappearing American middle class. I wasn't afforded the opportunity to get a liberal arts degree, don't have a trust fund, and don't have to tend bar to make a living. I never cared about fashion but I cared about appearance. To participate in "hipster" culture it seems to me you have to have money because "damning the man" is not cheap.
What does this have to do with beer? Quite a bit if you think about it. Just by embarking on this blog I open the door to the "hipster" label. Why can't I just stick with the Miller Lites I love and leave it at that? Home brewers decided they could build a better beer. And through my eyes, Jim Koch and Samuel Adams put the "microbrewery" on the map. He did it to get rich. As much as home brewers want to savor and share their beer with those who'll enjoy it, I bet they all want to get rich. I have no problem with that dream (why do you think I put ads on this blog?). But I refuse to be labeled a hipster because I drank a beer I really liked and decided to try other beers to see if I can find one better.
To defend myself, I'm in it to enjoy the beer and not to damn the man. As for the rest of the craft beer crowd, I'll let you know.
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