Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Breaking it Down.

So a shopping trip to Boston translated into panic trying to find 'cool' outfits to wear attack. My attempt at being stylish was pretty much useless because I wear the same thing everyday. Despite my inability, the people on the streets of Boston showed us their fair share of cool. I wish I had taken notes.

People watching was a very important part of our trip. Throughout the weekend we tried to classify the 'cool' people according to two terms 'hipster' and 'scenester'.
Now I am going to do the uncool thing and try to break down the difference between hipsters and scenesters so that you too can stereotype the fashionable people you see on the street.

Hipsters
According to Urban Dictionary Hipsters:
- Listen to bands that you have never heard of and claim to be in a band
- Have hairstyles that can only be described as "complicated" but is most likely achieved by a minimum of one week not washing it.
- Are probably tattooed.
- Maybe gay.
- Have a closet full of clothing but wear same three things which are most likely very tight black pants, scarf, and ironic tee-shirt over and over again
- Chips off nail polish artfully after $50 manicure.
- Addicted to coffee, cigarettes and possibly cocaine.
Most IMPORTANTLY:
- Hipsters are definitely cooler than you
- They
always deny being a hipster

According the Hipster Handbook Hipsters:
Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term "cool"; a Hipster would instead say "deck."
- Possess tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool.
- Walk among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream.
- Ideally possesses no more than 2% body fat


Scenesters
According to gurl.com and myself
- Consciously try to fit into a
cultural scene based around a genre of music,
art, film or other media.

- Will adopt the fashion and habits of people in the scene in an attempt to claim oneself as part of it.
- The difference between a scenester and a person who is simply in a culture is originality and sincerity.
- Seen as trendy wannabes.
-Bring underground scenes into mainstream, which then "packages" the scene and turns it into a trend, ruining it.
- Love and idolize their Myspace page
- May claim to be hipsters, but they are not.

3 comments:

caroline said...

WOW.
thanks for the definitions now maybe i will FINALLY stop mixing them up!

EvanLePage said...

I'm defs not a hipster.. but i do have that wierd hairstyle going on.. but im also not a scene kid... maybe im a hipstene... a scenester.. boh

amd said...

i believe that hipsters either are really skinny, or large still wearing the same tightness of clothing. you forgot to mention that part.