From the comments on Vice magazines article about living w/ whores.
Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote: Hey dude/lady who wrote a lot, I was loving it til you said “hence.”
Anonymous, on Nov 19, 2009 wrote: for some reasons, i fucking hate hipsters. here is a brief reason of why.
hipsters are the new yuppies. both are easily categorized commercial sub-cultures whose belief in the importance of their own “uniqueness” really indicates an overwhelming insecurity about their own lack of authenticity.
the interesting thing about both hipsters and yuppies, is that while the subject clearly feels itself to be radically different from its compatriots, to the outside observer, they all look the same. somehow all of the variety produces nothing but the impression of uniformity. the subject typically replies to this by saying that the observer simply isn’t sophisticated enough to appreciate the differences.
the hipsters have taken the conflation of products and identity to a new level, since they are a more recent state in the evolution of american lack of identity,. their commercial aesthetic has incorporated the notion of “marginalization”, and for them this somehow suffices as proof that they are operating against the culture, rather than within it. however, the commercialization of the margin is typically the only way anyone learns about it. it becomes a fetish to be purchased in some way.
for the hipster, inauthenticity is equated with “un-originality”. hence, their quest for authenticity plays out in absurd attempts to demonstrate their own originality in terms of clothing, music, taste in literature, tattoos, bones in their ears, etc. what is lost on the hipsters is that almost all of their search for authenticity takes places in a commercial landscape, or within a location which is clearly circumscribed by a commercial landscape or interest. while this may seem somewhat trite due to the fact that the western human world is essentially a commercial entity nowadays, with the phrase “existence precedes essence” being replaced by “purchasing precedes essence”, the hipsters nevertheless occupy a distinguished place in the modern mess of things.
The particular piece of bad faith on the part of the hipster is that they believe the opposite implication to be true. That is, they believe in their case that their essence determines their purchases, or lack of. Hence the absurd conflation of originality with products, and as such, the devotion to the sorting of products, both commercial and cultural (difference?), with the construction of self.
check it out:
Down The Avenue blog did a piece on freakcast.
Aleks Degtyarev & Freakcast (Psychedelic Video & More) #140conf
I really like what this guy is doing. Enter Alek (@freakcast) and his ‘live show’ gig: Freakcast. He walks me through an online video experience of something he performs live - imagine the video slicing and dicing being done in real-time. He says, think “Quantum Montage.” I love LA for this: it thrives on creativity and diving in without fear. (Check out Freakcast on YouTube)
