The 21st-century hipster

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iPhone alone does not make one a hipster, nor does sporting an ironic moustache. The ... Borovic (n.d.) calls this the 'bureaucracy of the hipster'. .... Thompson (2010) refer to record labels such as Sub Pop, Barsuk and Merge, and niche.
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ECS0010.1177/1367549415597920European Journal of Cultural StudiesMaly and Varis

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The 21st-century hipster: On micro-populations in times of superdiversity

European Journal of Cultural Studies 1­–17 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1367549415597920 ecs.sagepub.com

Ico Maly and Piia Varis

Tilburg University, The Netherlands

Abstract Through a critical review of existing literature on hipsters, and an analysis of online data, this article provides a description of ‘hipster culture’. To this end, we examine the reoccurring markers of hipster identity and, crucially, the accompanying identity discourses on hipsters. As a result, a picture of hipster culture emerges as a translocal and layered phenomenon with contextually specific claims to authenticity, and certain material infrastructures and effects emerge with the culture. Finally, we will propose the concept of ‘micro-population’ as a tool for making sense not only of hipsters, but identity in general in times of superdiversity.

Keywords Authenticity, commodification, hipsters, identity, micro-population, superdiversity

Introduction ‘The hipster’ is a concept that has become part of everyday parlance around the world, and has also attracted academic attention (see Arsel and Thompson, 2010; Bogovic, n.d.; Greif et al., 2010; Ouellette, 2013; Reeve, 2013; Stahl, 2010a; Stahl, 2010b). While the hipster phenomenon has indeed become a subject of academic research, the notion ‘hipster’ itself is rarely clearly defined – it seems to be used as if its meaning was universally fixed and transparent, while in reality its meaning is opaque and fluid. In this article, we draw on the existing (academic) literature and our own ethnographic research on hipsters and identity in superdiversity (Maly and Varis, forthcoming) to try to solve the 21stcentury ‘hipster dilemma’, and arrive at a workable definition of ‘hipster’. Corresponding author: Piia Varis, Department of Culture Studies, Tilburg University, PO Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands. Email: [email protected]

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Let us start by outlining what we mean by the ‘hipster dilemma’. First of all, while it may seem that the ‘hipster’ and ‘hipster subculture’ are purely globalised and monocultural phenomena, the reality is more complex, and the realisations of ‘hipsterism’ multi-layered and polycentric: what is labelled as ‘hipster’ differs contextually depending on who uses the concept and in which part of the world. Second, few seem to be willing to self-identify with the hipster label which, moreover, is not only a positive label, but in certain contexts is clearly being used derogatively. Indeed, the rejection of the label ‘hipster’ as a category of self-identification seems to be part and parcel of the hipster identity discourse. It seems, then, that in order to use ‘hipster’ as a descriptive term, we should first try to come to grips with the elusive concept ‘hipster’ itself (cf. Greif et al., 2010). Thus, in this article, we circumscribe ‘hipster culture’. To this end, we collect and analyse the reoccurring markers of hipster identity and, crucially, the accompanying identity discourses on the ‘hipster’. Throughout the article, we will critically engage with the existing body of research on the 21st-century hipster, and present an ethnographic (e.g. Blommaert and Dong, 2010) analysis of online material on hipsters. Theoretically, we will attend to the ‘hipster identity’ by applying the notion of ‘enoughness’ (Blommaert and Varis, 2013, 2015). Finally, we will propose the concept of ‘micro-population’ as a tool for making sense not only of hipsters, but identity in general in times of superdiversity (e.g. Vertovec, 2007).

Globalised indexes of the hipster In the TimeSpace1 (Blommaert, 2010) of the modernist America of the 1950s and the 1960s, ‘hipster culture’ was a counterculture of avant-garde values and a style that explicitly distinguished itself from the dominant mainstream (white) culture. This took shape in the context of the post-WWII period, characterised by capitalist Fordism with its consumerism, colonialism and imperialism. It was a time of mass production, but also of rising standards of living for the American middle class. Parallel to this emerged the multicultural society and especially the flowering of Black subculture, and jazz in particular (Arsel and Thompson, 2010; Greif, 2010a; Mailer, 1957; Reeve, 2013). As a reaction to the mass-produced and heavily mediatised mainstream culture, some white middle-class people (mostly with more cultural than economic capital) in cities such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco turned towards the articulation of the self in terms of non-conformity to mainstream culture (Greif, 2010a, 2010b; Mailer, 1957). For them, jazz and Black culture in general became a vantage point for identity construction, and they not only adopted jazz music, but also the ‘cool’ Black language became one of their identity indexicals.2 Words such as ‘dig’, ‘hip’, ‘square’, ‘funky’, ‘cool’ and ‘beat’ were introduced and appeared for instance in the covers and titles of the jazz record label Blue Note. In the 21st century, the hipster reappears in a very different timeframe: In the neoliberal phase of globalisation, an era characterised by niched mass production, a logic of consumption and commodification in self-making, and a globalised market catering not only for the elites, but also for the ‘common people’. This is also a period deeply shaped by globalised niche channels within mainstream media such as ‘localised’ MTV, and globalised media technologies such as email, Facebook and YouTube. Together with

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more complex mobilities and migration patterns (e.g. Vertovec, 2007), these evolutions have contributed to the emergence of superdiversity. It is within this context that we should understand present-day hipster culture: the 21st-century hipster does not exist independently of its socio-economic and political context. In our effort to delineate present-day hipster identity markers, we start our analysis online. The Internet, as something that has been seen as intrinsically intertwined with the rise of the hipster (Clayton, 2010), indeed proves to be fertile research ground on hipsters. Some of the pages and blogs on hipsters (self-)define the hipster as hip, while many others make fun of the hipster style or culture, or are even explicitly anti-hipster.3 Interestingly, though, both the approaches seem to point to roughly the same indexes for the hipster. Let us start by looking at the definition provided by the Urban Dictionary:4 Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20’s and 30’s that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indierock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter. The greatest concentrations of hipsters can be found living in the Williamsburg, Wicker Park, and Mission District neighborhoods of major cosmopolitan centers such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco respectively.

This seems like a fairly straightforward definition of hipster culture as a progressive counterculture with indie music and art as its cultural expression of choice, manifesting itself in urban and cosmopolitan centres in America. In this definition, hipsterism is indeed an American phenomenon, based on an ideology distancing itself from mainstream culture. In the Urban Dictionary definition, this becomes visible in the hipster style: Hipsters reject the culturally-ignorant attitudes of mainstream consumers, and are often seen wearing vintage and thrift store inspired fashions, tight-fitting jeans, old-school sneakers, and sometimes thick rimmed glasses. Both hipster men and women sport similar androgynous hair styles that include combinations of messy shag cuts and asymmetric side-swept bangs. Such styles are often associated with the work of creative stylists at urban salons, and are usually too ‘edgy’ for the culturally-sheltered mainstream consumer.

Here, the hipster is presented as a homogeneous American subculture with a clear ideology manifesting itself in a hipster identity and style. Hipsters, then, are progressive, alternative and reject commercialism. They are also associated with biking as the preferred mode of transport, biological food and a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle (Borovic, n.d.). A ‘culturally sensitive’ consumer attitude thus seems to be characteristic of hipsters: they are consumers with a conscience. However, the problem with such a definition already becomes clear in the quotation above. According to the Urban Dictionary definition, hipsters not only wear vintage or real thrift store clothes, but they also wear ‘thrift store inspired’ fashion. Thus, the distinction between ‘real hipsters’ and ‘mainstream consumers’ (or ‘fake hipsters’) does not hold for too long. However, many observers, both inside and outside academia (Arsel and Thompson, 2010; Greif, 2010a; Kozak, 2013), seem to take as their starting point the idea that originally there was something like a pure (read ‘uncommodified’) hipster culture which has later become a victim of multinational companies selling the hipster style. The Urban Dictionary makes no exception here:

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European Journal of Cultural Studies  For example, the surge of jeans made to look old and worn (i.e. ‘distressed’), that have become prevalent at stores such as The Gap, American Eagle, Abercombie and Fitch, and Hollister, were originally paraded by hipsters who shopped in thrift stores years before such clothing items were mass produced and sold to the mainstream consumer.

While the Urban Dictionary hints at the idea that there are ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ hipsters and ‘fake’ and ‘mainstream’ ones, the reality is of course much more complex than that. The Urban Dictionary ignores the fact that most people who are seen as hipsters by outsiders in fact reject the label as a category for self-identification (Borovic, n.d.; Greif, 2010a, 2010c; Lorentzen, 2010) as part of their ‘real’ and authentic hipster identity. We shall return to this point below. In the quotation above, the distinction between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ is made through a chronological distinction: ‘real hipsters’ do things ‘years before’ they become mainstream. In practice, we also see that commodification and consumption is intrinsically connected to being a hipster (Borovic, n.d.; Clayton, 2010; Greif, 2010a). Hipster fashion is one of the major markers of hipsterism, with an enormous emphasis on style, fashion and a particular ethic of consumption. These three elements are of course interconnected, and become visible in a certain recognisable style. In the WikiHow website,5 for example, hipsterism is categorised under Youth » Personality Types and Youth Style » Urban Styles. The site offers a 36-step guide on becoming a hipster, with all the widely known hipster indexes included: skinny jeans, cutting-edge hairstyles, big glasses, vintage clothes, vinyl records, barista coffee and beanie and trucker hats. These are also the ‘truly global’ hipster elements, that is, the most recognisable ones on a global scale. There are also certain elements – vintage clothes, skinny jeans, an ironic moustache and big glasses – that seem to make one a hipster instantly (see Figure 1). In Figure 2, we see another set of hipster indexicals in comparison with two other subcultural identities, the hippie and the scenester. Several of the hipster indexes listed again are recognisable on a global scale: iPhone, skinny jeans, the beanie hat and big glasses. Here we see a whole ensemble of hipster indexicals, and can conclude that certain identity markers – such as carrying an iPhone and wearing skinny jeans, big sunglasses and an ironic moustache – bundled together makes a hipster. However, carrying an iPhone alone does not make one a hipster, nor does sporting an ironic moustache. The question is, then, what would be enough in terms of (accessorised) identity work in order for somebody to be recognisable as a hipster? We see identity work as discursive orientations towards sets of features that are seen (or can be seen) as emblematic of particular identities (Blommaert and Varis, 2013, 2015). These features can be manifold and include a variety of semiotic means (artefacts, forms of language, etc.), and these appear as constellations – specific arrangements or configurations of such emblematic features. The features are rarely organised at random; when they appear, they are presented and oriented towards as ‘essential’ combinations of emblematic features that reflect, bestow and emphasise one’s ‘authenticity’ as a specific kind of person. Identity is a matter of ‘enoughness’: one has to have, display and enact ‘enough’ of the emblematic features in order to be ratified as an authentic member of an identity category. This means that mobilising an identity discourse about oneself can be

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Figure 1.  The hipster kit (Wartena, 2013).

Figure 2.  Characteristics of the scenester, hipster and hippie. Madatoms blog, http://madatoms.com/site/blog/scenester-hipster-hippie/ (accessed 12 May 2015).

a matter of attending to the most infinitesimally small details – sometimes even only observable to those ‘in the know’ – and a very small number of recognisable items, such as a piece of clothing (Blommaert and Varis, 2013, 2015).

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Figure 3.  Hipster Jesus. ‘The 12 Greatest Jesus Memes of All Time’, http://www. ranker.com/list/the-12-greatest-jesus-memes-of-all-time/briangilmore (accessed 12 May 2015).

The big glasses are an example of such ‘nano-politics’ of details: they seem to be enough for someone to be identified as a hipster. In Figure 3 and 4, we see instances of memetic imagery circulating online, with Jesus (Figure 3) and Karl Marx (Figure 4) becoming hipsters thanks to the glasses they are wearing indexing hipsterness.6 Visual hipster markers such as the glasses are in most cases accompanied with a discourse of fashion and ‘coolness’. Reeve (2013) therefore sees the hipster not so much as a radical political revolutionary, but as a postmodern dandy, for whom ‘the style is all that matters’ (p. 4). In stylising the hipster, details are thus of outmost importance (Barthes, 1957, 2013; Blommaert and Varis, 2013, 2015).

The hipster as a translocal phenomenon The fact that hipsters and (certain) hipster indexicals have global purchase should not be mistaken to mean that hipster culture is a homogeneous globalised subculture. As mentioned above, some indexicals have become truly global, yet others work only on more local levels (cf. Leppänen et al., 2009; Varis and Wang, 2011). Thus, we need a polycentric vision (Blommaert, 2005, 2010) to see the hipster culture as layered and orienting towards a number of centres of normativity. Indeed, if we return to Figure 2, we see that some of the hipster indexicals mentioned there only work on a more local level: Taco Trucks does not exist in Europe, for instance, and thus does not work as an identity indexical for European hipsters. As Clayton (2010) rightly points out, ‘hipsters do look different depending on where you are’ (p. 28). Hipster culture is thus best seen as a translocal and layered phenomenon. Clayton (2010) sees the Internet as one of the primary instruments in the globalisation of the hipster culture. His hypothesis is that ‘[T]he emergence of each global city’s hipster can probably be correlated to internet penetration there – the Limeno hipster [in Peru] is

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Figure 4.  Hipster Marx. Memegen website, http://www.memegen.com/meme/ d6fa1v (accessed 12 May 2015).

new, because internet remains slow and expensive there’ (p. 27). Reynolds (2005), on the other hand, points to cultural producers and pop culture critics to account for the globalised aspects of hipster culture. According to Reynolds, these influential voices have defined hipster culture by labelling indie brands and consumption domains. This labelling has not been limited to niche media, but has also been done through mainstream media. Thus, the truly global elements of hipster culture are circulated by large infrastructures. Borovic (n.d.) calls this the ‘bureaucracy of the hipster’. Apart from the media and the Internet, we can think of record labels such as Sub Pop and niche media such as Spin, The Face and Vice as part of this infrastructure, without forgetting fashion brands such as A.P.G., Obey, Urban Outfitters and American Apparel which circulate images and discourses on a global scale. Indeed, from online resources, ‘how to’ pages, sarcastic cartoons and anti-hipster pages to scholarly work, a limited number of clothing brands (e.g. American Apparel and Urban Outfitters) keep appearing as ‘real’ hipster brands, all with their elaborate identity discourses.

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However, this is only one ‘infrastructure’ for constructing hipsterism; we have already gestured towards the polycentricity of the phenomenon that is the hipster. In the case of Belgium, for instance, if we examine the way in which hipsters are being typecast in mainstream media such as the newspapers De Standaard and De Morgen, we see many commonalities with the descriptions we find on American webpages, or in research on hipsters elsewhere in the world. Big glasses and skinny jeans are also recognisable hipster indexicals in Belgium. However, we do not find references to vintage sneakers – in fact, wearing Nike sneakers seems to be enough to qualify as a hipster. Furthermore, while in North America hipsters are associated with the indie scene (Arsel and Thompson, 2010; Stahl, 2010a), in Belgium there seems to be more room for variation: the hipster taste of music is defined by ‘finesse’ (De Morgen, 2014), ‘obscurity’ and ‘not mainstream’ (De Standaard, 2011). Hip hop can also be an option, as long as it is not Kanye West. Beyoncé and 1990s r&b are also hipster cool (De Morgen, 2014). The internationally known discotheque Culture Club in Ghent, Belgium – in its heyday an infrastructure for hipness – played not only hip hop, r&b and old-school funk and soul, but was also known for mash-ups of alternative rock, Prince and beats by locally grown stars such as the Fucking Dewaele Brothers and The Glimmers (Maly and Varis, forthcoming). Thus, hipsters in Ghent are not exactly the same as hipsters in Toronto or New York. There are several centres of normative orientation within hipster culture, producing different indexicals and identity discourses. These centres produce different orders of indexicality (Blommaert, 2005, 2010), some of which operate on a global scale, others only on local ones. Hipster culture can thus be best understood as a layered translocal and polycentric phenomenon that rests on a complex network of infrastructures. Very local styles, tastes and attitudes can become fully integrated into and dominant in a global hipster culture and vice versa. Clayton (2010) gives the example of cumbia music within the Peruvian hipster scene where the local hipsters, middle-class Peruvian kids who had always looked down on cumbia music, were suddenly throwing parties and dancing to it. This was the result of the release of a complication called Roots of Chicha: Psychadelic Cumbias from Peru which, issued by a French-run Brooklyn record label Barbés, made ‘cool’ something that was originally seen as ‘uncool’ by the Peruvian hipsters. This illustrates the dialectic between the local and the global, where local cultural phenomena can be recontextualised and globalised (and hence made ‘cool’).

Hipster identity discourse: distinction and authenticity We have established so far that the hipster culture is a layered and polycentric translocal culture. Some of its identity markers are truly global, others very local; some very hard to acquire and establish, others relatively cheap (such as buying one’s identity at American Apparel). What is absolutely crucial – and global – in defining a hipster is the claim to authenticity, uniqueness and individuality. Being a true hipster is about ‘being real’, and not ‘trying too hard’. ‘Being real’, however, demands identity work, and being a hipster comes with very strong and reoccurring identity discourses that all focus on authenticity, yet paradoxically form the basis of a very collective style. This is the hipster paradox, which Cowen (2006) summarises as follows: ‘by unspoken but practiced degree, hipsters must all be individual, different, or else membership may be revoked’ (p. 22).

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Distinction is an essential ingredient in the hipster subculture, linked to extensive discourses on what is ‘real’ and authentic. It is no coincidence that several authors (Arsel and Thompson, 2010; Greif, 2010b, 2010c; Stahl, 2010a) have referred to Bourdieu’s (1984) concept of distinction to make sense of hipster culture – distinction and claims to authenticity (and not being ‘like everybody else’) lie at the core of the hipster culture. It should then also come as no surprise that ‘how to’ manuals to hipsterdom are heavily criticised by people who see themselves as ‘real hipsters’ or ‘authentic individuals’ – being a real hipster entails not only wearing the right clothes, but also being really engaged in the hipster ideology. Thus, the complaints from ‘real hipsters’ about their subculture being integrated in or hijacked by mainstream fashion. Online, we can find plenty of such authenticity discourse. One example can be read on the website of UVU Review, a student website of the Utah Valley University. Under the title ‘Hipster before it was cool’, Joshua Wartena (2013) presents a self-reflective piece on what it means to be a hipster, self-identifying with the Urban Dictionary definition we discussed above: I guess I could call myself a hipster. I wear clothes from thrift stores, listen to independent bands, shop at health food stores and read ‘artsy’ books. I don’t watch TV or associate myself with mainstream American culture, but am I really a hipster? I just do things that make me a happier and better person. I don’t reject mainstream attitudes or wear mismatched clothing because it’s fashionable; I do those things because that’s a reflection of how I view the world and who I am. (Wartena, 2013: n.p.)

He defines himself (although rather hesitantly) as a hipster in the sense that the Urban Dictionary defines them, but also clearly distinguishes himself from ‘hipster fashionistas’ – they are not ‘real’ or ‘authentic’, but only employ hipster indexicals because they are in fashion. The writer here sees himself as ‘real’, as he wore these indexicals long before they were cool. He is thus not a hipster because he is fashionable, but because he ideologically defines himself as one. This can be characterised as the classic hipster discourse, centring around authentic individuality. Timing is of crucial importance in the hipster authenticity claim, as is evident also from the title mentioned above, that is, ‘hipster before it was cool’ (recall also Figure 4). Thus, wearing old Ray-Ban Wayfarers that used to belong to one’s parents works in claiming hipster authenticity, because they are from long before the company started re-selling them in ‘hip new colours’. Importantly, processes of distinction work in several and complex ways. For outside (mainstream) observers, hipsters may seem like a homogeneous subculture, seen through the lenses of mainstream media and the identity discourses of multinational ‘hipster shops’. Communities whose members are labelled as hipsters reject the characterisation because of the stereotypical caricature that comes with the label; indeed, the rejection of ‘hipster’ as an identity category for self-identification seems to be an essential ingredient in the production of ‘real’ hipsters. The hipster, it seems – as Greif (2010c) also found – is always someone else: ‘No one, it seemed, thought of himself [sic] as a hipster, and when someone called you a hipster, the term was an insult’ (n.p.). The first group that was defined by others as hipsters was ‘the liberal arts college grads with too much time on their hands’. The next group to receive the derogatory hipster label was the trust-fund

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hipsters: people with economic capital, but no (or not the ‘right’ kind of) cultural capital who acquired the subcultural style by buying it from the stores. Both these groups look down on the couch-surfing, old-clothes-wearing hipsters. The latter is the youngest, and also socially the most precarious group with plenty of cultural capital, but little chance of economic mobility; as Greif (2010c) puts it, ‘Only on the basis of their cool clothes can they be “superior”: hipster knowledge compensates for economic immobility’ (n.p.). While a more elaborate discussion on the classed dimension of the hipster phenomenon is beyond the scope of our article, it is worth mentioning that, as will also appear further below in relation to hipsters and urban gentrification processes, social class clearly seems to play a role in the hipster (self-)definition. We can thus distinguish social groups that dress like hipsters, share an identity discourse based on authenticity, and frequent hipster places. They distance themselves from another group of people they call hipsters: a ‘real’ hipster is someone who rejects being part of a social group, and thus also rejects the hipster label which is reserved for people who desperately want to be ‘hip’ and are thus not ‘real’ or authentic. Nor are they true innovators or trendsetters, which the individualistic, authentic hipsters are. Thus, possessing the ‘right’ identity indexicals is not enough for somebody to be a hipster – these have to be accompanied by an identity discourse in which the indexicals are presented as part of one’s ‘real self’. A ‘real’ hipster does not wear hipster identity markers because he or she wants to be a hipster; rather, one wears them because ‘that is how one is’. ‘Being real’ thus means having a discourse regarding the authenticity of one’s choices. It is, however, essential to keep in mind that (1) what is seen as authentic and ‘real’ in one context is not necessarily so in another, and (2) the more globalised the hipster indexicals become, the more elaborate identity discourse is needed to be able to employ them as authentic, individual choice. The Utah student we quoted above articulates this as follows: The term [hipster] is no longer a description of someone who values independent, forward thinking, art and pushing social limits to find where they are comfortable. Being ‘hipster’ has boiled down to merely a description of what you wear and your attitude. This is just a fashion movement; you don’t really have to understand it. (Wartena, 2013: n.p.)

Arsel and Thompson (2010) encountered similar discourses in their research. According to them, the commodification of the hipster culture has transformed a cultural icon into a cultural caricature. This proposition rests on the idea that there first was a ‘pure’ and ‘really authentic’, and thus ‘countercultural’, hipster scene and identity. The commodification of the scene then equals integration in the mainstream, thus posing a threat to the ‘once pure countercultural’ identity of the ‘real’ hipster. The problem with this thesis is, however, that hipsters have always been defined by a specific ethos of consumption. They are not anti-consumption, but constitute a specific niche consumption market; the rise of the hipster culture in fact seems to have gone hand in hand with the rise of a specific economic infrastructure. Again, this is not an entirely new insight (see Arsel and Thompson, 2010; Cowen, 2006; Stahl, 2010b). In describing this, Arsel and Thompson (2010) refer to record labels such as Sub Pop, Barsuk and Merge, and niche lifestyle media such as Arthur, Vice, Bust and Spin, as producers of ‘authentic’ hipster identity discourses. The problem with their description is that they seem to categorise

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these brands a priori as countercultural, that is, not mainstream, while failing to notice that these producers of hipster identity discourse are part of the neoliberal economy. It is thus difficult to see them as antitheses of neoliberalism constituted by precisely such globalised mass-produced niche economies, selling mythologies in the sense of Barthes (1957). What Arsel and Thompson (2010) see as a clear distinction between ‘real’ hipsters and ‘fake’ or ‘commodified’ hipsters is in fact not a real distinction, but a difference in scale – ‘countercultural’ brands are not anti-hegemonic, but part of neoliberal economy and thus part of the mainstream. They sell counterculture, or ‘commodified rebellion’ to quote Bogovic (n.d.), but they are not functioning as a rebellious, revolutionary infrastructure. The commodification of hipster culture, or the integration of hipster style and values into the marketing strategies of major brands such as American Apparel and Urban Outfitters, is a phase in the growth of a subculture. Once the hipster population became big enough, the ‘indie’ record labels could make exclusive contracts with clothing brands in order to pass on some of their ‘authenticity’. What is seen by Arsel and Thompson (2010) as a threat to the ‘real subculture’ is in fact an extension of the same logic on a larger scale, and it is this larger scale that threatens the hipster identity which relies on an authenticity discourse of ‘realness’. The more people there are who dress like you, speak like you, listen to the same music as you, love the same furniture and coffee as you, the more difficult it becomes to present yourself as ‘authentic’. This is why hipsters have all kinds of rhetorical strategies to protect their ‘true’ identity, and reject the hipster label. In so doing, they show that they know the marketplace myths, and in order to portray themselves as ‘real’, it is quintessential that they stress that the marketplace myth appeared after their individual choice. In Arsel and Thompson (2010), for instance, the thesis of ‘identity threat’ is based on interviewing people in the indie scene, all of them deeply integrated in the hipster field. Interestingly, all the people quoted in their study produce the classic hipster authenticity discourse: they all admit to caring about fashion, shopping at shops such as Urban Outfitters and buying Apple products, and they all stress that they are ‘real’. They have good excuses for buying mainstream – they buy Apple products, for instance, because of their functionality, not because of their hipness. ‘Real’ hipsters, thus, are very conscious not only of the hipster label, but also of how big brands use the hipster style authenticity discourse to sell their products. Shopping for such products requires elaborate communication work and identity discourse. A further interesting point is that the authenticity discourses are not only produced by individuals, but the multinationals also sell their products and hipster style by employing such discourses – not only has the unique style become buyable, it also has an authenticity discourse attached to it. Reeve (2013) summarises this with the sarcastic remark that The urban hipster has no need to look around to see he/she is very similar to others of the same type or style, because they have consciously purchased The Look: it’s theirs and it cannot be anyone else’s; this is what it says on the box. (p. 5)

Since authenticity is so valuable and important, it is no surprise that big brands such as Urban Outfitters and American Apparel seek the aura of authenticity by aligning themselves with indie labels such as Sub Pop. Collective and purely commercial

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behaviour will be accompanied by an authenticity discourse, or at least a discourse that explains and argues for a rationale. So can we see hipster culture as a counterculture? Is it distinguishable from mainstream culture, and is it a politicised culture? Can we link it to, for example, left-leaning political preferences or to an alternative to or an ideological battle against neoliberalism? Again the answer is quite complicated. It is clear that the hipster culture does not resist the prevailing economic structures or fight mass-produced consumption, as for instance the recent RayBan hype illustrates. Nor – while a more elaborate discussion on this is unfortunately beyond the scope of this article – does it seem to pose a challenge to prevailing ideas of gender: the objectifying and sexualised presentation of women in the advertising by American Apparel, or in the ‘Shot by Kern’ series7 on the website VBS (launched by the ‘cool’ magazine Vice) are only two blatant examples of this. All in all, hipster culture is connected to a certain ethos of consumption, and from this perspective is perfectly aligned with the neoliberal structure of the world economy where, in our post-Fordist era, mass production for all has been replaced by niched mass production catering for the (identity) needs of specific, smaller groups. This niched production does not only sell products, but a mythology in the sense of Barthes (1957), and this can also be in the form of a countercultural identity.

Hipsters in space Hipster culture thus relies on specific identity and authenticity discourses, and a specific material infrastructure for its existence: like any (sub)cultural form, the hipster culture has a material base. For Arsel and Thompson (2010), the ‘authentic’ hipster or indie field (they use ‘hipster’ and ‘indie’ interchangeably) in North America is constituted by a network of clubs, music stores, third-place hangouts, media and intersecting social networks. Greif (2010c) witnessed hipsters ‘gathered in tiny enclaves in big cities and looked down on mainstream fashions and “tourists”’ (n.p.). The existence of a translocal hipster population and the abundance of hipster identity markers of course indicate that there must be media for such identity discourses to circulate. In academic literature, constant links are being made between certain globalised niche media (e.g. Vice, Spin, Adbust) and local niche media, hipster culture and an infrastructure of hip places, especially in urban contexts, around the world. In these local contexts, the global markers of hipster culture are adjusted to the local. As Cowen (2006) states, hipsters are not only ‘different’ in their looks and love of design, they also frequent ‘different spaces’ (p. 22). They thus have material and spatial effects, and, according to Cowen, such a profound impact on cities that she speaks of ‘Hipster Urbanism’. Hipster culture, she argues, not only materialises in specific spaces in a city (in her case Toronto), but changes the city as a whole: One after the next, block after block, downtown strips are becoming so hip and so different, lined with very different bars and cafes and art spaces and restaurants and bars and cafes and art spaces and restaurants and bars and cafes … (Cowen, 2006: 22)

Thus, the hipster focus on style and ‘good living’ discourses becomes materially visual in the city, transforming it. Hipster Urbanism, according to Cowen, is closely related to a particular hipster discourse that results in gentrification.

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In Stahl (2010b), we see a similar connection between hipster culture and urban impact. Stahl refers to a small subculture of hipsters in the Mile-End neighbourhood in Montreal, organised around an indie music scene. One article in Spin magazine managed to make this scene quite visible to youngsters in North America, resulting in Mile-End becoming a hipster magnet, and consequently profound changes in the city. According to Stahl, within the context of Montreal hipsters function as an identifiable locus for anxieties regarding larger issues affecting Mile-End, such as gentrification processes; the Mile-End hipsters transformed a multicultural and cheap area into a high-end area with the necessary baristas. Stahl (2010b n.p.) summarises this as follows: The hipster becomes an uneasy but productive vehicle for mapping out spatial and social strategies of distinction, articulating a neighbourhood/neighbourly ethos, which in the subcultural marketplace that Mile-End has become means that the scene here must adhere to a preferred logic of consumption. (n.p.)

The presence of hipsters and their infrastructure is read as a garishly-clad invading force. Here, we see hipsters becoming the target of a discourse similar to that addressing ‘real’ migrants, who are often seen as a ‘problem’ coming from the outside, invading and thus changing neighbourhoods. In fact, Wessendorf (2013) comes to similar conclusions in her study of the London Borough of Hackney. This borough is a space that Vertovec (2007) would call a superdiverse neighbourhood, and is characterised according to Wessendorf (2013) by ‘commonplace diversity’, that is ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity being experienced as a normal part of social life and not as something particularly special. In this context of commonplace diversity, attitudes towards diversity are generally positive. However, positive attitudes towards diversity are accompanied by little understanding for groups who are perceived as ‘not wanting to mix’, a phrase repeatedly used by my informants. (p. 407)

One of these groups accused of ‘not wanting to mix’ are the hipsters. These young, fashionably dressed and mostly middle-class people in their twenties started moving into the area some five years ago, and have since become quite visible, both because of their style, and the infrastructure they create around them, such as new cafes and coffee houses (where the coffee costs twice as much as in ‘traditional’ cafes). In London, too, hipsters have become associated with gentrification processes. Not only does the material infrastructure change into a hipster infrastructure, but prices also go up, and the neighbourhood as such changes. The connection between gentrification processes and hipsters thus seems to be visible in many cities, as a result of the growth of material ‘hipster infrastructures’.

Hipsters as a translocal micro-population We will conclude this article by arguing that we should understand hipsters as a translocal micro-population, but let us first summarise what we have learned about hipsters so far. We have seen that being (recognised as) a hipster requires assembling and presenting ‘enough’ of the ‘right’ identity indexicals (Blommaert and Varis, 2013, 2015). Being a hipster, however, is a polycentric and layered affair, as the identity indexicals differ from

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one context to another, with some of them being recognisable in a global scale (e.g. the big glasses), while others have more local purchase (specific to a particular country, city, etc.). The indexicals also produce stratification, as distinction creates exclusion and inequality: inclusion requires the employment of the ‘right’ indexicals, but these are also ordered in the sense that the indexicals with purchase on local levels may not have similar effects on a global level. The identity indexicals themselves are not adequate, though an ‘authentic’ hipster identity requires them to be accompanied by an identity discourse distancing the ‘real’ hipster from the mainstream (and rejecting hipsterdom). An authenticity discourse based on uniqueness is indeed central to the hipster micropopulation: the recognisable style comes with a discourse of authenticity and realness. The style can be bought, but buying it does not make one a ‘real hipster’. It is the authenticity discourse that functions as an instrument of distinction; the distinctions are being made between the mainstream and hipsters, but also between ‘real’ hipsters and ‘fake’ ones. The importance of distinction culminates in the rejection of the hipster label as an essential characteristic of the ‘true hipster’: you are only real if you are being ‘yourself’. Strangely, that does not exclude shopping multinational brands – but only if you can tell the right kind of story about it, and have an authentic reason for your shopping. Hipster culture is not a counterculture, even if its members like to think that they are. Hipster culture, ‘despite their self-proclaimed progressive pedigree’ (Cowen, 2006: 22), does not question neoliberalism and the consumption-driven society as such, although they do question certain forms of consumption. As such, hipsters are an instantiation of the neoliberal ‘consumer-citizen’, following ‘the logics of commodity activism, [where] “doing good” and being a good consumer collapse into one and the same thing’ (BanetWeiser and Mukherjee, 2012: 12). Hipster culture is thus compatible with neoliberal consumer culture and niched mass production – one could even say that hipsters are the product of this economy. With this analysis of the 21st-century hipster, we wish to not only contribute to the existing body of research on the phenomenon, but also present hipsters as an instance of what we call ‘micro-populations’. In our era of superdiversity (e.g. Blommaert, 2013; Vertovec, 2007), the world has become more complex due to new kinds of migration patterns and mobilities, the influence of new communication technologies such as the Internet, as well as the neoliberal logic of consumption and commodification. Culture, as a result, is a complex translocal and polycentric affair. The hipster is a perfect instantiation of this: a translocal, polycentric, layered and stratified micro-population that is not only visible in style and (both local and translocal, and online and offline) infrastructures, but also constantly (re)produced through identity-authenticity discourses. Examining all of these, as we have attempted to show, for instance in the case of hipsters helps provide a clearer – though more complex, but thus realistic – view on identity and cultural action in today’s world, and add to existing research on superdiversity, which has tended to focus heavily on ‘traditional’ types of diversity and identity categories such as ethnicity (cf. Arnaut and Spotti, 2014). We argue that for research to be able to describe present-day cultural phenomena such as the hipster, we need to attend to all these aspects in their local and global materialisations: the identity indexicals that produce ‘authenticity’ as members of specific populations, the accompanying authenticity discourse, as well as the material (online and offline)

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infrastructures, and the consequent material effects in (e.g. urban) spaces they entail. It is only through such an analysis that present-day (translocal) cultural forms such as the hipster become understandable. Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes 1. ‘TimeSpace’ refers to the idea that, instead of a ‘separation of time and space as different aspects of social life and social phenomena’, we should see ‘Every social event develop[ing] simultaneously in space and in time’ (Blommaert, 2010: 34). 2. With indexicality, we refer to links between signs and the macro-level of socio-cultural contexts and meanings (e.g. Silverstein, 2003). 3. See, for example, http://thoughtcatalog.com/charlotte-green/2013/02/28-signs-youre-a-hipster/, http://www.quizrocket.com/hipster-quiz or http://www.quizrocket.com/hipster-quiz or https://www.facebook.com/Ihatehipsters (accessed 12 May 2015). 4. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hipster (accessed 12 May 2015). Urban Dictionary is a popular crowdsourced online dictionary, featuring definitions of contemporary cultural phenomena. As such, it is a useful source for debates on, definitions of and meanings attached to present-day cultural phenomena. 5. http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Hipster (accessed 12 May 2015). 6. There are more examples of such memes on, for example, the website Know Your Meme, which has an entry, for instance, for ‘Hipster Jesus’ (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hipster-jesus–2, accessed 12 May 2015), and also a separate entry for ‘Hipster Glasses’ (http:// knowyourmeme.com/memes/hipster-glasses, accessed 12 May 2015). 7. See, for example, http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/sex/all/05765/facts.shot_by_ kern.htm (accessed 12 May 2015).

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Author biographies Ico Maly is a Belgian cultural scientist. He is a lecturer (new media and politics) at Tilburg University (The Netherlands) and guest professor of politics and culture at the RITS, School of Arts (Brussels, Belgium). His research focuses on superdiversity, politics, cultural products and (micro) media. He is coordinator of the intercultural organisation Kif Kif and wrote N-VA | Analyse van een politieke ideologie (N-VA | Analysis of a political ideology; EPO, 2012) and De beschavingsmachine. Wij en de islam (The Civilization Machine. We and the Islam; EPO, 2009). Together with Jan Blommaert and Joachim Ben Yakoub, he wrote Superdiversiteit & Democratie (Superdiversity & Democracy; EPO, 2014). He also edited the award-winning work Cultu(u)rENpolitiek. Over media, globalisering en culturele identiteiten (Culture and Politics. On media, globalization and cultural identities; Garant, 2007). Piia Varis is assistant professor at the Department of Culture Studies and deputy director of Babylon, Centre for the Study of Superdiversity at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. She received her PhD (2009, English) at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research interests include digital culture (in particular social media, questions related to digitalisation, privacy and public/private dynamics), popular culture and globalisation.