Besides, it's always other people who die

June 29, 2009

Besides, it’s always other people who die

“The rage and self-loathing associated with hipsters has become more annoying, more naive, and more artificial than hipsters could ever hope to be. After all, in the rubble of this fury, what remains for artists and bohemians who are legitimately trying to be part of a counterculture? You get the sense that if Jimi Hendrix were to show up in Echo Park today, he’d be publicly mocked in a style section piece on blipsters for wearing a feathered fedora. Duchamp would have given up as soon as he appeared on dadaist-or-douchebag.com. And Warhol would be demonized as a hipster gentrifier for setting up his factory in a Brooklyn warehouse. Critics continue to complain that we live in an era where all art is derivative and devoid of substance. But if Hendrix, Duchamp, or Warhol were alive today, we’d be doing our damnedest to derail their self-expression, dismissing them as fucking hipsters.”

— Look at This Fucking Hipster Basher by Robert Lanham - The Morning News (via turkeydinner)

(empahsis mine)

If you have to ask about artists and bohemians legitimately trying to be part of a counterculture, then you’re missing the point. Folks like Hendrix and Warhol (well, maybe Warhol) weren’t trying to be part of something. They just were. That’s the big difference, I think, between people who are actively counterculture and those who are trying to join one. It’s night and day. If you’re looking at buying some skinny jeans, a fixie bike, and some day-glow shades from Urban Outfitters, then I’m sorry, but you’re a joiner. Might as well be big enough to own it. Say, ‘Yes, this aesthetic appeals to me and I think it’ll make me cool.’

There’s a real question of economics here, and one of class. I know a lot of people don’t want to place importance on economics and class in America (specifically, those who enjoy the spoils of the upper-most echelons of each), but we have it. Class is here. You are part of an economic strata. If you’re an artist whose parents didn’t leave you a trust fund, chances are the cheapest clothes you can find now (or a couple years ago) are the ones sloughed off by people who have finally embraced middle age. For 2009, this means people who were in their early twenties at the close of the day-glow era.

Hipsters dress like that because they emulate folks who have little choice. There is nothing inherently cool about that air-brushed wolf T-shirt. It’s cool because someone with amazing self-confidence and real swagger found one in a thrift shop and put it on and wore that shit. I would wager she wasn’t trying to be part of a counterculture by putting on a shirt. Nor was Hendrix, nor was Warhol (well, maybe Warhol). And Duchamp? Duchamp had a whole fucking philosophic movement behind him. What hipster has that?

At base, Lanham’s article is in the right spirit. But can’t we make the distinction between artists and wannabe’s? And to be perfectly honest, people did decry Duchamp, and Warhol, and Hendrix. Rather than wither under the scrutiny, the three flourished (and died, but flourished before that). If some punk kid’s going to hang up his skinny jeans under a bit of media scrutiny, then he never owned them to begin with. Not really, anway. And would we want art from that dude? No, we want art from the person who’s too busy making cool stuff to give a shit what we’re saying.

2:51pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlJiby7vA3F

(Notes: 91)