14 Reasons Basic Killed the Hipster
Hipsters hate being imitated, which is perhaps why the hipster is dead. Well, at least according to the first ten articles that popped up in my Google search results. The hipster was murdered when it became, as Morwenna Ferrier so gently put it, “a grossly commercial parody.” And it’s exactly the type of stereotypical thinking—hipster equals facial hair and overpriced, organic coffee—that led to this group’s demise amidst accusations of pretension and poor hygiene. Because once reduced to a checklist, the hipster became the hottest commodity to sell to the masses thronging to American Apparel and bookmarking Glamour. Starbucks goers have helped make hipster so embarrassingly cliché, it's the new normal.
1. Flannels bought at Goodwill, those are for people in need please stop?
There are 1000+ ideas about flannel outfits on Pinterest, that’s too many. Thank goodness there are another 364 websites explaining how to wear a flannel because apparently it’s baffling. One blogger even gave detailed directions on creating a “White girl costume.” Number three is a flannel, particularly a red and black one, which you will find at every J.Crew ever for counterfeit hipsters.
2. Band t-shirts sold in the millions by Forever 21
Because band T-shirts were made anti-cool by the scene kid maybe a whole decade ago, modern hipster has surpassed them. Or maybe Forever 21, which whips out Van Halen, Zeppelin, and the Ramones tees mercilessly on loop so that every time you online shop there’s 437 more, is to blame. Or maybe the culprit is every girl between ages 16 and 22 at any concert.
3. Second-hand shops—the number on Newbury Street alone is damning
How can they be part of the anitculture when Kate Middleton has tried on a $22 hat at a consignment store? Second-hand shops are part of the resale industry, a multi-billion dollar a year industry, which translates into a hipster no-no. And then Macklemore’s hit “Thrift Shop” topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013 and it was all hipster over.
4. Chokers are becoming the new flower crowns, what the fuck?
There are 1,551,140 posts on Instagram under the hashtag choker. Could this be Kim Kardashian’s fault? Who is to blame for the comeback of this wildly cute but difficult to pull off and slightly playboy-esque trend from the 90s? Popsugar.com called it the accessory of “It girls” so that probably single-handedly buried this trend for hipsters. RIP the “rock star vibe” Samantha Sutton adorably associated with the choker.
5. Tinted sunglasses—the best of which are now made by the filthy corporation Ray Bans
Another comeback story. TBT to John Lennon and Elton John. But today, this hipster look is a trim $175 on rayban.com, so that’s horrifying. While Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. may be the hipsters of Hollywood, their sporting of lightly tinted sunglasses helped push this trend into the mainstream. Also, because they littered Fashion Week shows from New York to London—shout out to the Oscar de la Renta and Louis Vuitton designs—all the cheaper imitations flooded Marshalls, malls, and basics’ beach bags everywhere.
6. Being vaguely good at photography
Pull it together, guys. Everyone knows how to use an iPhone camera. Just because there are six thousand photo editing apps doesn’t mean that your sunset pic deserves 100 likes on Instagram. It’ll get 100, but it doesn’t deserve it. You were just hot in high school, okay? Now, there are genuinely talented people who take breathtaking pics of sunsets—they exist—but your mediocre ones have already clogged up newsfeeds across the world and now everyone is like “down with sunsets, up with bikini pics.”
7. Pixie cuts, solely ruined by Emma Watson pulling it off so good
This is a tricky gender issue because most dudes find women with short hair less attractive so by chopping off your hair you are embracing an anti-culture—a culture in which women do not cater to gender norms or the male eye. But now that all these celebs proved that a pixie cut doesn’t diminish smoking hotness, this too has mainstreamed. Or at least gotten closer. Like Miley rocking short hair in the coveted number one on Maxim hot list. Queen B in 2013. Rihanna in the sexual tension riddled “If I Never See Your Face Again” music video.
8. Sideboob, which perhaps Beyonce made mainstream at the Tidal X 10/20 concert but Free People has trying to make happen for years
The upgrade of Jennifer Anniston nipping in t-shirts on any given episode of Friends. Ever since Total Frat Move gave a unanimous thumbs up to side boob, it’s been dead to hipsters. Also when ASOS created the side boob bralette (not making this up). It now belongs to underage girls at concerts who use fake IDs to pay $7 for a Bud Light.
9. Beanies: dudes in coffee shops, please stop
Do you know there are six ways for dudes to wear a beanie? That there’s a wikihow on wearing one? Google literally classifies them as “hipster beanies.” If Google has caught on, then so have grandmothers around the world. The beanie officially joined the rank of hipster clichés when 77% of voters affirmed one anonymous user’s extremely important question, “Is it normal that I like guys who wear beanies?” on the insane website isitnormal.com. Also Pinterest has another thousand plus ideas on them, hipster beanies.
10. Vampire Weekend: they even made boat shoes trendy like god bless
On Pitchfork’s Hipster Music Index, Vampire Weekends’ latest album was flirting right on the line between hipster and not hipster territory. But with their latest album Modern Vampires of the City debuting No. 1 on the Billboard charts, it seems well over the edge into brand-name recognition.
11. Weed is now the party favor of choice of frat bros across the nation
LOL @ the thought of describing weed as anticulture. Weed is in the survivor’s guide of almost every high school, college, parent’s basement, and studio apartment; even legislatures are beginning to agree. Quickmeme.com took a pic of a mean-looking, cliché-dressed hipster dude and overlaid it with the capital lettered message: “Stops smoking weed because it’s legal.” It’s been shared almost a million times.
12. Deep v necks for dudes: Jude Law, Tyson Beckford, Adam Levine, Harry Styles, I'm looking at all of you, seriously, because you’re all hot AF
Celebrity menswear Stylist Ashley Weston says a V neck shouldn’t go past the top of your armpits, so I guess hipsters go deeper? But then it got fun to show off some man cleavage and Harry Styles helped to make V’s as laughable as butterfly tattoos. Not every dude is going around rocking a deep V, but it is enough of a trend to be doomed a hipster cliché. But what remains unanswered is unabomber28’s important question on highideas.com, “Is a deep v-neck sunburn the hipster equivalent of a farmer’s tan?”
13. Acoustic covers of dirty beats and I blame Dan Henig's incredible cover of "Get Low"
While, sure, covers of Ludacris’s Bitch and Future’s Same Damn Time are delicious, VH1’s Michael Arceneaux is actually pissed about this trend and demands an end to it. His rally cry is "Hipsters must be stopped.” Well, that’s the end. Hipsters have been named. But ever since Bastille made their insanely sexy cover of “No Scrubs” (two plus million views on YouTube), it’s been too cool for hipsters.
14. The term “hipster” is now synonymous for anything organic, bearded, or bunned
The weirdly helpful YouTube video “Why All Hipsters Look the Same” explains that the trouble with the hipster achieving not only attention but also popularity is that a group of people can’t champion counterculture in the mainstream. Or, as David Infante neatly sums up in his wildly popular article “The hipster is dead, and you might not like who comes next”—“When everyone is a hipster, no one is a hipster.” Because the term “hipster” has been as mainstreamed as beards and craft beer, he argues that a new term accompanies a new generation: the Yuccies. Young Urban Creatives. But we’ll talk about that later.
Andrea Fitzgerald is a senior English major at Boston College. She's high key addicted to Marshall's, coffee, drinking games, and self-sabotage. Friends and cute boys call her Anna.