And then there are people like steampunk fans, who are looked down by S-F nerds (dude, if you haven't even read The Difference Engine what are you even doing calling yourself steampunk-- and where's the -punk in gluing cogs to your top hat anyway) and goths (we were doing the neo-Victorian look before you were even born, you little git) alike.

Steampunk fans: the hipsters of  nerddom.

It would appear that the most hipster response to this video would be, 

"I love hipsters."

I think the key defining principle of hipsterdom is that it is a performance. What does it mean to enjoy something ironically? It means that you don't REALLY enjoy it, you just want others to think you like it. This is because the core principal that unites all hipsters is the desire to be "unlableable" and enjoy counterculture, contrarian things solely because they are labeled as unpopular (because of course, trying to look popular is bad). Here is a simple nerd/hipster litmus test: it is physically impossible to be a "closet" hipster. 

If you can enjoy certain music/tv shows/whatever when you are at home alone in your room on a Tuesday night, even if nobody else knows you are enjoying it, you are a nerd. 

If your enjoyment of something is entirely predicated on performing it for others, you might be a hipster.

 Love Mike Rugnetta's/PBSIdeachannel's videos. This is a good one. Interesting, thanks for posting! Also, I love SocImages. :)

I think it's also important to point out how this aspect of the hipster subculture is analogous to the genre blending/appropriating popular in art, music, theater, and dance AND how all of this sprouts from our globalized Internet culture where all identity is performance and disembodied.  

The fact that nerds feel confident enough to express pride in their nerdom means our bully sub culture has become completely incompetent.  Damn it jocks, put down the iphone and start punching some nerds in their stupid neck beards.  

Sort of touched on, but the point really needs to be hammered in that nreddom is just as much a performance as hipsterdom. liking anime doesn't make you a cosplayer, liking a game or a character doesn't make you memorize every singel work they're in, being a lesbian doesn't make dress according to that subculture, etc. These are all things we do in order to fit in, and the idea that they're in any way inherent to nerd culture is what breeds the obsession the authenticity and the crappy way that they treat everyone who don't have all the imagined attributes. 

But in speaking of any group as a "they," we decide that they are other and not worthy of respect.  Do you discriminate against handlebar-moustache-wearers?  Does it really have cultural significance that you can fault modern wearers for appropriation?  Are fashion statements comparable to cultural identities?  I really enjoyed watching this video, but I feel like your commentary on it is an attempt at justifying your hatred of hipsters.  

Easy, nerds/geeks do something because they enjoy it, hipster do it to impress other people.

The term "hipster" was originally used in the 40s and 50s to describe young white Americans who emulated black American culture. The term has since been appropriated by young white Americans who flaunt their entitlement by spending large sums of money on articles of clothing that have been marked up 500%. If today's hipster is the member of a subculture, then every unwitting consumer is also a member of a subculture, which is an absurd conclusion: the consumer is unfazed by pathos, ethos and logos (there isn't a hint of culture in her). In summary, the hipster is the byproduct of a postmodern and nihilistic dominant culture. She's a glorified consumer.

I've yet to understand what's so awful about cultural appropriation, or why we desperately pine for "authenticity" (which might as well be psychological conservatism - you can pretend to act like us if you do so in exactly the right state of mind, otherwise you are ruining us!  No changing your relationship to the symbols!).  Maybe being a person of mixed race has blinded me to the ills of mixing cultures.

I think what many people fail to remember here is that 'hipster' is a descriptive term few people would use about themselves. It's a label given to you. You do certainly not have to like PBR or wear glasses or buy expensive clothes to be called a hipster: listening to postrock and being mildly interested in art while wearing something other than sweatshirts in Wisconsin is plenty hipster for some. When I moved here from Europe, I brought with me my clothes and interests for which I had never before been mocked, and all of a sudden I was a poser? The term hipster is used differently based on geography and the relative exposure to certain kinds of traditions in the area. I think that should be kept in mind. 

I find hipster hatred totally baffling, but I guess I have never met the kind of "hipster" that everyone seems to hate. I am a plain old nerd (a sociology professor and a mom in my mid-30s), but I used to play in indie rock bands and my husband is an artist. So most of the people I spend time with wear big glasses and thrift store sweaters, brew beer, make pickles, knit things, ride bikes, have funny facial hair, collect records, read comic books, talk about obscure movies, etc. Maybe we each cultivated these tastes at some point, a long time ago, when we were young people, worrying about how to seem cool or make friends or even just to find stuff that we don't suck at. But I don't think there's anything "inauthentic" about it. It wasn't inauthentic when I started listening to Bikini Kill when I was 16, even though I was consciously emulating people I admired. I was genuinely searching for a subculture that felt right to me. Maybe people who seem inauthentic today are just still figuring out who they are and what they like. What's wrong with that?

I do hate advertising featuring "hipsters" because it is always such a poor representation of the real, creative, interesting, passionate, socially conscious, complicated people I know. I wonder how much the hipster hatred is really just directed at shallow representations of hipsters in ads and bad tv shows.

I don't hipsters exist in real life. It's a pejorative used against people perceived by others be a certain way (fake) because they look a certain way or like certain things.

As interesting as this video is, I've always thought of "hipsterhood" as an attitude more than anything else. I can attest to being severely annoyed by hipsters and it is not because they may like funky, thick rimmed glasses and weird, obscure things (the steriotypical view of a hipster); I like those things too! My annoyance stems from the smug attitudes about what they like and the venom directed at people who may be more into the mainstream. 

I dated the biggest hipster for a long time and his go to line was "yeah, I like (insert random unheard of band here). You've never heard of them? Well you just don't know anything about music." or "You don't like them because your music taste sucks/they're too deep for you to understand/you can't appreciate their complexity."

So, by definition, a hipster is not just a guy or girl who likes a lot of different obscure things from different sub cultures. You can do that and not be a hipster. You are a hipster when you combine that part of the definition with a belittling attitude of others' interests/understanding/interests. That being said, a geek could definitely be a hipster!

 Let's say a geek were really into Tetris and Ms. Pac Man because "their simplicity, obscurity, and age make them more respectable than other games." Let's say this geek acted like a regular ol' geek collecting tetris and Ms. Pac Man memorabilia, keeping the games readily available at their house, dressing up like Ms. Pac man at the next major convention...People might not automatically view this person as a hipster just because his likes are a little off beat. That alone is not enough to exile him to hipsterdom. Other geeks would view them as a hipster because of his statement that the games' obscurity somehow makes them more respectable. This is doubly true if the same geek then belittles other game lovers for finding enjoyment in Halo...or Farmville...

Okay, well, I have said my very long winded piece that I'm sure is not going to get read anyway. This is an old blog post. ^^'

The reason no one identifies as a "hipster" is such a thing doesn't exist. The way they are invariably defined by nerd-identified people like the guy in the video is as people who didn't "earn" their tastes or don't "authentically" like them. I live in Brooklyn, go to SXSW every year, have a ton of tattoos, and collect vinyl and have never, ever met this person who doesn't have authentic tastes. They don't pickle organic beets because they think they're scoring irony points. They like pickled beets. The alt country revival, while not really my thing, is something I've been privy to a lot because I go to a lot of shows and you end up encountering it. I can assure you, they sincerely love this music. It's no more inauthentic than the folk revival of the 60s and 70s. In fact, it's the exact same thing. Bob Dylan changed his name and affected an accent; I don't see any so-called hipsters doing anything that extreme. (By the way, Mumford & Sons had a #1 record. They are mainstream, not "hipster".)

It's interesting that if a nerd wears a Star Wars costume, that's considered just an authentic expression of his taste being channeled into having fun. But if "hipsters" wear goofy clothes for fun, they're Bad People. 

I suspect the reason people just go on and on about hipsters and their supposed evil without ever asking any hipsters what they think is because it might burst the bubble. It might turn out that they're just having fun or really do think X, Y, or Z is cool, and not "ironically". And that, in turn, would make it harder to pre-emptively hate people that make you feel anxious because you believe they think they're cooler than you and are laughing at you. But I think adult nerds worry too much about this problem. They fail to understand that a lot of so-called hipsters were themselves nerds in high school and that their obsessiveness and goofiness found a different path in adulthood. This isn't high school. People aren't laughing at you for reading comic books and liking Doctor Who. I think it's time to stop overcompensating for that by getting a bug up your ass every time you see someone wearing clunky glasses while simulataneously wearing clothes that fit well.

This is so pretentious!