{"id":46,"date":"2014-07-31T05:00:43","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T05:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/?p=46"},"modified":"2014-07-31T17:26:31","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T17:26:31","slug":"bacon-beards-and-beer-feminist-reflections-on-hipster-masculinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/2014\/07\/31\/bacon-beards-and-beer-feminist-reflections-on-hipster-masculinity\/","title":{"rendered":"Bacon, Beards, and Beer: Feminist Reflections on Hipster Masculinity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you know a hipster when you see one? Have you ever been in the company of a hipster and tried to bring up the subject?<\/p>\n

Talking about hipsters in front of hipsters is more taboo than you might think. The term is rarely lobbed in the presence of those who would fit the label. Most often it is used to describe other men in a disparaging way –like calling a guy a \u201cdouchebag\u201d or a \u201cfag.\u201d At the same time, hipster has a different ring to it. It is calls the authenticity of one\u2019s masculinity into question.<\/p>\n

When I was studying a young, straight, white group of men who frequented the same bar, I regularly encountered the term. I learned quickly that if men found out they\u2019d been \u201chipster\u2019d\u201d when they weren\u2019t around, they were deeply offended. Part of hipster identity seems to be explicitly about NOT identifying as such. Hipsters have a casual form of detachment about identity and tastes\u2014a gendered nonchalance that I call \u201cpracticed indifference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sociological investigations about hipster identity\u2014like Kathleen Ross and Dayna Tortorici\u2019s What Was the Hipster? A Sociological Investigation<\/em><\/a>\u2014have primarily situated hipsters as identified by tastes. But, as Mark Greif wrote<\/a>, \u201c[S]truggles over taste\u2026 are never only <\/em>about taste.\u201d Beyond this, hipster masculinity is associated with a specific group of men: they\u2019re young, straight, and white. But they are also different from other young, straight, white guys\u2014at least they seem to want to believe they are. They have an evolving set of tastes that encompass an eclectic array of musical interests, hair styles, body types, grooming habits, clothing, literary and artistic curiosities, culinary and libation preferences, and more. As a group, hipsters have a reputation as counter-cultural, androgynous, intelligent, creative and independent but are also mocked for only superficially exhibiting any of these qualities.<\/p>\n

\"hipster<\/a>
image from portlandhipster.com – http:\/\/www.portlandhipster.com\/p\/about.html<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hipster culture is popularly presumed to be more gender and sexually egalitarian. In fact, both men and women can be hipsters. But the most recognizable image of the hipster is a slender white man in his 20s or 30s and a great deal of hipster style plays on a cultural nostalgia for masculinities of old\u2014what I like to call \u201cvintage masculinity.\u201d These performances of gender involve an astounding collection of aesthetics taken from specific periods of American history. Hipsters don\u2019t adopt these masculinities in complete form (or the gender relations from which they emerged). Rather, they borrow bits and pieces, like styles of facial hair or dress or very particular cultural artifacts. They\u2019re into craft beer and microbrews, they deride others for their \u201cpedestrian\u201d palates, and they have strange hobbies that might have been professions a few generations ago. They seem insistent upon finding small\u2014but significant\u2014ways to stand out from the crowd. Perhaps ironically, hipster men might be best understood as standing out by fitting in (with other hipsters).<\/p>\n

Hipster masculinities rely on a specific interpretation of their performances of gender. They rely on a sort of \u201cwhen men used to be men\u201d understanding. But, they also seem simultaneously interested in incorporating the form<\/em> but denying the substance<\/em> of the masculinities they perform with their clothing, beards, and interests. For all their posturing, hipster masculinities appear (at least symbolically) intent on being taken tongue in cheek. Yet, if we\u2019re to believe reports of young white men going to plastic surgeons for beard transplants<\/a>, it\u2019s clear that whatever this new trend is, it may not be undertaken as casually as the hipsters might want others to believe. As Greif writes:<\/p>\n

All hipsters play at being the inventors or first adopters of novelties: pride comes from knowing, and deciding, what\u2019s cool in advance of the rest of the world. Yet the habits of hatred and accusation are endemic to hipsters because they feel the weakness of everyone\u2019s position\u2014including their own.\u00a0\u00a0 Proving that someone is trying desperately to boost himself instantly undoes him as an opponent. He\u2019s a fake, while you are a natural aristocrat of taste. That\u2019s why \u2018He\u2019s not for real, he\u2019s just a hipster\u2019 is a potent insult among all the people identifiable as hipsters themselves. (here<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hipster masculinity is all about proof of authenticity. Similar to any identity category worth its salt, membership requires some kind of validation, sometimes institutional of some kind. Hipster identities are less \u201cformal\u201d than this. They are internally validated. Hipster masculinity seems to require proving that other men have failed in their attempts to be hipsters. While Greif does not mention gender, it\u2019s significant that he uses the masculine pronoun. As an identity, hipster masculinity seems to simultaneously\u2014if contradictorily\u2014claim: \u201cReal men don\u2019t care about masculinity,\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t care what people think of my masculinity,\u201d and, more subtly, \u201cThis (practiced) indifference is why I\u2019m more of a man than you!\u201d If we take a moment, stand back, and look at them without their beards, bacon and beer, this sounds like a fairly traditional story about masculinity.<\/p>\n

Hipster masculinity may be less \u201cnew\u201d than popularly imagined, and borrowing more from the masculinities it purports only to cite than the hipsters themselves acknowledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you know a hipster when you see one? Have you ever been in the company of a hipster and tried to bring up the subject? Talking about hipsters in front of hipsters is more taboo than you might think. The term is rarely lobbed in the presence of those who would fit the label. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1958,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[10680,30340,27668],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sociology","tag-hipster","tag-hipster-masculinity","tag-hybrid-masculinity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}