Who are hipsters?
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The hipster subculture typically consists of white millennials living in urban areas.[1][2] The subculture has been described as a "mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior"[3] and is broadly associated with indie and alternative music, a varied non-mainstream fashion sensibility (including vintage and thrift store-bought clothes), generally progressive political views, organic and artisanal foods, and alternative lifestyles.[4][5][6] Hipsters are typically described as affluent or middle class young Bohemians who reside in gentrifying neighborhoods.[7][8]
The term in its current usage first appeared in the 1990s and became particularly prominent in the 2010s,[9] being derived from the term used to describe earlier movements in the 1940s.[10] Members of the subculture typically do not self-identify as hipsters, and the word hipster is often used as a pejorative to describe someone who is pretentious,[11] overly trendy or effete.[7][12] Some analysts contend that the notion of the contemporary hipster is actually a myth created by marketing.[13]
In a Huffington Post article entitled "Who's a Hipster?", Julia Plevin argues that the "definition of 'hipster' remains opaque to anyone outside this self-proclaiming, highly-selective circle."[14] In Rob Horning's April 2009 article "The Death of the Hipster" in PopMatters, he states that the hipster might be the "embodiment of postmodernism as a spent force, revealing what happens when pastiche and irony exhaust themselves as aesthetics." In a New York Times editorial, Mark Greif states that the much-cited difficulty in analyzing the term stems from the fact that any attempt to do so provokes universal anxiety, since it "calls everyone's bluff".