Hip

What is considered hip?  Is being hip dictated by what you wear, what you say, or your mannerisms? Who decides what is hip and what hip is not?  I think any of these questions can be answered, but the answers can change depending on the person who gives the answer. 

For me, hip is what is popular at the time.  I remember back in middle school if you had a pair of Converse All Star shoes on then you were cool, or hip.

My question is, was it hip for schools all over the meridian school district to wear Converse shoes, how about all the schools in Idaho, or the North West Region of the US, or was it hip all over America, other countries?  Who decides if it is hip or not?

I would submit that hip in a middle school level is dictated upon outside sources, that some big brother or sister was wearing the Converse shoe, and so the little brother or sister decided to wear it to school, and the “hip trend” is started.  Instead of a big brother of sister, perhaps a celebrity of an idealized figure.  I think most cases hip is determined by outside sources at a young age, and the children who want to be hip, follow in the way of the hip.

           

What is a Hipster

Before starting Eng 201 I have never really affiliated the word “hipster” with anything.    I had never used the word in a sentence and have never really heard it used.  So if I was asked what a hipster was before I had enrolled in Eng 201 I would have associated the word with “hip”.  A hipster being someone that is hip, like the word “gangster” comes from the word “gang,” that is how I connect the word hip and hipster.

  After taking the first couple of classes of Eng 201 and having discussed, and have read some literature on the subject, my definition of a hipster has changed.  I now connect the word hipster with the word poseur, which in my mind means a “want to be.”  Someone that wants to be hip but really isn’t.  So if I had to make a definition of a hipster it would be, “Someone who is trying to be hip, but really isn’t.”

The criterion that makes up a hipster is vast and not concrete.  Some basic ideas that hold true, that make up a hipster, is a person who tries to keep up with the new fashion of the time.  A hipster would want to look the look that is most popular at the time.

Another factor that would make a hipster a hipster would be the way they talked.  A hipster would use the slang of the day, and would use language that implied that they were “cool”.

Another factor that creates a hipster is age.  I imagine that since a hipster means “Someone who is trying to be hip, but really isn’t.”  Then a true hipster could be any age.

  I remember back in the 90’s when baggy jeans were “the hip” thing to wear, especially the ones with holes in the knees, and baggy enough for your boxers to hang out a bit, I remember seeing a man probably in his late 50’s wearing the baggy jean apparel and his boxers hanging out.  He to me now is the classic example of a hipster.