I believe that urbanization and the city can play an essential role in the creation of hip. A quote from Leland’s book comes to mind. It is found on page seventy towards the top. It reads: “In practice, hip needs this constant exposure to the larger groups; if no one is looking it isn’t really hip.”
For the most part I would have to agree on this statement. It seems that “hip” things for the most part come from the city. Hip cell phones, hip fashions of clothing, hip language. It seems that the majority of items that we classify as “hip” generate from the city life, or at least these items are used in the city and urban life.
I believe that it takes a crowd for something to become hip. If you are wearing Converse All Star Shoes, alone in your basement, it really isn’t hip because no one is there to admire them, or comment to you about them. Especially if you are the one who invented the shoes, and no one else knows about them yet, and you keep them hidden and no one ever gets to see them or wear them, how can they be hip if no one other then you gets to use them or see them?
So if “hip” items take a crowd to become hip, what about hip people? I do not know where the hip people of today or hip people of the past come from but I imagine that if you have the potential to become hip, and you live in a rural area, a small town, you may be hip to those people in your town.
I also imagine that if you come from a rural area and you have a great talent let’s say to sing songs that are hip in your day, or you have the talent to make hip songs, then if you move to the city you can be hip in the eyes of many. And isn’t that what you need if your want to be hip, a crowd?
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