télos is a tumblelog.

The Subtext

I think the most interesting thing that’s the flamers over the whole ‘indie/hipster’ issue missed is the issue of authenticity. It is this that I was essentially referring to in my post titled While we’re stoning them …. There is another issue, however, that I believe underlies it all and it was summarized very well at the end of the original article that shepdaddy posted. For men, being a hipster means denying the authenticity of being a grownup male. I’m not going to go into gender definitions, or anything overly academic. What I want to do, to put it in the language of former generations, is to “talk dollars and cents.” What I find is a certain disdain for the authentic grownup experience in hipsterdom. What is the authentic grownup experience, you ask? Well, it’s being responsible for your own shit; it’s caring about things without being overly sympathetic which leads to emotional but not actionable investment; it’s wearing clothes that are mature and don’t look like costumes; it’s having the patience to wait for the right time to speak or act; it’s accepting that even if someone says all the right things, and maybe even believes them, he/she is not going to fix everything with his/her magic wand right away (I’m looking at you, Obama voters); it’s speaking softly and carrying a big stick; it’s knowing when to hold’em and when to fold’em. In a word, it’s maturity.

Hipsters play at all that in some sense without ever, as that article tried to point out, actually doing a damn thing. If you really want to be all the things you’re little indie heart aspires to be, try this: present yourself in way that people take you seriously (dress well); be passionate and dedicated (have a good work ethic); treat people with respect (don’t be condescending); let go of the things that don’t matter for the things that do (make sacrifices); accept that Rome really wasn’t built in a day (be patient); then maybe, just maybe, you won’t have to wish upon ironic stars from entertainment icons that you’re too young to have actually watched when they aired to have your dreams come true.