Volume 124 Issue 79
kansan.com
Friday, January 20 2012
LOCAL
ENGINEERING A NEW BUILDING
"A deep blue sea full of apathy and awkward band shirts."
That's only one way to define "the hipster", says Seth Wiley, junior from Topeka.
Sporting a Santa Fe button-up western shirt over an obscure band shirt, Wiley insists he isn't a hipster even though his friends characterize him as such. Some may say he enjoys the off-beat aspects of life. He "digs" emotion-filled live, performances by bands like Future Islands, and Chromeo, a dance funk band inspired by the 80s. The vocabulary amongst his friends consists of words like diglet, snozberry, tasty, and juicy, all of these words meaning cool.
Wiley's lifestyle is about going against the mainstream "flow." He finds it too easy to follow trends and fit in with the crowd. "Sometimes you have to go against the flow to find pieces of gold, kind of like pan handlers in that kind of sense," Wiley says.
The definition of "hipster" is subjective to each hipster. To some people it's about listening to anti-mainstream music. To others it's simply about an eccentric and "hip" fashion sense. The key to identifying a hipster is finding one who will not identify as a hipster. This is not supposed to be riddle.
I started off researching 'the hipster' wondering how much more to it could there be than skinny jeans and thick-framed glasses. Turns out, a lot.
what was the hipster?
Today's hipster has roots in the late 1940s through the 60s.
Mark Greif, leading author of a book written by many authors. What was the Hipster? and founder of youth culture magazine n+1, says the term "hipster" was originally used to describe African Americans who used music and fashion to withdraw from a dominant "square" culture. Then hipsters became the white people who wanted to emulate these African Americans.
"Hip" individuals liked avant-garde jazz at a time where this type of music was considered suspicious, Greif says. They wore clothes out of the ordinary like sunglasses at night, berets and pork pie hats, a type of fedora with a cylindrical crown and flat top. Hipsters knew about unconventional things that were foreign to the "square" world like jazz, poetry and marijuana. The most famous original hipsters were beatniks like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, who spent 16 years of his life in Lawrence.
Language played a large role in hipsterism. Greif references A Portrait of a Hipster, an essay by the late Anatole Broyard, when describing hip slang. Broyard described this slang as jive talk: a way of re-editing the world with definitions through a hipster's eyes. Hipsters made absolute evaluations on everything, insisted Broyard.
Everything was solid, out of this world, or in the negative form a drag. "The hipster cultivated an atmosphere of secret knowledge of what was cool that the straight world, and especially the conventional Caucasian world, could not understand," Greif says.
revival of the hipster
The late 1990s birthed the revival of the hipster, but it came back as a way of describing individuals who considered themselves "hipper than thou," says Greif. This began at a time when wealthy, white Americans acquired property in low income and working class communities. This movement, known as gentrification, intended on transforming communities of low value to higher value.
"Hipster" became an insult used satirically by these young, wealthy individuals amongst each other; they characterized each other as fake, inauthentic, and often seeking new knowledge, not because they felt rebellious towards the conventional society, but to feel superior to other people, Greif says.
"Very obviously, these white kids in expensive sneakers and with expensive fake-use clothes moving into often black, Latino, white ethnic, and Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in New York as part of a gentrification process were not equivalent to the 1940s or 1950s type," Greif says.
{ today's hipster }
The hipster has evolved since into a kind of fashion statement: trucker hats, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, Polaroids, facial hair, tattoos, the green movement, the comeback of LP records, scarves, fixed-gear bikes, thick framed glasses, and finally today's stylistic marker, the skinny jean.
Today's hipster resembles the original hipster rebelling against the norm, says KU teaching assistant John Vilanova. Today's norm is the corporatization of America, Vilanova says. He describes hipsters as those working against the dominant ideology of American culture.
In one of his American Studies lectures, Vilanova has his students discuss the idea of "identifying with not identifying." Hipsters are united by the single notion that they do not conform to corporate America, Vilanova says. They are brought together because they are all rejecting ideologies, which in turn becomes their ideology.
Vilanova says the driving reason today behind most people's distaste for hipsters is Americans' obsession with money and their belief that those who aren't working are lazy. Hipsters don't go to college to find a well-paying profession. They are generally musicians and artists, Vilanova says. "These are people who are not in conversation with money, and people don't understand that," Vilanova says.
The modern hipster is also about staying ahead of culture. Vilanova says the LCD Soundsystem song, "I'm Losing My Edge," encapsulates this idea. Lead singer James Murphy confesses that he can no longer compete with
people seeking out music and culture that no one knows about. This is the hipster's lament, Vilanova says.
more than just a label
We can find hipsters in local eateries, Urban Outfitters, coffee shops and even on our campus in front of Hashinger Hall. At times, we have even heard the occasional "you are such a hipster" insult. But how many times have you actually heard a hipster self-identify as a hipster? Through reporting for this story, I came to find that no hipster will.
"The second you identify as a hipster, you are not a hipster anymore." Vilanoa says.
In a Psychology Today study about hipsters as consumers, Zeynep Arsel and Craig L. Thompson reveal that not even hipsters want to be called hipsters. Most people spend money on items that reinforce their sense of identity. After multiple interviews with hipsters, Arsel and Thompson determine that hipsters will work overtime to convince themselves that what they purchase do not reflect their true character-hipster.After all, they conclude, identifying with a subculture means losing individuality, which is exactly the point of hipsterism.
When asked if he identifies as a hipster, recent KU graduate Jon Miller only referenced a closet full of plaid button downs and what others have to say on the matter. "My little sister and her friends always call me a hipster, so if 17 year-old girls' opinions are worth anything on the topic, then yes, I'm a hipster," Miller says.
Thomas Richmond, junior from Kansas City, Kan., says he can see why his friends will call him a hipster, based on his closet full of skinny jeans purchased at Urban Outfitters, and the fact that his left arm is covered in self-designed tattoos. However, he does not like being categorized by just one word.
"I am a local artist. I show in Final Fridays. I am a print making major. I used to play hockey, and I grew up playing soccer," Richmond says. "There is a lot more than me than being a hipster."
hipster fashion
While hipsters don't like being labeled, it is no secret that they like the Urban Outfitters label.
Sandy Tickles, sophomore from Lenexa, admits that understanding hipster fashion is as simple as opening an Urban Outfitters catalog, the most popular items being leather jackets, boots, and skinny jeans. It is harder to be original now that the hipster look is trending, but it is all about making the look your own, Tickles says.
"If everyone is wearing a floral skirt, I could get a floral skirt but it won't be the same as everyone else's," Tickles says. Non-hipsters don't see the differences in hipsters' clothing, Tickles
says.
When Zach O'Brea, junior from Leavenworth, started shopping at Urban Outfitters in high school, his outfits made him stand out from the crowd. He and his friend were referred to as "the alternative kids," wearing something different from the Hollister and American Eagle clothing that everyone else was wearing, O'Brea says. While he has some vintage clothes, the majority of his wardrobe comes from Urban Outfitters.
Some hipsters opt for thrift-store shopping, looking for dated clothing at a much lower cost. Mackerel Price, junior at Emporia State University, worked at Goodwill in Lawrence for a year. She creates her outfits almost entirely out of thrift store finds, priding herself in paying one twentieth of the amount she would spend on name brand clothing. Price believes thrift store clothes are better quality, and has been in love with thrift-store shopping since junior high shopping trips with her mom.
Price describes her outfits as products of different decades. She loves the 90s acid-wash jeans, overalls, and big sunflowers on everything, but she also appreciates the elegant, form fitting dresses from the 40s. Price says her outfits tend to go over well, but everyone has a different opinion.
"I've gotten the random yell from the white pick-up truck 'hipster!'" Price says. "But I have also gotten compliments on my rear end when I wear my high-waisted shorts, so you never know, it can be very flattering."
{ future hipster }
What's next for the hipster? teaching assistant John Vilanova speculates that the future of the hipster will follow the counterculture pattern. People form a subculture, something that is different from the norm, and outsiders will want a taste of that inside culture. The subculture becomes popular, and then the original fans fade away.
An example of this idea is surfing, Vilanova says. When you go to the beach, you see men dressed in board shorts. Board shorts' original purpose was to keep surf board wax from getting on your legs. You don't need these shorts in land-locked states, but they became the most popular swimwear for men. This is an example of outside culture getting absorbed into the mainstream.
"There is always a group like this." Vilanova says. "Are hipsters mainstream? The answer may be no right now, but in time the answer will be yes. It will just be absorbed into the mainstream like anything else."
up more options
up more options for parking in city parking garages and long-term city parking lots in downtown Lawrence," the news release said.
T/KANSAN
Matt Cole, an employee at US Bank on Massachusetts Street, estimated that 10 of the 50 bank employees will purchase parking passes.
With the construction of an apartment building at 9th and New Hampshire Streets and the proposed construction of a hotel across the street, parking downtown may soon become more limited.
"Most employees park on top of the garage," Cole said. Cole doubted more employees would buy passes.
Purchasing of parking permits varies from business to business.
to affect her parking. creased frame
nice show students,
"We've purchased permits since the parking garage was built," Debbie Anderson said. Anderson said that when the business first purchased permits both the roof level and third level of the garage were open to permits. The roof level is now open for free parking.
The office of Curtis Anderson Optometrist purchases parking permits for the three employees that work the most often.
Anderson said the only time she has trouble parking in the garage is during parades.
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"That made me question whether we were getting our money's worth," she said.
or accidents, "Monroe said in an email, "I think during a 'normal'
said the ultimate reason the numbers are close is because weather
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The average December temperature in 2011 was 35 degrees for Lawrence, five degrees warmer than it was in 2010, when December's average was 30 degrees, according to weatherdatapot.com.
winter the numbers for the last month would have been higher, however, I don't think the difference in the numbers is significant."
winter weather has kept most or the snow and ice away, but one thing not absent this winter is traffic accidents.
Records from the Lawrence Police Department show 796 traffic accidents occurring from November 1, 2011 to January 16, 2012. This number is down 36 accidents when compared to last winter which had 832 traffic accidents occurring from November 1, 2010 to January 16, 2011.
"If you're going the proper speed, if you keep it in the center of your lane and you don't follow too close, then you always have time and space to react."
Sergeant Michael Monroe, from the police department's
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Larry Krull.
LARRY KRULL
Owner of the Midwest Driving School
Weather didn't play a role in Kendall Clark's October accident, but lack of attention did.
because weather doesn't play the largest role in why accidents occur.
"I would give credit to people being smart enough not to go
"We were coming back from Wendy's on 23rd, and I was messing with the radio." Clark said, a sophomore from Augusta.
"Inattention is the biggest cause of accidents in Lawrence," Monroe said.
"My friend yelled, 'We're stopping,' Clark said. "By the time I
KRUI1 owner of the Midwest Driving School, believes one reason the numbers are so close is because of effective planning last winter.
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If you see it, our rearview mirror, you always have someone right behind you," Krull said. "I think getting rear ended is the most common in Lawrence because of that."
Regardless of the weather, Krull believes paying attention makes the biggest difference, and most accidents or serious injuries can be avoided by doing a few basic things.
"You have to focus on the road," Krull said. "If you're going the proper speed, if you keep it in the center of your lane and you don't follow too close, then you always have time and space to react."
Edited by Amanda Gage
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2011 The University Daily Kansan
Don't forget
Today's Weather
Forecasted by
b University students.
For a more detailed forecast,
see page 24.
Student Union Activities is screening "Paranormal Activity 3" this weekend
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