

Visualizing the relationship between hipsters and PBR - mksm
http://blog.locu.com/post/46247974453/locu-digs-deep-into-pbr-data-hipsters-unphased

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blhack
I am so sick of this term "hipster". It has become watered down to the point
of complete meaninglessness.

I swear it has become a catchall for the world-of-warcraft set to apply to
anybody that doesn't spend their time playing video games.

Ride a bike? HIPSTER!

Wear jeans? HIPSTER!

Listen to music? HIPSTER!

Like art? HIPSTER!

Enjoy non-sports-bars? HIPSTER!

Drink coffee? HIPSTER!

Like unpopular films? HIPSTER!

It's ridiculous, and seeing people actually use this term as though "hipster"
is a cohesive group is embarrassing.

I drink PBR as my "stapble" beer. Why? Because it's cheap, and it tastes okay,
and because I live in Arizona, and when I come inside from riding my bike
(HIPSTER!) or walking my dog (hipster?) drinking some giant craft brew sounds
terrible.

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rm999
Your criticism is off-base. Yes, some people have watered down the label
hipster, but the communities this article discusses contain a much more pure
form of hipster than what's entailed in the ordinary things you list. I spend
a decent amount of time in Williamsburg and Bushwick, and a lot of the people
there call themselves hipsters and live a lifestyle consistent with the
stereotype.

Your comment is analogous to complaining that Big Bang Theory has watered down
the word 'nerd', so now someone can no longer extrapolate patterns he finds at
MIT and comic-con and describe them as nerd culture. It's a bad argument
because those labels still hold cultural meaning, regardless of how some
people have abused the labels.

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resu_nimda
> Your comment is analogous to complaining that Big Bang Theory has watered
> down the word 'nerd', so now someone can no longer extrapolate patterns he
> finds at MIT and comic-con and describe them as nerd culture.

I don't see how the second clause follows from the first. Maybe it's just
different definitions of "watered down." I think things like Big Bang Theory
and the assimilation of nerd culture into the mainstream _have_ watered it
down, and _are_ analogous.

MIT and comic-con are still nerd culture, but now all these other things are
too, so that when you say the word "nerd" to someone, you have no idea what it
means to them. It could be "true nerd culture" or anything else. Words like
nerd and hipster used to have meaning; in other words, they were
controversial, polarizing terms that triggered emotional responses and strong
opinions. Now they're very general and common descriptions, that's what is
meant by watered down.

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teebs
I think the relationship between PBR and hipsters is not that hipsters like
PBR, but rather that dive bars sell PBR, and hipsters like dive bars (because
they're cheap, "real," and not mainstream).

As someone from Portland, OR that went to college on the East Coast, I drink a
lot more PBR in college than in bars at home. At home, Hamm's, Old German,
Rainier, and other beers are common, cooler, and just as cheap. PBR is just
cheap.

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columbo
I'd be interest to see the same heat map with an overlay of average median
income for each district. PBR might be a hipster thing, or it could be more of
an indicator for a lower-income district.

Also, I wonder if chains were included as they could skew the results.

~~~
marcua
We're actually as interested as you in this. Doing data analysis on hipsters
was fun, but we're hoping it's the start of much deeper and more meaningful
studies. Joining our data with other macro- and micro-economic datasets will
be awesome, as will looking at the data over time to build things like cost of
living indices.

As to your chain question: they are included, and we're hoping to build a data
explorer that lets folks like you filter down the data to make analyses more
sound, as you suggest. You can do that sort of stuff right now on our API at
<http://dev.locu.com/>. Let me know if you need help along the way!

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gphil
Liked the article, would have loved to have seen Philly (where I live.) I have
a hunch PBR would beat out Bud Light in a lot of spots...

Another piece of feedback: you should link to your startup's main page more
prominently--I didn't find the link at first so I had to type in locu.com to
see it.

~~~
marcua
Awesome! We're looking into making a more general-purpose city explorer.

And thanks for the feedback---we're on it!

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stdclass
The font-color you use in your blog is so horrible to read!

~~~
karlshea
Also trying to read it on an iPhone is a big fail. Full-sized site locked to a
giant zoom level.

~~~
peter_l_downs
Fixed — removed the 'user-scalable=no' that came by default with the Tumblr
theme.

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narag
Hipster is a puzzling word for this non-native English reader. Dictionaries
say that it's people with unconventional and modern tastes in music,
clothes... I had detected an unexplained negative tone whenever I see it used.
Now this article seems to suggest that there's also an economic factor. That
would explain it. So instead of "modernos" I guess I should translate it as
"pijos".

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marssaxman
"Hipster" is basically just an insult. There is no group of people who calls
themselves "hipsters", and in fact nobody agrees on who exactly the hipsters
are. A tattooed bike messenger might insult a heavily bearded, Carhartts-
wearing beer brewer for being a hipster, who might in turn mock the girl with
the heavy glasses and the polka-dotted dress who works as a barista and spends
her weekends digging through thrift shops for being a hipster, and she might
then laugh at the couple down the street with the Subaru and the chicken coop
in their back yard for being hipsters, and they might groan when they see the
bike messenger and his friends at their local bar and complain about how all
the hipsters have taken over. None of these people would think of themselves
as hipsters, but someone two states away might refer to them all as hipsters
when making fun of the neighborhood they all live in.

~~~
will_work4tears
I actually got accused of being a hipster for no other reason than I use Linux
exclusively - from an Apple fanboi.

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eksith
Pot meet kettle. That's the definition of irony right there since in my
experience, most hipsters tend to use Macbooks and are fanatic about iPhones.
Naturally, they have copious complaints about both.

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dubya
Has someone actually paid $10+ for a Bud Light?? There appear to be some
issues with the data. I can see $4 and maybe $6 at a bar or restaurant, but
$10-12 will get you a whole pitcher of drinkable beer. How was the data
collected?

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bradleyjg
At fancy bars they want you to buy the $15 cocktail, but they'll begrudgingly
give you a $10 Bud Light if you insist.

Also, stadiums and strip clubs.

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zallarak
This is too cool! I can only imagine what sort of other interesting
relationships exist. Data like this offers the opportunity to answer some
modern-day anthropological questions, especially in conjunction with other
data sources.

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mynewwork
How can you publish an article on hipsters without covering Austin or
Portland?

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moheeb
They'll all be drinking Old Milwaukee in a couple years.

