
Why hipsters all look alike (2014) - hunglee2
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/23/the-mathematician-who-proved-why-hipsters-all-look-alike/
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JFlash
My grievance with this article was glossed over in one paragraph:

"In real life, there are a million ways to be nonconformist. You can be goth;
you can be preppy; you can be grunge... "The brain is more complex than the
model I looked at, and of course hipsters are more complex," he said."

Yes, there are a lot of ways to not be a thing. That's kind of important to
note when you're making sweeping generalizations about a group of people who
aren't like you. The title of this article is completely bogus.

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woodchuck64
Are you saying all "nonconformists" are "hipsters"? If not, "hipster" must be
an identifiable category of non-random nonconformist appearance, hence the
title of the article.

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wiml
"Hipsters all look alike because we have defined _hipster_ as people having a
specific look."

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mbenjaminsmith
Humorous intent aside, I think the fundamental error here is the author(s)
conflating a trend with the counter culture of yore. The hipsters of today do
not follow from the counter culture of the 60s nor the punk movement that
followed. They're not non-conformist nor do they have an internal set of
political beliefs. They're just people dressing a certain way -- often
combined with an excessively groomed beard in the case of men. The only sense
that they're a group or movement is that they may share socio-economic status,
cf. the yuppies of the 80s.

Though the beards do crack me up, I don't think this group deserves any more
derision than any collection of (young) people struggling to find Heideggerian
authenticity. Growing up I saw the same struggle in arguably more authentic
subcultures like punk and skateboarding.

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dschiptsov
Cargo cult. Especially these ridiculous beards..

BTW, hipsterism per se is a role-playing, role-governed behavior. Cosplay if
you wish.

It is a way of looking "smart and nonconforming" instead of actually being,
because being is much more difficult that following some style.

The difference is like between guys like Alan Kay, Marvin Minsky, Peter
Norvig, David Moon, to name a few, versus hipster blogrammers.

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askafriend
What's the reason for having such a harsh tone towards a preferred personal
styling?

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coned88
Why is being a hipster seen as wanting to "oppose trends"?

I would think all of thing things we associate with being a hipster. Those
things are what attract these people and we later just called them hipsters to
categorize.

Hipsters aren't non conformists. They are conformists. The whole culture is
the act in conforming to be like other hipsters.

~~~
parasubvert
That's taking nonconformity to an absurd level. Most everyone is a conformist
at some level, because we are social creatures that have our sub-cultures that
help shape our identity, for better or worse.

There are very few people that make their own clothes from raw material,
people have to buy the cloth or the clothing itself from somewhere. Of course
this tends towards clustering as the mainstream is by definition pretty broad,
so it is visually easy to group together "people who wear weird/retro/custom
clothes and hair styles" together.

Yet if you polled hipsters, I'd bet a wide diversity on other opinions/tastes
in music, art, film, issues.

This goes for many sub-cultures, from goths, to metal heads, to punks, to
yuppies or Bobos. Everyone mixes non-conformity at some level with conformity,
especially when they link their tastes and opinions with their identity.

Hipsters just happen to want to be identified for their non-conformity which
is what makes them annoying to many people, as this rejects the value of a
thing based on its relative popularity.

We've seen elements of this in the past with Rock music fan's accusation of
"sellouts" which is somewhat unique among music genres but makes total sense
when the identity of being "Rock", for a portion of the fan base anyway, is to
be in rebellion against The Man (with money and power).

Hipsterism just takes this to the next level, valuing the relative obscurity
of a thing above all other qualities. Except with the Internet, it's easy to
find obscure things and popularize them... Among hipsters anyway. Leading us
back to clustering.

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meesterdude
This is certainly interesting mathematically; might even have some truths to
it for people.

But I found motive to be a glaring oversight, when approached from a human
level. It took a very black & white approach of conformist/nonconformist and
why someone might or might not wear something. Among them:

1) Some people don't care

2) Some people wear what other people buy them

3) Some people wear what they can afford

4) Some people wear what they can find

5) Some people have different looks/outfits

Also, I feel you could say the same thing about goths/punks/skaters or any
other subculture.

I'm not trying to discredit the math, or the authors intentions. It's a fun
thing to ponder, with real implications to be had. But if you were hoping to
REALLY understand why all hipsters look alike, this simply does not go far
enough to truly answer that. But as a foundation for a mathematical model,
it's relevant and enjoyable.

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dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8590347](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8590347)

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karmakaze
Hipsters are a phenomenon which I find intriguing, and possibly concerning.
The article does propose a credible explanation as an emergent property.
Reminds me of the day Alternative officially became a music genre.

