It may still be too early for a Friday drink, but here’s the next best thing: a fun, new internet toy to help you waste time until happy hour! Andrew Sullivan points us to the Books Ngram Viewer, which draws from Google’s massive book archives to track the prevalence of any given word over time. You can enter any combo you want, but we decided to pit “hipster” against “douchebag” — two of the internet’s favorite terms and, in many circles, both insults.
Although the slow emergence of “douchebag,” with a small peak around 1990 and slow, steady climb since the early ’00s, seems right, we were more surprised by “hipster.” Despite its recent overuse, 21st-century authors aren’t employing it nearly as much as their early-’60s counterparts. It’s also interesting to note that “hipster” has been in a steady decline for as long as six years.
[Editor's note: It's the last Friday of the summer, so your Flavorwire editors and writers are taking a much-needed break. We'll return to our normal publishing schedule on Tuesday, but in the meantime, we'll be revisiting some of our favorite content from the past few months. This post was originally published May 28, 2010.] With a long weekend around the corner, there’s a good chance you’re planning an epic BBQ. You know who else likes to grill meat and drink beer? Hipsters. While we in coastal cities are well-versed in hipster-barbecue culture, we worry that our older, suburban, and rural readers may not have had a chance to witness these remarkable rituals. That’s why we’re giving you the inside scoop on how to throw the trendiest theme party of the weekend. After the jump, learn how to throw a hipster barbecue worthy of Williamsburg and Portland in your very own verdant, landscaped backyard.
Nerds tend to overdress — probably the result of being fussed over by mothers who they were always making “so proud.” That overdressing, though well-intentioned, frequently gets out of hand. Yesterday the New York Times’ Bits blog spoke with Kristen Slowe, a designer who’s trying to make style simpler for the geekier males among us with her new line Saboteur. Inspired by the impending fashion revolution, we decided to comb through style site Nerd Boyfriend, and came up with this list of heroes who’ve made their nerdy fashions into classics.
The New York Times has always struggled with youth culture, stumbling upon trends full half-decades after they emerge and then over-analyzing them to the point of unintentional self-parody. But lately, they’ve really topped themselves, in pieces like this recent blog post informing us that the word “hipster” is inextricably linked to the word “Brooklyn” and vowing to find fresh, new alternatives. (We can’t wait to see what they come up with…)
Today, they dropped a major bomb, publishing their Sunday magazine article — that is actually titled “What Is It About 20-Somethings”! — online a full four days ahead of its street date, in an obvious attempt to give ample time for the story to cause a bloggy furor. And you know what? It worked. As 20-somethings who pay our own bills, this lengthy exploration of “emerging adulthood” and whether many of us are too undercooked to survive in the adult world, really did piss us off, largely because we found its portrait of post-college types lazing around their parents’ houses, willfully eschewing responsibilities both unfamiliar and offensive. It is, in fact, about as insightful as you might expect an article pegged to the $#*! My Dad Says TV show to be. Since your friends will probably be discussing it for days and we don’t think you’ll learn much from reading the entire thing, we’ve excerpted the article’s 10 most infuriating quotes.
Thanks to the keen eyes of The Daily Swarm, we recently got a glimpse of the hilarious eHow article “How to Be a Music Hipster.” The guide includes such helpful tips as, “Create a livejournal account and join the group ‘indie exchange,’” and “For songs that will make you cool at a party, check out The Hood Internet and MAD DECENT.” Impressed by the deep insight of writer “tronjavolta,” we searched eHow for other articles on hipsterdom in hopes of understanding this mysterious subculture. Lo and behold, eHow is kind of obsessed with hipsters! Our search yielded pages and pages of entries. After the jump, check out excerpts of the most notable, hilarious (intentionally or otherwise) guides and adjust your tragically un-hip life accordingly.
While the hipster Tumblr meme has been dead for a while, we’re betting on the rise of a not so different substitute: the hippie Tumblr meme. Basically just the same Polaroid-esque pics dripping with (real!) nostalgia and repackaged with a term that doesn’t immediately cause the eyes to roll. In any case, here’s Hippy Kitchens, a Tumblr that reveals how cool it would have been to have dinner — or whatnot — with your parents way back when. Click through and view a few of our favorite photos from the site.
Like the ocean’s tide, fashions ebb and flow. Whether it’s an indie band, a type of beer, a style of facial hair, a cut of jean, or t-shirt with obscure references, all trends come and go. (And then come and go again with each new generation, so keep those keffiyehs somewhere safe for your future children.) The infographic above deconstructs the natural cycle of hipster fashion, using the example of a hat. Do our findings line up what you’ve seen?
Babies were wearing rompers and eating organic way before such things were considered cool. But many of today’s parents are taking it a step further, dressing their offspring in American Apparel clothing and buying them faux-Mac products. While we’ll admit that we wouldn’t mind the adult version of a few of the products after the jump, we’ve got to ask: Whatever happened to putting your kids in embarrassing matching sailor suits, giving them a rubber ball to play with, and calling it a day?
Ever wondered why the sorority girls at your college all looked the same? Hey, maybe it’s because there was a secret, draconian dress code governing their style choices. Here at Flavorpill, we weren’t terribly surprised to find that Cornell’s Pi Phis aren’t allowed to wear “Super ‘Flared leg’ pants” or “Tacky/cheapo/pleather shoes.” But the guide did make us wonder which other puzzlingly uniform subcultures were concealing equally stringent attire rules. So we put out a call to our top-secret sources, and guess what? Someone came through.
You may not have heard of the Hipster Style Council, but we have it on good authority that this governing body exists, with branches in such young, urban enclaves as Williamsburg, Portland, OR, Silver Lake and Austin, TX. In fact, we hear the guidelines reprinted after the jump come standard with leases to certain loft buildings and job offers at such media companies as Vice.
When we read that brand we love to hate Abercrombie & Fitch have, as a result of devastating losses, decided to close their diffusion line Ruehl, we were delighted to see the demise of what they so humbly describe as “the aspirational Greenwich Village lifestyle.” Yet, no sooner had our eyes widened in childish glee, did we stumble across a party invitation for this weekend amongst our emails, suggesting that guests come in “Hamptons chic” to a party on a Manhattan rooftop. A contradiction in less time than it takes to throw on some Capris and slide into your Oxford button down? Hardly. There has always been a tension between the prep-haters and prep-lovers, between the haves, and the have-yachts. Here, we run down the history of prep and its competitors through the ages. Read More »
