What is a “hipster aesthetic”?
by Johannes on Aug.02, 2012, under Uncategorized
One piece of rhetoric that pops up a lot (I’ve written about it in the past) is the “hipster” charge. The other day someone referred to “hipster shock poetry” as being the opposite of honest, sincere poetry for example. One of my problems with this charge is that it is seldom if ever elaborated on. What does it mean? Who is a hipster poet?
The other day I read this post by Sean Bishop (via big other.com), which is one of the first times I’ve actually seen someone venture to expand on what the hipster charge entails and identify who it applies to:
#8: Fence Books. At the risk of alienating myself from this press entirely, the way I feel about Fence’s cover designs is roughly the way I feel about many of the poets they publish: they remain on the vanguard of a hipster aesthetic, but in a way that will probably seem quaint in five or six years—the press seems doomed to re-design and re-brand on a very fast cycle… they’ll continue to be successful, I think, and to stay on the vanguard, but only as long as they can maintain the energy of reinvention. Like Black Ocean and Octopus, most recently Fence has favored loud, two-or-three-color covers, and like Octopus sometimes I think their type choices are unfortunate. For instance, I do like Joyelle McSweeney, and I’m excited to read her new book, but that titling and those graffitiesque drips remind me a bit too much of Urban Outfitters.
I’m glad Bishop actually bothered to define this charge a bit.
In this blog post, and in many other instances, it does seem to have to do with “vanguardism”. That is to say, it’s not “avant-garde,” in the sense of the established, sanctioned “Official Experimental Verse Culture” (ie language poetry and its descendants); that is to say, it does not aim to be of the future, to be important, to make literary history; it is not invested in reproducing itself. It’s a counterfeit avant-gardism (perhaps Rather it is of its moment for a brief time (5 or 6 years) and is “doomed” to become quaint, to become kitsch.
And as we know from Daniel Tiffany’s writing on kitsch, kitsch is “excessively beautiful.” Charges of “hipster” poetry tends to imply a sense of excess; and excess suggests lack of Taste. Someone with Taste knows when to stop, how to moderate, how to contain “beauty.” The “hipster” lets the art become excessive, lets art become “graffitiesque” (ie when art takes over the space of the everyday).
Part of this excess seems to be that that the hipster – as in other hipster discourses – allows the art to take over their entire life; they become too concerned with how they look for example, what their beards look like. It’s like art takes over their entire life. I think we see this in this particular post with the reference to Urban Outfitters: poetry has become too much like clothes. It is not deep,important poetry, but frivolous poetry, poetry like clothing. Perhaps the kind of clothing with a book by Pierre Reverdy in its pocket (instead of a heart beating in the body). The UO-reference also seems to connote a kind of luxury, which in turn is often used to connote wastefulness, a choice of art over “real life.”
One interesting part about Bishop’s article is that it’s fundamentally tasteless because it’s about judging the books by its covers – ie it’s already a kind of “hipster” rhetoric! In other words, Bishop cares too much about the surface, treats poetry too much like clothing. And it’s perhaps out of sensing this dichotomy that Bishop takes on the tone of a superior judge and arbiter of Taste: and as a judge, it seems he finds fault with just about all the presses he also likes. By judging the covers, he is essentially dooming himself to a tasteless hipster-pose, and must therefore criticize all the designs in order to maintain his own position as a Man of Taste, as opposed to a Hipster of Excess.
One last thing. I wonder: Is it Fence people talk about when they talk about “hipster” poetry? If so, all of the poets or some of the poets? “Hipster” is one of those terms like “surrealism” that tends to be trotted out again and again, but seldom defined. So that’s what I’m getting at here.
August 2nd, 2012 on 6:03 pm
These labels slip off pretty quickly when one starts to pick at them. This will always be so. The next argument will be that “hipsterdom” is a sentimental nostalgia for ironic detachment through surrealism.
August 2nd, 2012 on 6:26 pm
I’ve always seen hipster charges as a charge of the trendy (which I guess is just another way of restating what you’ve said). This poetry is trendy, this design is trendy; it’s not art, it’s just mass-marketed kitsch. So, according to Bishop, Fence will have to keep up with the trends to stay on the vanguard of the hipster. Trendy = insubstantial and fleeting.
Calling something hipsterish just seems to me like a way of dismissing something instead of really engaging with it. It’s like saying, this person is young and fashionable and keeping up with current style/music/literature/whatever (which is what I think a hipster is; young, urban, engaged with literature/music/fashion/whatever) and somehow this is a bad thing.
August 2nd, 2012 on 6:38 pm
I wonder how long the binary between hipster (informed student of the winds) and the Man of Taste will last?
I do tend to agree with you and James that it’s all fashion and surface, since essence is nowhere to be named in any stable way. But if it’s all about making art out of our lives as Duchamp did, who will run the prisons who lock up the passionate murders and rapists of minors and rain forests?
How is the good of beauty to be understood and how is the good of beauty to be practiced? Is it every hipster for himself? Or is there a society of hipsters who sell and buy news of the new to each other at the price of reproducing the boarder-commodity between being in or out?
August 2nd, 2012 on 6:42 pm
I think the hipster and Man of Taste binary will last for a long time, even though they are – as I think the post suggests – not two separate entities, but rather two related outfits. And as outfits they depend on each other. Therefore their relationshop will last until the bitter end.
Johannes
August 2nd, 2012 on 6:42 pm
I judge poetry books by their covers, all the time. But I don’t think Fence’s covers are really “hipster,” and I don’t think Bishop’s piece gets at what it’s really about.
Like I generally do, I’m going to talk about stuff that has happened to me in real life lately.
I kept going to these “alt-lit” parties, mostly because Seth continues to drag me to them when I’d generally rather be drinking alone at a dive bar or wearing an apron and inventing new variations on nonfat muffin recipes, but I go, because as much as I try hard not to, I super care about poetry, and even a little about Poetry.
No one seemed all that interested in poetry, though, at these parties. Things that seemed to matter: 40s of crappy beer, cigarette brands, american apparel, bangs, beards, flannel, glasses. I went to some readings where no one ever even actually read. I went to one in a tiny apartment that was so crowded I had to sit in a window and I literally almost hurled myself out of it because it would have been less painful.
Being a hipster, it seems, maybe came from late-90s MTV, like how Daria and her friends were the coolest because they all had similar fashion and art-interests and were too cool to hang out with Quinn and her “superficial” friends; see also: the plastics vs. the art kids in mean girls.
But honestly, being a Hipster is EXACTLY like being a Plastic. You only read books from XYZ press; you wear glasses whether you need them or not; you don’t wear sweatpants on Wednesdays. It’s a set of aesthetic rules that make you “cool,” regardless of any actual content.
I don’t think that’s good or bad. I’m vain, and superficial, and tend to choose my friends based on similar aesthetic preferences. But another part of being a hipster, or at least a certain kind, seems to be to pretend that you have no knowledge of your own aesthetic, and an utter disdain for any other kind of defined/definable aesthetic. And that’s not cool. That’s insincere.
August 2nd, 2012 on 7:07 pm
There is to me a kind of “hipster” that is actually totally conservative in the ways Carina points out, all about policing and restraint. I like Quemadura-designed covers, but it’s actually the rhetoric Bishop uses about them that I think describes this kind of hipster: “smart and contemporary but non-flashy type choices and stark, minimalist layouts.” Urban Outfitters vs. American Apparel?
August 2nd, 2012 on 8:09 pm
Yes, I’m talking about anti-hipster rhetoric, which it seems is often wielded by people some people might call hipsters themselves! And it seems that rather than embodying the kind of threat articulated by anti-hipster rhetoric, they are often, like you said, very moderate in their tastes – they are Men of Taste./Johannes
August 2nd, 2012 on 8:10 pm
Yes, Gene, don’t hire me to run your prisons. I would be terrible. Constant theater productions.
Johannes
August 2nd, 2012 on 8:11 pm
Or maybe I would be good… Constant theater productions!
J
August 3rd, 2012 on 3:08 pm
There cannot be any such thing as “a hipster.” There can only be “hipsters.” Human mirrors. The man of taste can sit in a library by himself forever, his taste already exists and has a kind of (lifeless?) permanence. A single hipster alone in a library is nobody. A person can only become hipster by entering into a mass of hipsters and becoming “like them.”
I always think of the painter Matt Greene when I think of hipsters. Here’s a (rather poorly reproduced) example of one of his works: http://dailyserving.com/wp-content/uploads/art/Matthew-Greene-11-29-06.jpg — The figures are distinct but all somehow alike. They are “there together” in a tangle. Their individuality is smothered by the presence of so many “like them” in one place. Carina explained this very well in her comment: the hipster venue MUST BE “so crowded” or it can’t exist.
It’s impossible to isolate the figure of “the hipster” and claim she’s one who has let art take over. Art hasn’t taken over, Art has merely lured. Hipsters congregate en masse to witness Art. Voluntary collective smothering in Heliogabalus’ roses. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/The_Roses_of_Heliogabalus.jpg
Art has allure for hipsters, it attracts and captivates. The captive hipsters are smothered by Art. Excessive beauty does not issue from hipsters, it drowns them. The only excess hipsters know is excess of company.
August 3rd, 2012 on 3:33 pm
I forgot to answer the question. The “hipster aesthetic” is whatever Art manages to lure hipsters at the moment, it’s fluid. As opposed to what is merely popular, Art which participates in a hipster aesthetic must be “so crowded.” The fact that some Art occasionally becomes mobbed with hipsters says nothing about the Art and much about the mob. Because the mob of hipsters always eventually abandons the piece of Art which had smothered them (book of poems, handful of mp3s, etc.) it’s not valuable to then declare that piece of Art “quaint” or “kitsch.” That Art has served its function to a particular knot of humans and remains available for future use.
August 3rd, 2012 on 4:18 pm
Your answer seems to agree with mine in a sense: the threat of the hipster is the ruination of the individual with taste, agency etc.
Where we differ – and where I seem to differ with a lot of the commentators – is that I’m not actually talking about a person called “The Hipster” at all. As when I’m talking about “kitsch”, I’m talking about a trope used to criticize. What I’m trying to understand is what people mean when they use a word like hipster or kitsch: What is it they are trying to defend poetry against.
Johannes
August 3rd, 2012 on 4:33 pm
I understand. We’re not differing too greatly. When a critic uses the hipster trope, he’s defending his own taste in poetry against a horde who want to annihilate themselves.
The tasteful critic has to disown poetry soiled by hipsters because they use that poetry for self-erasure.
If the tasteful object can be used to erase the individuality of the hipsters, it also then threatens the individuality of the critic who defends it. And as you’ve been saying, if a critic loses this distance and agency, who is he?
Criticizing something as “hipster Art” or “kitsch” is a self-defense mechanism, it creates distance between the critic and the soiled poetry. Poetry itself needs no defense.
August 3rd, 2012 on 5:33 pm
Hipster this hipster that.
Why aren’t there any poetry motorcycle gangs?
Seriously.
August 3rd, 2012 on 7:22 pm
True: like surrealism hipster is a kind of floating signifier. As Gayatari Spivak has pointed out labelling things is at once part of identity and an essentially violent act. Mabye that´s why this discussion bothers me, or mabye that’s because I still don’t really get what a hipster is.
Anyway, what´s wrong with minor literature?
August 4th, 2012 on 3:00 am
But isn’t this mass of ‘hipstery’ mirrors its own sort of immunological border? Doesn’t it generate its own troublesome distinctions? I suppose the vague and untouchable “person of taste” casts a wider net and tries to subsume hipsterdom with the auspices of their definition of poetry in order to repudiate its value… but there is also a lot of rhetoric within the communities being associated with the “hipster aesthetic” that tries to set them above “traditional verse culture,” “neo-criticism,” etc. in their own right. I suppose it is a matter of who holds the keys to the gate, funding, coverage, etc. (and that would make the expanse covered by the sort of rhetoric Sean Bishop is using borderline hegemonic–that is, if we look at national coverage, prizes, etc.) But it also feels like broadly cast rhetoric no matter which side generates it–a ubiquitous avoidance of specificity that ends up being rhetorically massive (phallic) and stifling. Sean Bishop should tell us exactly how Martin Corless-Smith, Ariana Reines, Jena Osman, Paul Legault, Aaron Kunin, Ben Doller, Catherine Wagner, etc. etc. etc. have in common besides book covers. I personally think that Fence has well designed books (but I also think there is something to say for the excessive sort of critique of book design that is being propogated by the Buffalo students running Troll Thread) etc. etc. etc.
I personally get annoyed with much of the same sort of stuff Lucas and Carina are mentioning above and I stuff it away in my own sort of tidy little sac. But I also wonder how much of this relates to economics and politics (realms in which these same gestures get played over and over again in ways that fuck with people’s lives in much more substantial ways). I can be a mirror at a poetry reading before going to be a mirror at my job at BP gas and oil (they’re somewhat LGBT friendly according to the HRC)
Word vomit.
My flesh is covered with motor driven biker gangs of biopower policing all of the horizons of my corrupt, failing poesis.
2 cents of excess. My nipples ache a little right now.
August 4th, 2012 on 3:44 pm
Well it seems that for a lot of people there is a kind of hipster figure and a lot of people seem to have a problem with this hipster. I’m obviously writing about a kind of unspecified criticism that to me suggests anti-decadence, moderating rhetoric. But I agree with you Aaron that if you’re going to talk about the hipster – and perhaps it’s worthwhile – then you have to say who they are and what makes them hipsters (other than that they remind you of Urban Outfitters). I’m not opposed to discussing this hipster figure.
Johannes
August 4th, 2012 on 6:46 pm
To get back to Kent’s point. Yes, there should be poetry motorcycle gangs, with Kenneth Anger’s demons as the ringleader. And poet wanderers with Kaspar Hauser as their principal saint. And poet explorers with Klaus Kinski supplying the maps and compasses.
August 6th, 2012 on 11:36 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/fashion/montauk-feels-the-effects-of-too-many-hipsters.html?src=me&ref=style
My perception of hipsterdom is somewhat similar to that of this New York Times article: well-off people who “displaced hard-working families, old-time residents and newly arrived immigrants.” For some, hipsterdom is not an aesthetic issue, but a class issue. I think, for example, of the Mission neighborhood, which used to be a mostly immigrant neighborhood, but where now a studio apartment runs for $1600.
August 6th, 2012 on 11:42 pm
I also tend to think that, more often than not, wealthy people are the ones driving aesthetic trends, not the poor. Whether or not they are involved in a creative activity, that is another question. We also talk a lot about Ezra Pound or André Breton’s role in Modernism, but where would they be without the support of James Laughlin, Harriet Monroe, or John & Dominique de Menil?
August 6th, 2012 on 11:46 pm
Here’s the thing, Francois: When it’s used to describe poetry it means absolutely nothing. It’s just a metaphor comparing a kind of poetry to a demographic of cities! What’s the connection? It’s a little how people who know nothing about Montevidayo’s members accuse of being spoiled and rich because of our views. It’s a totally lazy metaphor that ties into a culture suspicious of ideas/art that seems “excessive” and this “excess” is equated with unearned wealth. I mean are you saying that when someone calls someone else a “hipster poet” they mean that he or she is rich. Or is this just a really un-thought-out use of class as a metaphor for aesthetics? There most certainly are many ways of approaching class in poetry, but this seems like the opposite: using class critique metaphorically. Ie not a class critique at all.
Johannes
August 7th, 2012 on 12:09 am
Johannes: I agree, I’m not quite sure what “hipster” means in the general context of aesthetics. Which is why I don’t like to engage in debates pertaining to hipsterdom. I will admit I am not innocent on this matter either, having accused a ongoing project of being “hipster” for having revolutionary aspirations, but involving mostly white people. In Oakland. I’m willing to discuss the aspirations of a project, whether it’s excessive or not, whether I am interested in this excess or not (so yes to Danielle Collobert, no to whomever bores me), but more importantly, I’m interested in the project’s exclusions, what it forgets, despite its declared aspirations, which can be class or white privilege or …
August 7th, 2012 on 12:12 am
Oh, and no, I don’t want to imply that a “hipster poet” is necessarily rich. I rarely use “hipster” in conjunction with “poet.”
August 7th, 2012 on 11:09 pm
I tend to think of a hipster aesthetic as one which wants to make a garage sale glamorous: for me its signature is lack of luxury, lack of full-on gorgeousness (quick graffiti (and no, please dont read this as a slander towards graffiti!) as opposed to a Caravagio or Bernini) but not social lack; I do not associate hipsterdom with serious money, tho I have heard that there’s like seven strata to hipsters and so whatever I write I bet is too narrow. Too, yah, I think white; but again I would not be surprised if the hipster demographic is more diverse than I imagine.
OK, now for the fun part; yep, KJ, cheers to bikerdom! I vote for Thom Gunn as “Boss.”
August 8th, 2012 on 2:56 pm
Adam, your critique is in fact very much like Bishop’s: it’s based on a standard which must be protected against counterfeits. Your worldview is incredibly conservative: grafiti sucks, gold is good. It’s literally an aesthetics of the gold standard. Against inflation.As if “serious money” should determine art. You use the term “luxury” in totally the opposite way from the way I use it. / Johannes
August 9th, 2012 on 7:40 am
I specifically noted that I am not a graffiti naysayer; I’m confused that you see critique: I thought I was musing on what a hipster aesthetic cld be. To leap from a blogcommentbox post to a world-view seems rather radically unfair–to me. The graffiti vrs Bernini bit was meant to get at me not associating hipster aesthetics with the traditionally full-blown gorgeous, but rather a highly stylized improvisational stance. Am I nuts or wld O’Hara be a good poet example? Or the living O’Hara; now he’s high art so I’m not sure the reputation of him dead works. Surely MD’s urinal, were it not over half a century old and rather canonized, could qualify. Maybe the closest kin is “old-school” kitsch, except is that trendy? Ok, time for me to dissipate: trendy is a term I can’t really “wrap my mind around” without getting all skirly/like an orange coming un-peeled.
August 9th, 2012 on 12:27 pm
adam
i think we miss each other in part because im not talking about hipster art, im talking about anti-hipster rhetoric. but yes that is prob what hipster art wld be – baudelaire, parland, o’hara etc
johannes
August 9th, 2012 on 4:57 pm
I’m really interested in discussing “hipster aesthetic” either, mostly because I find it difficult to discuss as a whole. It’s kind of a vacuous term. I’m more interested in examining how technology (the internet, social media, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest) have disseminated a certain definition of “hipster” (as opposed to how the term might have been used in relationship to the poets you are referring to). I don’t really remember the term “hipster poet” being used 10 years ago. At most, I would hear Tony Hoagland refer to Fence as a “postmodern” journal in class. For that matter, I don’t remember the term “hipster” being used in the way it is used now until maybe 5 or 6 years ago.
August 20th, 2012 on 11:46 am
Fence has published a lot of fantastic books—this term “hipster” poet seems very new–think someone has mentioned this in the comments here (guilty of having read through them quickly). I guess I have to take issue with the idea of JG’s original post that hipster and excess are somehow linked? I mean seems to me that the majority of hipsters/ hipster clothes/ hipster lifestyle represent a kind of outflow of conforming to the dictates of a niche market rather than representing any sort of real break with the norm. I agree with JG though that hipster w/ regard to poetry has very little meaning and I also wonder why this term has emerged w/ respect to poetry in the last 5-6 years. Anyone?
August 20th, 2012 on 2:23 pm
Sandra,
I’m not talking about “actual” hipsters, whoever they may be. I’m talking about how hipster is used as an insult: What is such a framework afraid of? What is it trying to defend poetry against? Just as when I’m talking about “kitsch,” I’m not talking about pink bunnies, I’m talking about what it is folks like Tony Hoagland or Ron Silliman are trying to defend against.
Johannes
August 20th, 2012 on 3:18 pm
Okay, I see what you are saying. I’ve definitely heard (very lately) people say “oh she’s just a hipster poet” etc. This type of accusation seems to usually be a way of calling into question the poet’s authenticity but rarely have these claims (at least from my own memory) had much to do with the person’s actual poetry. Also might be interesting to think about (instead of the idea of trends in poetry) what might, in 50 years, become a “period” piece. In any case, interesting post. Thanks.
August 20th, 2012 on 4:00 pm
Yes, I think part of what this rhetoric invokes is that it’s about the person – you’re a certain kind of person, you write as a lifestyle choice, you’re not a “real poet” – but I think that’s actually about the poetry in some ways (but also it’s a social critique against certain people, groups of people, which of course is so important in poetry discussion though nobody wants to acknowledge it). Anyway, if I have the time I will write a bit more about this today or next week.
Johannes