HIPSTERS — members of Generation Y, or Millennials

 I love people watching!

HIPSTERS: People who aspire to being something they are not. I heard young adults mocking them the other day. I didn't know what they were!

In the 40s is you were into jazz you were hip, or cool. In this era, if you are a hipster, you sneer at anything. Each generation had its colourful individuals. From mini skirts, when I was in high school, tie dye, to hairstyles; dreadlocks, afros, mohawks...or hair colours!

Yes, thongs!

Then there was Goth.

Now we have tattoos, piercings... Don't forget thongs!

Urban Dictionary: hipster

Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and *Indie rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter.

What I find even more hilarious, are 40-somethings acting as aspiring Hipsters. Wannabe Hipsters, too old to be the real McCoy! Journalists are the worst. They can be music snobs, or otherwise knocking the tastes of anyone who is different.

 I first came across the notion reading a Times article:

Quitting Facebook Is The New 'I Quit TV' (You Hipster, You)http://www.   

Jesse one Hallowe'en!

 But "How to Live Without Irony" by Christy Wampole... "If irony is the ethos of our age — and it is — then the hipster is our archetype of ironic living," Wampole wrote: facial hair, fixed-gear bikes, and craft beer, ultimately arguing that the hipster, with all of his superficial signifiers, is "merely a symptom and the most extreme manifestation of ironic living."

Another sign of the Hipster: getting off Facebook. There were the hippies who eschewed television. Now they are off Facebook. I like it, to keep in touch with my middle-aged friends. Happy to hijack it in favour of our generation, the ones that learned to integrate technology into our jobs. New York University assistant professor Laura Portwood-Stacer, in a recent article published in the Journal of New Media and Society, said it is an elitist form of "conspicuous non-consumption."  

Punks!

I joined Facebook to keep track of my kids, to see great photos, visit far-off friends and enjoy their travel photos.

Based on interviews with 20 Facebook non-users and analysis of Facebook-quitter confessionals, Portwood-Stacer examined why people leave Facebook, how they communicate their rejection and how their abstention comes across. Hipsters!

Wampole writes:

Flower Power!

The hipster haunts every city street and university town. Manifesting a nostalgia for times he never lived himself, this contemporary urban harlequin appropriates outmoded fashions (the mustache, the tiny shorts), mechanisms (fixed-gear bicycles, portable record players) and hobbies (home brewing, playing trombone).
For many Americans born in the 1980s and 1990s — members of Generation Y, or Millennials — particularly middle-class Caucasians, irony is the primary mode with which daily life is dealt. (How to Live Without Irony)

Dreadlocks and tatts, men skirts!

*Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated the UK and US. 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include indie pop, jangle pop, C86, and lo-fi, among others. Originally used to describe record labels 'independent', the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock. 

Which generation are you?

Lots of talk about Baby Boomers...doom and and portending gloom. I'm on the fringe of this generation.

• The Lost Generation 

Those serving in WW I, coined by Gertrude Stein about American writers: Fitzgerald, Hemingway. Came of age during the war.

• The G I Generation (born 1901 or 1929 -  1924 -27, those serving in WW II, 1939 - 1945). Living during the Depression. "Sacrifice for the common good."

• The Silent Generation (children of WW I vets or those too young to serve, born 1925 - 1945). They grew up as the suffocated children of war and depression. For a great PPT, with period photos see: Silent Generation. They came of age just too late to be war heroes and too early to be hippies.

Nanny, foster mother to 200 teen girls
 -who gave me a black doll.
She was wise and good-hearted.

• Baby Boomers (post WW II; 1946 - 1955, or 1966 in Canada.) After the vets came home, there was a population boom. Read The Baby Boomers' Tab. 

• Generation Jones (1954 - 1964) Coined by Jonathon Pontell, in a book by the same name. As in 'Keeping up with the Joneses'. Those with maxed credit cards and incredible debt. The flower children of the 60s were truly in their teens and twenties. They are part of the baby Boom generation.

• Gen X'ers (born between 1965 - 1980) - to the decade following the Vietnam War, 1982 max)  Sandwiched between 80 million baby boomers and 78 million millennials, Gen X has just 46 million members. They were feeling left out and Jeff Gordonier ranted in an essay and book " being heard over the media din about boomers and their offspring, Generation Y, or "millennials" as they're now known, isn't just a challenge, it's annoying. He felt overlooked and underappreciated.

Her stitches were tiny and true

• Generation Y (Late 70s to 2000) or Echo Boomers, The Millennials. Selfless or self-absorbed?

 My grandmother was new to electricity and indoor plumbing. My mother was new to going out to work. Our dads didn't talk much about the war. They didn't provide many role models for the dads of our generation. They were there, but they were emotionally inaccessible. I would predict that PTSD is part of what hurt many families in the past. It is a complex weaving of life experiences.

My generation spear-headed the movement for midwives, giving birth with husbands present. My generation of dads changed diapers, and fed expressed breast milk to their children while we were out taking courses to upgrade, doing volunteer work, night shifts, or networking to keep current.

I was upset, as my generation has helped move us into the age of technology.

VW Beetle!
Me and my bro

My video of JB singing M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E to his granddaughter as we Skyped is a classic way we've learned to integrate it into our lives and use it to our advantage.
My generation of parents uses FB to keep in touch with adult children around the world. With extended family, in-laws and step-in-laws, my kids have learned to 'like' my videos and our photos, with settings geared so that 'friends of friends' can view this digital archive of child development. In this way, grandparents in other countries and climes can check in on grandkids!

My son-in-law got on Skype on my computer so that granddaughter could visit with the other grandmother, when they spent two weeks with us.

I'm proud of our generation. We are eating better, exercising, running marathons (well, not me...!), travelling (ditto!), and making a difference in the world helping support one another, and contributing to society.

Public opinion rarely considers the needs of the next generation or the history of the last. It is frequently hampered by myths and misinformation, by stereotypes and shibboleths, and by an inate resistance to innovation. 

   -Theodore C. Sorensen, presidential advisor, lawyer, and writer (1928-2010) 


What are you proud of in your generation?