¶If irony is the ethos of our age — and it is — then the hipster is our archetype of ironic living.
¶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). He harvests awkwardness and
self-consciousness. Before he makes any choice, he has proceeded through
several stages of self-scrutiny. The hipster is a scholar of social
forms, a student of cool. He studies relentlessly, foraging for what has
yet to be found by the mainstream. He is a walking citation; his
clothes refer to much more than themselves. He tries to negotiate the
age-old problem of individuality, not with concepts, but with material
things.
¶He is an easy target for mockery. However, scoffing at the hipster is only a diluted form of his own affliction. He is merely a symptom and the most extreme manifestation of ironic living. 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. One need only dwell in public space, virtual or concrete, to see how pervasive this phenomenon has become. Advertising, politics, fashion, television: almost every category of contemporary reality exhibits this will to irony.
Take, for example, an ad that calls itself an ad, makes fun of its own format, and attempts to lure its target market to laugh at and with it. It pre-emptively acknowledges its own failure to accomplish anything meaningful. No attack can be set against it, as it has already conquered itself. The ironic frame functions as a shield against criticism. The same goes for ironic living. Irony is the most self-defensive mode, as it allows a person to dodge responsibility for his or her choices, aesthetic and otherwise. To live ironically is to hide in public. It is flagrantly indirect, a form of subterfuge, which means etymologically to “secretly flee” (subter + fuge). Somehow, directness has become unbearable to us.
Take, for example, an ad that calls itself an ad, makes fun of its own format, and attempts to lure its target market to laugh at and with it. It pre-emptively acknowledges its own failure to accomplish anything meaningful. No attack can be set against it, as it has already conquered itself. The ironic frame functions as a shield against criticism. The same goes for ironic living. Irony is the most self-defensive mode, as it allows a person to dodge responsibility for his or her choices, aesthetic and otherwise. To live ironically is to hide in public. It is flagrantly indirect, a form of subterfuge, which means etymologically to “secretly flee” (subter + fuge). Somehow, directness has become unbearable to us.
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