HIPSTER ASYLUM

I feel I need to post this: Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization

I don't know what more I can say, really. I guess I'm a hipster for posting this, I guess AdBusters and writer Douglas Haddow are hipster for writing about it. I think we're all stuck in hipster asylum. You choose which meaning you want to assign the word asylum.

For me the most important, relevant part of the essay is the last paragraph: "We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us."

When I finished the article I thought "yes! He's totally right," but then I read some of the response comments and started to think that perhaps he's not entirely right, perhaps there is hope for us. I suppose it depends how you look at it, how you define yourself in this world. There is a choice.

However, overall, I feel incredible sadness reading this. It illustrates many of the ideas I struggle with regarding society, identity and my role in it all. It is a highly valuable piece of writing, despite the fact it is self-referential. I think that we must come to terms with the fact that we can no longer just write something we think. Today even the act of writing critically about "counterculture" deems one a part of it - everything we do reflects our very own hipster asylum.

(desktopscenes.com)