Overview
Guardian journalist Alex Rayner noted a growth in "hipster hate" blogs in 2010, mocking these "skinny- jeaned trendies." Humour website Cracked suggests the easiest way to spot a hipster: "Look for someone who shows completely unwarranted arrogance." French band The Shoes vented their loathing in 2012, by hiring Jake Gyllenhaal to hunt down and execute hipsters on the streets of Dalston, in a video for their song Time to Dance. Hipsters then, annoy a wide demographic. To irritate so many people, they must have a lot of annoying hipster habits. They do, and here they are.
Inapproriate hair
Male hipsters love their moustaches, regardless of how unpleasant they are for others to contemplate. They favour an oh-so ironic, heavy, 1970s bristling handlebar, especially if it lurks beneath a ludicrously towering quiff. Fittingly, many hipsters seem to have modelled their egocentric hairstyle on that of North Korea's Kim Jong-un, where the high-sided look is known as "the ambition."
- Guardian journalist Alex Rayner noted a growth in "hipster hate" blogs in 2010, mocking these "skinny- jeaned trendies."
- Male hipsters love their moustaches, regardless of how unpleasant they are for others to contemplate.
V-neck tee
You can't be a proper hipster unless you're wearing a V-neck tee-shirt, cut so deep it practically shows off your navel. Sadly, hipsters tend to regard sports as "uncool," so relatively few of them have the kind of flesh that merits constant flashing. Cracked advises us to "prepare for disappointment" when a hipster takes off his V-neck.
- You can't be a proper hipster unless you're wearing a V-neck tee-shirt, cut so deep it practically shows off your navel.
- Sadly, hipsters tend to regard sports as "uncool," so relatively few of them have the kind of flesh that merits constant flashing.
Not from round here
Hipsters colonise areas they know little about, with scant regard for the existing community. Inner-city neighbourhoods like Hackney, Dalston or Shoreditch in East London become "centres of cool" when hipsters move in. They drive up rents and displace locals, who often struggle for jobs and housing. Hipsters, with their comfortable middle-class backgrounds, never have to struggle.
Smug
Hipsters consider themselves "hip" and cool. To others, they're simply smug. A hipster has no time for anything "mainstream" so any fashion, music or film that is remotely popular is instantly dismissed. Cracked lists a handy set of hipster sayings and what they mean, most of which translate as: "I think I am better than you."
Heavy specs
Hipsters love wearing heavy-framed spectacles, especially when they don't need glasses. They might even poke out the lenses and leave the frames empty, just because they can. Depending on your viewpoint, this is either witty, post-modern irony or empty headed posing from witless fashion victims, who have nothing better to do than sneer.
- Hipsters consider themselves "hip" and cool.
- Depending on your viewpoint, this is either witty, post-modern irony or empty headed posing from witless fashion victims, who have nothing better to do than sneer.
Look at me!
Anything that shouts, "Look at me! See how radical I am?" is irresistible to the hipster. To get in touch with your inner-hipster, ostentatiously wear your loafers without socks, your trilby hat indoors and your woolly scarf all summer long. Raid charity shops for items nobody wants. On anyone else, that garish tweed would look horrific. On a hipster it is, of course, ironic.
- Related: 10 Irritating "ironic" hipster fashion trends Anything that shouts, "Look at me!
- On anyone else, that garish tweed would look horrific.
Superficiality
Hipsters famously don't believe in labels. They reject the mainstream, but are often censorious about the "right" kind of must-have accessory. It's hard to credit someone's counter-culture credentials when their main obsession is shopping. Hipsters are often mocked as superficial, according to Professor Mark Greif, editor of the 2010 book "What Was the Hipster?"
- Hipsters famously don't believe in labels.
- They reject the mainstream, but are often censorious about the "right" kind of must-have accessory.
Music
A true hipster will sneer at any band you've heard of or admire. Hipsters value musicians for their obscurity rather than their sound. Music journalist Sam Wolfson worries too that the hipster's need for retro styles to mock may even be preventing new bands from ever breaking through.