Hipsters?

So I was it was late at night, and I was falling asleep in the back of my brother’s car as we drove home when I heard a song and I instantly really liked it. I wasn’t completely mesmerized or struck with complete love for the song, I just really liked it. It sounded beautiful and had some catchy sections. I looked up the song by asking around and googling some keywords and I eventually found it. I listened to and watched the music video for Lorde’s song “Royals” and it was just as I remembered it in the car. A nice beautiful sounding song sung by a surprisingly sixteen year-old singer (Which is the same age as me, and coincidentally makes me feel like a lazy no-talented whoever). I guess it’s the choir nerd in me, but I just love how pretty the chords in the song are, and the harmonization is spot on. That little arpeggio that appears in the chorus is perhaps my favorite part.

As is common when you hear a cool new song, you wanna talk about it to your friends. However, when I talked about it to my classmates I received a lot of criticism for only liking Lorde’s music now that it was on the radio and the fact that I hadn’t (still haven’t) listened to her other songs like “Tennis Court”. Yes, my readers, today we are going to talk about the sensitive, confusing, infuriating subject of hipsters.

I like to define hipsters as people who dislike popular media and prefer to listen to less-known things. I don’t mind hipsters; I do mind aggressive hipsters. What do I mean by aggressive hipsters? I mean the type of people who criticize you for being “so mainstream” or bragging that they “listened to that band before everyone else did”. I’m so sorry that I am not as all-knowing as you when it comes to indie bands or obscure songs and artists. I don’t have an ipod, iphone, itunes, headphones, boombox, cassette player, gramophone or any personal listening device. So I hear most of my music from what is played on the radio. Usually once a song is played on the radio every hipster despises it, and therefore despises my song choices.

I can sorta understand why there is that hipster mentality because I’ve experienced it before. I used to talk about how I had listened to “Party Rock Anthem” about half a year before it got really huge. When I look back now and wonder about why it felt so good to say “I listened to that before everyone else did” I realized that I did it because I felt like the fact I supported a song that then became popular validates my song choice, makes me feel almost responsible for them becoming popular, and actually angered me a little bit that everyone now was obsessed with what I considered sorta “my song”. We live in a time period where being new and next-generation is cool. So it feels kinda great when something you like suddenly is very popular and loved. It’s almost the same reason everybody loves an underdog story. The people you supported finally succeed and you almost feel like you were a part of it.

I honestly have no opinion on the hipster lifestyle with the fake glasses, beards, and irony. I don’t think that’s really what defines a hipster, and I don’t understand why people immediately label the guy with black rimmed glasses and a beard as a total hipster.

I listen to music for my enjoyment. While I do understand the reasons for becoming hipsterish, I don’t think you should ever make people feel bad for liking popular music. Thanks for reading