Arbitrary Argument: Hipsters vs. Scenesters

By: Ruben Casas and Alex McElroy

Posted: 5/30/08

Hipsters

College is a time of transition, confusion and indecision - take it from the guy who's two years in with three different majors.

With all the choices for us impressionable students out there, it may be hard to decide which clique is right for you. Luckily there is a circle of elite members out there that have made the decision easy. When the question is: Who should I strive to hang out with? The answer is quite simple: Hipsters.

Although getting in with them might be a bit of a challenge - expect the Frigidaire on your first few attempts - don't let yourself give up, or maybe you should give up. See, making as a hipster will take a lot of hard work that you need to disguise as laziness coupled with a blasé attitude. If you strive to make it as a hipster, be ready to be disregarded. I mean, those people are fresh, er deck. One look at their hair - greased into a sea of cowlicks as they wait in line at American Apparel, ready to forge their parent's signature on the Amex - lets you know that a lot of work goes into looking that nonchalant.

Now, without further ado, here is the surefire way to gain access into the lifestyle, or more fitting, the leisure style that is the Hipster.

According to all the information out there, Hipsters need to be in ideal shape, where ideal means thin or stick figure-esque. This is the easy way to weed out those who say they are determined and those who truly are; it's also a way to weed out people with healthy weights (c'mon Mr. 12 Percent Body Fat who feels good about how he looks, there's no need for you here). Statistics say that Hipsters should have less than two percent body fat. If this doesn't sound like something you wish to partake in well, you're lazy. It's not like you need to do anything, you just need to sit around and stare at the food you can't eat. No working out involved. Now for those who are still with me, let's move on.

The most important part about being a Hipster is the lingo. It will take some getting used to at first, but once you realize that talking like a moron can be fun and give you friends you never thought you'd have, you'll be much more willing to participate. Instead of calling that girl who refused to make out with you just because you write for the Barometer a skank, call her a "chipper." Don't call your mom to tell her that you need more beer money on your cell phone; call her on your "piece." This all may sound redundant and a little trite, but it is truly anything but, especially if you're a "prado" with a lot working against you.

So if you get those aspects down, there is one more thing left to accomplish: the effort. This can be the most challenging part of becoming a Hipster. There's a fine line between putting in just enough effort to look deck and nowhere near the amount where you're actually trying. Learning to walk this tight rope can be very challenging, but is incredibly necessary.

Hipsters can smell posers like scenesters can smell the posers who are actually depressed, not just morbid over the impending two-week loss of their Xbox 360 because they didn't call mommy to let her know the movie was running late.

So my advice to you is be careful, don't show any emotion as the Hipsters you covet let you in to their circle. Nod, maybe shake your head when they give the invite, but whatever you do, don't thank them. It's the surefire way to get sent back to where you were: leaning against the glass window of Starbucks, shivering while internally judging everyone around you. If you're forced to return to this world, shunned by the Hipsters to forever walk as a callous, rail-thin mope - then you're nothing more than a scenester. And there's nothing more in than that.

Scenesters

Unlike members of other post-modern subculture social groups (i.e. emo kids, hipsters), the scenester is s/he who most heavily relies on a fashion aesthetic to announce his or her adherence to a particular "scene," most often a musical one, though the role of music cannot be underemphasized enough for a scenester.

Ironically (and perhaps paradoxically), a good or even sensible taste in music is not requisite to belonging or identifying with a particular scene. In fact, current trends (and the research that supports it) would indicate that music and music appreciation plays almost no role in the scenester "scene," and that if music shows weren't a convenient gathering of several hundred people in which to be seen and to see, music would be completely irrelevant to the scenester. Sartorial image, combined with as many pairs of eyes as possible to consume that image, is paramount to the scenester. Therefore a band is only as good as the size of the crowd it draws. Never mind how good or excruciatingly derivative the music is.

And yet, for some unexplainable reason, the music most closely related with scenesters is ear-splittingly horrible, or in the very least, indistinguishable from every other band that draws an inordinate amount of people obsessed with the ready-availability of at least 50 sets of eyes hungry to see and be seen.

One cannot fault all scenesters for the music that plays in the background as hundreds of eyes look this way, then that way, then this way again, meeting his gaze this time, averting hers that time ... to then talk about it on the way to second period Bio (or your Tuesday/Thursday Spanish class - in case you haven't heard that you're effectively retired from the "scene" on your 18th birthday).

The scenester deserves to be commended over all other post-modern social groups for his/her willingness to transparently demonstrate how the social high school experiment of the 1990s in which one dressed in all black or wore make up to show just how "un-cliquish" one was summarily failed. The scenester proudly announces, if nothing more than by standing in the venue's back wall hungry for your look, that s/he's exactly like you and every single other person here (except the parents sitting in the balcony section who are already way drunk, and it's only the second song in the set), and together you're part of the biggest clique, like, ever.

Alex McElroy & Ruben Casas

diversions@dailybarometer.com