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Why is everyone such a hipster?

edited December 2009 in General
Well, why IS everyone such a hipster?
And why does everyone have such crap taste in music?
I feel so out of place in my own generation. It seems like now people's biggest concerns are finding skinny jeans and ipods and iphones and going to Beyonce or the Jonas Brothers or emo concerts. Wtf?
I wasn't even alive in the late 70s/80s but I miss the day when people just let their hair grow long instead of buying hair spray and gel and product and crap. I miss hippies who didn't feel the need to cover their faces in make up. I miss thrash metal music with its incredible drum fills and insanely tight guitar riffs and the innovative vocals, from people like Bobby Blitz who sounded like hag-witches, to Dave Mustaine with his aliens-conspiracy-paranoia, to Slayer to all the amazing German bands.
Why does everything suck in this generation?

Comments

  • edited December 2009
    Meh. My heart belongs in the 90s. A lot of music nowadays is autotuned which is super annoying... but I can't hate this generation because Lady Gaga is OWNING it right now. Love her.
  • edited December 2009
    Lady Gaga is "owning it"?? Okay, she can play the same piano like Norah Jones or whoever. She can sing, just like Christina Aguilera or Beyonce or whatever. But so what? Why is Lady Gaga really famous? Because she wears glitter all over her face and acts like a psychopath. Is that really a skill? Didn't Madonna already do that? Or Cher?
    I am most disillusioned. When I go on the bus, I see men with eyeliner and scarves, wearing cologne. I see women with pink nail polish and black nail polish and Hello Kitty pencil cases... and I wonder... WHY?!?!?
  • edited December 2009
    The worst thing I think is that nothing has any real meaning. I mean, in the past, Jimi Hendrix revolutionized how people play guitar. He practically invented distortion. People protested Nam so much that America actually admitted defeat, but now what? We keep sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, year after year after year, and are there any protest on campus? No. We're too worried about finals. Wave after wave of innovation... the computer, the pill, the condom, the electric guitar. And now, what? Now the only things that get invented are 'accessories' and 'upgrades'.
  • edited December 2009
    you my dear friend.. put too much heart into things won't and shouldn't concern you..=)
  • edited December 2009
    Please. Lady Gaga is so much more than that. The fact that she squashed Madonna's whole career into one single year is amazing. Yes, she's got amazing vocals and sings great acapellas and is extremely talented in playing piano. She's just the whole package and more -- she takes everything and anything to the extreme and for me, it's about time someone did this because everything right now seems like it has already been done.

    And you've got to admit, her outfits are pretty ridiculous -- how could you not like her?! :)

    But pleeease don't relate Lady Gaga with emo music or being "scene".
  • edited December 2009
    siuying;62537 said:
    you my dear friend.. put too much heart into things won't and shouldn't concern you..
    Are you talking to kinky or me?
    Either way, "things that shouldn't concern you"? The state of the generation shouldn't be of concern? It's everything that is on TV, on the radio, in stores, in politics, and in the world. How can it not be of concern?
    My whole point is that:
    - there is too MUCH concern about fashion.. skinny jeans and emo music and eyeliner and other makeup and fake tanning and bling and ipods and iphones
    - there is too LITTLE concern for music, literature, art, the environment, animals, politics, and humanity.
    What was the biggest story on the news this week - incl. The Today Show, MSNBC, local news, and so on? TIGER WOODS! WTF?!?!??! Talk about dumbing everyone down.
  • edited December 2009
    Surely you have better things to worry about, yes?
  • edited December 2009
    oh i was talking to you alright..

    and why should the state of the generation be a concern of yours? are you telling me you attempt to take on the responsibility of looking after the well being of this generation? i'd applaud you if you have that thought but it's an impossible feat..=)

    and yes.. the mainstream has been saturated with fashion.. skinny jeans.. emo music.. etc.. you name it.. but so what? music.. literature.. art are still being advanced and preserved.. albeit to a lesser degree... if people choose to live this way then so be it.. there's no need to get concerned about other people's well being when they're not even looking after their own..

    so tiger woods maybe the biggest news story.. what's it to you? do you need to concern yourself with mr. woods and what he maybe doing with his philandering ways?

    i could understand if this is a rant post.. but if not.. just let it be..
  • edited December 2009
    Well I guess it is a rant piece then.
  • edited December 2009
    lol.. we all have our days..:tongue:
  • edited December 2009
    siuying;62545 said:
    lol.. we all have our days..:tongue:
    I suppose. I just get the feeling that previous generations did so much, and now we do so little (and complain more). Myself included.
    I know my grandpa spent his childhood building radios and electrical circuits from scratch, learned 11 different languages, and in his 70s learned programming for computers (C++ and so on). Back in the good old days, before technology took over, doing smart stuff to keep yourself entertained was pretty much standard. But now, keeping yourself entertained means watching movies like the Transformers ......
  • edited December 2009
    siuying;62543 said:

    and why should the state of the generation be a concern of yours? are you telling me you attempt to take on the responsibility of looking after the well being of this generation? i'd applaud you if you have that thought but it's an impossible feat..=)
    That was a foolish thing to say. Are you saying that we should all be apathetic drones and not care for anything happening outside of our own lives? Yeah, a lot of "news" is just celebrity dribble, but that doesn't mean we should not be socially aware.

    We should all care for the state of our generation. When the baby boomers do die off it's going to be people from our generation that will be politicians, doctors and so on. We are all basically going to be shafted and will have to deal with a lot of the leftover problems. I do agree with the second part of your post though.

    As for the OP, you have no right to judge people based on the music they listen to. If they like Lady Gaga, so be it. You can listen to all the Hendrix you want, but music is no longer a medium to spread politics if you ask me. Back than, it was one of the only ways to get people to gather and send them a message. Now you can sit comfortably at your computer and read some random blog. I listen to rap, does that mean I'm wasting my life?
  • edited December 2009
    no that was not what i said.. although i don't have a problem with people who like to be apathetic drones.. what i'm saying is that people should concern themselves with things that they can change and have control over.. obviously we do not have control over the state of the generation.. nor can one person change the habits and trends of the generation.. it's a generation we're talking about here.. a population.. you should know how difficult.. if not impossible it is to change someone's views if they don't see things in the same light as you.. now apply this to population of people...

    is it all that foolish to question if the state of a generation should be a concern of one person when it should be a concern of many more? my question still remains to be so.. what if the rest of the generation doesn't care? what of it and what can you do besides sit and watch them continue to dumb themselves down?
  • edited December 2009
    Thanatos;62539 said:
    Are you talking to kinky or me?
    Either way, "things that shouldn't concern you"? The state of the generation shouldn't be of concern? It's everything that is on TV, on the radio, in stores, in politics, and in the world. How can it not be of concern?
    My whole point is that:
    - there is too MUCH concern about fashion.. skinny jeans and emo music and eyeliner and other makeup and fake tanning and bling and ipods and iphones
    - there is too LITTLE concern for music, literature, art, the environment, animals, politics, and humanity.
    What was the biggest story on the news this week - incl. The Today Show, MSNBC, local news, and so on? TIGER WOODS! WTF?!?!??! Talk about dumbing everyone down.
    Uh... you realize that the 70's were more or less the same thing right?

    Only instead of skinny jeans and eyeliners, it was clown make up and hair metal and dressing up like queens.

    And too little concern for music, literature, art and the environment?

    Are you fucking kidding me? There is an explosion of art in this and age, much more so than the 70's or 80's. This is the indie generation where anyone can produce anything, and sure, most of them are utter crap, but in the rough lies more than a handful of extremely talented folks who would have never survived in those old archaic days of corporate control of the arts.

    Also, don't get me started on the environment. You can't walk a step in this society without having environmental assholes shoving their crap in your face. EVERYONE is doing the whole green fad.
  • edited December 2009
    Glitter and make up was a thing of the past as well. I'm sure names like Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, KISS should pop up when you think of previously famous groups who used a whole lot of make up and decor. Hell, if you want to talk about extreme outfits, you can even look at Queen, those guys were extreme with their spandex and such.

    As for literature within music, the current generation is much more artistic in terms of their lyrics (well, maybe aside from rap). Previous generation songs were always straight to the point, not much sprucing up of the language. Not like there is anything wrong with it, though. Definitely there is a lot of overlap between generations.
  • edited December 2009
    I say it's mostly Apple's fault. Apple is the very definition of Hipster and Hipster culture.

    Apple fanboys and their fucking turtlenecks, tight jeans, Starbucks coffee, hipster shades and of course, the Mac.
  • edited December 2009
    ikkaku;62586 said:

    As for literature within music, the current generation is much more artistic in terms of their lyrics (well, maybe aside from rap). Previous generation songs were always straight to the point, not much sprucing up of the language. Not like there is anything wrong with it, though. Definitely there is a lot of overlap between generations.
    I beg to differ. Were Iron Maiden's songs "straight to the point"?
    Bruce Dickinson paid tribute to Coleridge with 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', Aces High tells the story of a British RAF pilot fighting against the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, and as for their album Piece of Mind:
    To Tame a Land" is based on Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune. "The Trooper" is inspired by Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade. "Still Life" is inspired by fantasy/horror writer Clark Ashton Smith's pre-World War II short story Genius Loci. Other inspirations include "Where Eagles Dare", a film by Brian G. Hutton, and screenplay & novel by Alistair MacLean; "Quest for Fire", based on the film by Jean-Jacques Annaud; the writer G. K. Chesterton who is quoted at the beginning of "Revelations", and "Sun and Steel", based on Japanese writer Mishima's eponymous essay about samurai legend Miyamoto Musashi. More exotic influences include Greek mythology, albeit slightly altered for "Flight of Icarus". Aleister Crowley influenced a good piece of the remaining lyrics of "Revelations," which was written by Dickinson.

    I would challenge you to find a single indie band who can lyrically channel everything from sci-fi authors to British World War 2 history to commentaries on prostitution to Edgar Allan Poe to Coleridge, from Greek mythology to Satanism to Japanese history.
  • edited December 2009
    Makall;62592 said:
    I say it's mostly Apple's fault. Apple is the very definition of Hipster and Hipster culture.

    Apple fanboys and their fucking turtlenecks, tight jeans, Starbucks coffee, hipster shades and of course, the Mac.
    Haha I guess so. I actually dislike and avoid anything made by Apple, including macs, simply BECAUSE of the culture associated with it. Maybe that's a naive foolish thing to do, but I think the fact that everyone is plugged in 24/7 to their ipods, their iphones, and their laptops, and then in their time off go SHOPPING for new ipods, iphones, clothes, laptops, accessories..................is really depressing.
  • edited December 2009
    Thanatos;62593 said:

    I would challenge you to find a single indie band who can lyrically channel everything from sci-fi authors to British World War 2 history to commentaries on prostitution to Edgar Allan Poe to Coleridge, from Greek mythology to Satanism to Japanese history.
    There are a lot of bands that talk about stuff like that. Radiohead and Muse are two "Indie" (If you want to call them that) bands just off the top of my head that have songs that are full of allusions to all sorts of things. And they are definitely not alone
  • edited December 2009
    Apple is the very definition of Hipster and Hipster culture.
    Really? I thought Apple was its own culture, and that "hipsters" were Pitchfork-reading American Apparel employees who wear glasses from the 50's and ride their ancient fixed-gear bicycles down Commercial Drive.


    Iron Maiden is great (saw them front-row in Seattle), but I don't think it's really fair to demand that new bands, even ANY new band, live up to their 30+ year career.
  • edited December 2009
    Thanatos;62593 said:
    I would challenge you to find a single indie band who can lyrically channel everything from sci-fi authors to British World War 2 history to commentaries on prostitution to Edgar Allan Poe to Coleridge, from Greek mythology to Satanism to Japanese history.
    You mentioned Edgar Allen Poe, your opinion is now moot.

    Fuck that god damn hack.
  • edited December 2009
    I have very few bands that I like that began before the 2000s. Only ones I can think of off the top of my head are Radiohead and Queen.

    This decade brought me my favourite band of all time and my favourite album of all time (Thrice and their album Vheissu) so I have no problems with this decade music-wise.
  • edited December 2009
    http://www.matthewgood.org/

    ^^ there's one modern artist who cares - at least, he whines about society a lot on his blog.
  • edited December 2009
    Thanatos;62534 said:
    The worst thing I think is that nothing has any real meaning. I mean, in the past, Jimi Hendrix revolutionized how people play guitar. He practically invented distortion. People protested Nam so much that America actually admitted defeat, but now what? We keep sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, year after year after year, and are there any protest on campus? No. We're too worried about finals. Wave after wave of innovation... the computer, the pill, the condom, the electric guitar. And now, what? Now the only things that get invented are 'accessories' and 'upgrades'.
    Are you kidding me? No more inventions? Technology is growing at an exponential rate. Few things off the top of my head: NASA Ares rocket, telescope for invisible stars, AIDS vaccination, electric eye, advancement in stem cell research, vertical farming, YouTube, Facebook, LHC, etc. etc. We land on fucking Mars back in 2004. We get to connect with people we hate back in high school with a click of a button. Could we do that back in the 90's? No way. We have to go back to our old childhood town and find them pumping gas in the gas station.

    Also, Nam is way different from Iraq/Afghanistan. Back then the government didn't understand the importance of censorship. They also introduced a draft that forced rich yuppies' kids to go to war. The government doesn't give a fuck about poor people and the middle class. You think the US government stopped the because of hippies and their protest? Fuck no, it was the rich and elites. People on campuses knows this. It's apathy.

    Sure there a lot of stupid shit going on with our generation, but look around you. There's a paradigm shift going on in our current generation. It's a slow process, but it's happening. We have access to the world's most democratic medium. Do you remember what happened after the Iranian election? Who led the movement? That's right, we did. There are more shifts that's occurring, and it's our generation that's leading it. Legalization of marijuana? Gay rights? Separation of church and state? Net neutrality? Copenhagen? We're at a point where our generation is realizing that the American dream is fabricated bullshit, the federal reserve is the world's greatest scam, politicians are parasites, news media aren't "news" and that we're all tied down by the great almighty dollar.

    Ignore Hannah Montanana, or Joombas brothers or people who create their identify and self-worth around a corporate logo. Look at the big picture. It's an amazing time to be alive and to be part of it all.

    And I disagree siuying, we shouldn't let it be. Generation X screwed us over. We should find a way to harvest their organs and turn them into soylent green. Or take away their crossword puzzles. That'll show them.

    Oh and Nickleback was recently named the greatest band of this decade. Hmmm...ya on a second thought, fuck our generation.
  • edited December 2009
    Somebody needs to do something about Apple.

    They also make the crappiest mouses in existence. Every single scroll wheel on every single of the Mac mouses on campus, can NOT scroll down. They break way too easily.

    So much for "Apple Quality".

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