I am not a hipster

Sometime last fall, I tried to explain to our churches young adult group what makes someone a hipster. Which, is a very difficult task. I tried to explain the expropriation of other cultures (working class symbols like PBR and v-neck shirts among non-working class youth), the intentional attempt to look a certain kind of lower-class (tailored Goodwill t-shirts and apartments in places like Williamsburg and Wicker Park) and an embrace of independent, unknown artistic expression (“I like ‘x’ band. You’ve probably never heard of them.”).

The mistake I made was that I always described them as always denying that they are, indeed hipsters. And so, our group began asking if I, with my ratty button up shirts and Jeans, my sometimes shaggy beard, and my beaten up leather shoes, am a hipster.

Maybe you already see why this is a problem. I am not a hipster. Which would end the discussion, if I hadn’t mention that hipster always deny that they are hipsters. All of this was compounded when a few of us were having dinner at one of my favorite gastro-pubs (Angel’s Trumpet Ale House….you’ve probably never heard of it) and not one, but two people playing a homemade version of “hipster bingo” approached me to fill in the square for “hipster beard.”

Ok, I really, really mean this. I am not a hipster. And I’m not saying that as a hipster denial to keep up my hipster “cred.”

If my clothes look like I just bought them at a goodwill, it’s probably because I’ve been wearing the same clothes for the last decade, and need to make a trip to the store to buy something new. I’ve been wearing flannel since high school because it’s really comfortable. I have a beard because I hate razor. But…this brings up the place where I sort of agree with the stereotypical hipster lifestyle: I don’t want to be called a hipster lest I misrepresent someone else’s cultural identity.

I grew up in a stereotypical, late 20th century suburb. Within 5 miles of our house there were 5 Super-Walmarts, and on every corner there were at least 2 gas stations and a Walgreens Pharmacy. I started drinking coffee at a Starbucks, where I could order the latest Italian-named, over sugared frozen espresso drink. Our house, which was purchased and built when I was 12, was one of 4 models in our neighborhood, which was built in place of an orange orchard, and I remember our family sitting down to decide between about 7 paint colors and 3 roof tile colors.

When I got to college and discovered independently owned mom-and-pop shops and local, hip coffee joints, I became enamored. There was something so authentic about something that was created by local individuals that you could talk to, rather than some board room of wealthy executives hundreds of miles away. Independent and local became synonymous with “authentic.”

Growing up in the world of mass produced community (Applebee’s “eating good in the neighborhood” or Walmart’s “neighborhood markets.”) has led me to be wary of of attempts to present something behind carefully constructed exterior. When I walk into a Starbucks, I’m immediately drawn to the visible pixels in the artwork on the walls. Conversely, there’s something comforting about hiding behind a cappuccino and a pastry at a coffeehouse where the owner prepares your drink, asks how you are, wonders where you’re from, etc.

Mass production requires that research be conducted, that the product be hid behind layers of carefully researched, surveyed, controlled exteriors. It’s not just a cup of coffee, it’s an experience which has to be tailored to the lowest common denominator of American cultural life. If something represents only a particular communities tastes, then the product feels out of place anywhere else.

I’m not sure if this is what drives “hipster” culture towards denial of any cultural identity. I don’t know if this is what drives the support of “indie” leanings. I’m not sure if this is even what “authentic” is, if anything could actually achieve the status of belonging exclusively to any one group, any one neighborhood, any one city. (every city does, after all, have locally own coffee shops that look roughly the same, with similar drinks, with art on the walls, with ratty-yet-comfortable furniture)

What I know is that I desire “authenticity,” even if I can’t describe it. Even as it takes on a sort of mythological status, and is lost as soon as it’s adapted by larger groups of people in the media age. I desire “authenticity,” even if I’m not quite sure it actually exists.

Jumping off the mountain

Monday, I hiked up Shaw Butte, a peak in the North Phoenix Mountains, which rises out of the earth just north of downtown Phoenix. It’s a great date spot (Rachel is visiting!) but while I expected a pretty view of the city, we walked in on something completely different altogether. At the top of the mountain, preparing to lift off, was a guy wearing a large parachute, and what looked like a duffle bag on his back. Moments after we reached the top, we watched a paraglider lift off the ground, being pulled into the air by the wind.

Not too long after, another person grabbed hold of a hang-glider and started prepping for his own lift-off. Moments later he literally (not joking) jumped off the mountain. The wind (and probably his falling) quickly filled the wings of the glider, and lifted him into the sky.

I learned pretty quickly that there are at least two ways to think about hang-gliding/paragliding.

The first was what I hear: moments before the hang-glider lifted off, I hear one of the guys on the ground coordinating say that sometimes, if the wind is too gusty, it will lift the glider, and then quickly blow back into the mountain, slamming whoever it is flying into the rocks, probably creating a lot of hurt and pain.

I also hear the guy who stayed on the ground to coordinate describe the takeoff of the hang-glider as “a little shaky.” Once in the air he flew several miles, pretty quickly, and seemed to have it down. So the idea that this guy, who appeared to know what he was doing, would botch the takeoff makes me even more apprehensive about my future participation in the sport.

And then there was Rachel’s response: “How do I do this?!?!?!”

I’ve never been much of a risk taker, and what this means besides not being prone to adventure sports like paragliding, is that I spend a lot of time thinking things through, measuring consequences and expected outcomes, weighing risk and possibility, etc. etc. to the point where I talk myself out of participating.

This Sunday we’re reading Isaiah 65:17-25 in church (because when you’re preaching, you get to use whatever you want). The passage begins with the powerful words “For I am about to create a new heavens and a new Earth…” powerful language that rings of transformation. It’s the kind of language that I usually read and think “that would be nice, but the world doesn’t just change; it’s burdened by itself, by it’s realities, by it’s evils.”

And then, Isaiah, as Isaiah does so often, continues verse 17 with “the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.”

Risk, whether paragliding or transforming the world, requires a forgetfulness. It requires pushing aside what we know about what can go wrong because we’ve seen it before, and instead turning to what can go right not becuase of what we’ve seen before, but because of what can happen.

Okay, so I’m not jumping off a mountain anytime soon. Paragliding and hang-gliding, and whatever are still terrifying.

But I’d like to forget that the world never changes because of how things have always been.

Also, a quick shout out to International Women’s day (and feminists everywhere):