The Irony of Hipster Irony: A Philosophical Pushback from an Early Millennial

I spend a great deal of time thinking and writing about figurative language. As a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature, the focus of my dissertation is the function and transformation of "allegoresis" in the Middle Ages, particularly on the influence of exegesis on a number of central creative texts (more on this later :) ). Aelius Donatus (c. 400 CE) in his "major" work on rhetoric the Ars maior writes that there are thirteen tropes: metaphor, catachresis, metalepsis, antonomasia, epitheton, synecdoche, onomatopoeia, periphrasis, hyperbaton, hyperbole, allegory, homoesis. Notably, irony is not among them, but perhaps it is implied by another "trope"--or even the very category itself.

Figures of speech are not just devices used by writers and artists to convey complex ideas, rather they also reflect broader cultural values. For example, one might suggest that assuming figurative language is only allegorical --as many Christian exegetes did in the Middle Ages-- is to denigrate other dimensions of a word or literary act. Though medieval exegesis tended to employ a fourfold method of understanding texts (that is, "literal," "allegorical," "moral," and "anagogical"), certain exegetes were clearly partial to one over the other. Often exegetes with an allegorical bent betrayed a discomfort with the literal subject matter of a text, but they might have been forced to reconcile that discomfort with the canonical status of said text--as in the case of the Book of Ecclesiastes or the Song of Songs, that is, biblical texts with messages that seemingly contradict certain aspects of other works in the Bible but were nevertheless seen as the word of God. In sum, the choice of device or rhetorical figure to which an age gravitates reflects the cultural values of that age as well as the very challenges to those values.

Now, from the sublime to the nauseatingly ordinary and increasingly ubiquitous: The Hipster.

In our time, irony is the great figurative stance. Everyone notes the cultural ascendancy of the hipster with his/her thick-rimmed glasses, nautical tattoos, and the seemingly affected love of all things kitsch, ugly, or formerly "uncool." Although I am by generational affiliation a millennial (born in 1983), I have always held a particular affinity for the 90's. I grew up on MTV, the Gesamtkunstwerk of the 90's music video, Kurt Loder, Kurt Cobain, disaffected slackerism, etc. Although I am an old millennial, I am still a millennial and not a Gen Xer (most sociologists set the birth cutoff at 1981 as a reflection of one's coming of age during the ascendancy of the Internet). Nevertheless, I would call myself a "90's hipster"-- a person who loved NYC when it was still dodgy (although I was a mere preteen/teen during the Giuliani years when it was being cleaned up), likes his guitar with loads of distortion, and would rather smash a mandolin and burn it along with that stupid ascot rather than go to a Mumford and Sons concert.

To what might I attribute my distaste of contemporary hipsterdom, besides a visceral dislike of their aesthetics (aside from fixed-gear bicycles, which I adore and prefer for city riding)?

In a bolt of lucidity, it finally dawned on me: it is the hipster's affected use of irony as a way of life, a posture, and not as a tool by which one determines authenticity that infuriates me about him. This calls for explanation. Whereas for the nineties "alternative" folk and the Gen X crowd irony was largely employed as a way of critiquing hypocrisy and behaviors viewed as inauthentic, contemporary ironic postures strike me as embracing irony for irony's sake.

Irony, formerly a means and not an end, has become a value in and of itself and not a means by which one can humorously critique values seen as problematical, hypocritical, mean, or stupid. For better or worse, Generation Xers--perhaps like pre-sell out Baby-Boomers--fetishized authenticity; the hipster millennials seem to have rejected it as a category. They seem to assert that if nothing is authentic to begin with, there is no problem with completely rejecting authenticity and becoming an artisan soap manufacturer or knitting grandma scarves in pricey bars just to draw the attention of other inauthentic folks who won't understand anyway. And look, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with knitting grandma scarves...quite the contrary! If you like knitting grandma scarves then by all means, knit away! (Someone has to carry the torch, and you might as well start now as you will one day be a grandmother/grandfather and need to have that skill set.) But the problem as I see it is that most hipsters knit grandma scarves and get nautical tattoos because of its inherent kitsch value and not necessarily because they personally like these things. Thus, according to hipster logic, it's ironic and generally thought of as lame, hence it must be done to prove some kind of an absent point.

I believe that the label of "hipster" needs to be reappropriated from this herd of followers with a dubious and outdated aesthetic. True "hipsters" are idiosyncratic individuals who pursue their bizarre, countercultural, or contrarian interests whether or not anyone else notices or cares, whether anyone else likes those interests or not. The individualistic, bohemian hipster will always hold a hallowed place in my heart: El Greco, Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, David Bowie, Lautréamont, Allen Ginsberg, Jean Toomer, Schopenhauer, Dante, Dalì, Débussy, Beethoven, and Jeff Buckley, just to name a few. True hipsters break the mold (as each of us should) and don't just try to squeeze into the most deformed cast that someone else has left in order to be ironic.

Being a "Yes"

Although as part of Elul Zman--that time of the Jewish calendar that precedes the New Year and is marked by intense self-reflection--I have not decided to become fully religiously observant again, I have decided to take up a practice for the next thirty days that I have frequently undertaken in my life. Namely, "to be a yes." My yoga teachers have frequently talked about this, and I think my penchant for cynicism and caviling is often ultimately at my own expense--as Wallace Stevens wrote "disillusion as the last illusion." Thus, I am going to literalize this practice, à la the mediocre Jim Carey film from number of years ago, and essentially say "yes" to any opportunity, request, or plea that comes my way in the next thirty days (within reason). So, here's your own chance to take advantage :)