Eulogy for the hipster

PL mourns the passing of an urban tribe who made village cool again

Mural of a hipster under attack in Lisbon, and a cafe sign

I loved the hipsters, and I miss them already. I respected the men who styled themselves on my grandpa and the women who stole all of life’s secrets from my grandma’s scrapbook. I thank them for craft beer, single origin coffee, pickles, ferments, laneways, sustainable ways and smoked meats. I’ll overlook their earnest, occasionally supercilious approach to life, because every correction involves some overcorrection. They were at the pointy edge of woke, which wasn’t always well received, but I’ll take that over the toxic alternative now to the fore. I’ll pass on their natural wines and forgive them that appalling trend that had everybody drinking from old jam jars, but I’ll mourn their passing, for passing I believe they are.

The hipster didn’t invent any of the above, but they embraced it, sometimes breathed life back into it, and they reminded us that life doesn’t need to be lived at breakneck speed or on an international scale.

The hipster made the village cool in a world that was more global than local. They were a reaction to Big Food, maybe even bigness itself. There was a call for life on a human scale. This Oxfam graphic illustrates how almost every item of food we purchase in a supermarket is owned by one of 10 corporations. Almost every beer we drink is produced by one of two brewing megaliths that own almost every brand.

The hipster rode fixed-gear bicycles with baskets on the handlebars and rummaged in op shops for clothes, they grew herbs in bathtubs, they made breads and brews, and abhorred waste. They made sustainability cool, and food an adventure.

The hipster’s urban tribe is, however, starting to vanish.

Here in Sydney’s Inner West, I observe the fracturing and fading in real time.