The Hipster Paradox

Here's something that's always bothered me. Hipsters. And their mentality in general. I'm not just talking about the morons who just do random, illogical things (i.e. the glasses, the ever-present scarf, the plaid, etc.). No, I'm talking about the world at large.

There's been a running joke on the internet for a while now about hipsters and almost everything being too “mainstream” for them. My gripe with this whole deal is that being hipster is the mainstream thing nowadays. This simple fact pretty much blows everything about them in general out of the water. If the point of being hipster is being different then why the heck are you a hipster if being one is a popular, common thing to do? The real hipsters would quit as that's the different thing to do, and if they're all really what they say they are then we'd have no problems whatsoever. But alas they're all too busy being commonplace to notice.

Now, I'm not really here to yak about hipsters, something I'll admit I actually barely know anything about, simply because the whole thing seemed moronic to begin with. The thing here I want to talk about is us. The world. As a whole.

How often do you hear the phrase, “I'm not like other guys/girls/people.”? How often do you hear the phrase, “I'm exactly like other guys/girls/people.”? This is my point here. The good news is that the utterance of the first phrase at least indicates a recognition of the fact that being like the stereotypical depiction of people (think media) is not desirable in the least. The bad news is that, well, the world is still a stupid place. Allow me to explain.

Like I alluded to in the previous paragraph very rarely will anyone freely admit to being the stereotype maker in any serious sense. Granted you'll have people joke about it but let's be honest; when people joke about being the stereotype all they're really trying to do is distance themselves from the stereotype. But now, with so many people trying to break away from the stereotype (I've said that word a lot....) breaking away is becoming the new norm. A few years ago hearing someone say “I'm not like other guys/girls/people.” would be a welcome statement (for me). Now, unless they provide good, reasonable proof to support their claim I'll not believe them for a moment. But, we are back to the original problem; the paradox.

Suppose that the person making this claim really has observed the world as a whole, noticed patterns in human behavior, saw where the problems lay and carefully removed these problem areas from their personality. Certainly they could truly claim to “not be like other people.”, right? But, what about the people who just take whatever minor quirk they have, amplify it, and then claim “I'm not like other....”? This is such a commonplace thing to do, all they really do is make themselves more like other people. The whole thing basically is that there was a mass movement to get away from the norm, but now being away from the norm has become the new norm. Everyone thinks they are special, but, in the words of Syndrome (modified), if everyone is special, no one is. To an extent of course...