Occupy
Out of context: Reply #14
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- GeorgesIV0
saved from some reddit thread, agree with it or not, it give you some starting point to why there's a gag reflex when some words or ideas come up,
freen yourself my brethren
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This is a very young and pretty ill-conceived idea so please bear with me for a minute, i would love to start a discussion on this.So first off it should be noted that in the 1980's and 1990's subcultures and countercultures were becoming increasingly violent, aggressive and political. Many subcultures were turning into legitimate social movements or rebirthing preexisting social and political movements, anarchism is a great example, the punk and thrash scene completely revived, strengthened and popularized anarchism, which was seemingly dead in the states by the 1950's. It sounds silly but without music the protest of the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 (battle in seattle) wouldn't have happened, this is but one example of direct action taking place as a direct result of music and in my opinion this was the last serious rise against authoritarian power, capitalism and globalization. Music is an insanely powerful device used for both good and evil, the elites took notice of the growing social activism stemming from the music of the 60's and 70's, they also noticed music was creating extremely progressive and forward thinking subcultural movements amongst the youth of america at an alarming rate.
Hipster was a term used in the 1940's and it was more or less the same as calling someone bohemian, it was never used to bully or ridicule someone until the late 90's, in the coming years it was an extremely popular Buzz word amongst pretty much every main stream media outlet. Coincidentally i also noticed a huge push by the music industry to consolidate the music industry, entire music genres started to die in the late 1990's, artists were being payed to push and influence certain genres into a general style. A lot of talk about "watering down" the music industry was floating around in the early 2000's, well known record labels started dropping popular bands based on their musical genre. Major record labels and media conglomerates began purchasing major indie record labels, some of which they immediately shut down.
Around 2007 i personally started to notice the word "hipster" being thrown around as a control mechanism, if anyone did anything that could be considered odd or counterculture you were instantly labeled a hipster, it didn't matter which subculture you prescribed to. Anything contrary to the status quo was instantly laughed at and almost immediately followed by some vapid remark like "fucking hipsters". Great example, i used to read Adbusters a lot and one day my friend was over playing video games and he looks over with a smirk on his face and says "You and those hipster magazines".
Could the use of the word "hipster" as a control mechanism in combination with the death of indie genres really have a significant effect on subcultures and activism in america? I truthfully think so and i would love to hear everyones input on the subject. Also on this note everyone should really research the rap/hip hop industries relationship with the prison industrial complex...
- Any pigeon holing terms if used seriously have a stop thinking effect on people.yurimon
- fucking hipsters brought it on themselves ;)monospaced