The definitive explainer on the hipster has eluded our culture. We have taken on this task, as many others have in the realm of cultural studies.Christy Wompole, a professor at Princeton University, took this task on recently with our partner The New York Times. Her piece attracted hundreds of comments. People reacted negatively and positively to her analysis of why irony has pervaded our culture and why the hipster seems to be the edification of irony in post-modern culture.We decided to assemble a small panel of people who either see themselves as hipsters or get accused of being hipsters. We wanted to see what they think about the cultural meme of hipster identity today and where they fit in.Andy Mills is an associate producer WNYC’s Radiolab, a radio program produced here at WNYC, which is pretty popular among hipsters according to our unscientific research.Twenty-seven-year-old Elspeth MacMillan works in marketing in Portland, Oregon, the city made famous by the hipster mockery show Portlandia.
Twenty-nine year-old Tyler Pratt, a student at Southwestern University and an intern at KUT Austin in Texas, says sincereity is far from dead.