Hipsterdom/Hipsterdumb?

I recently read this article: Hipsters and Low Tech

It's a great article and makes some very interesting points. One of the things, however, that I have been reflecting on again recently is the very nature of the word "hipster"... which is used throughout the article.

The word hipster often has a distinctly pejorative connotation that I think comes through in the article, and can be much more blatant in conversation in phrases such as "I hate hipsters," which I have heard on multiple occasions, or the current ads for some job search website that read "Hipster is not a job."

It is also an interesting aspect of "Hipsterdom" that many "hipsters" will deny the label...

A friend of mine spent years denying that he was into hipster music... "I just like music," he would say. The hipster in his mind were the pretentious kids who liked a type of music because it was "cool"...

So what defines a hipster? Is it clothes? Or stuff? Or attitude? Or something else?

the fetishization of low-tech is about the illusion of agency; it provides affirmation for the hipster whose identity is defined by the post-Modern imperative to be an individual, to be unique...The hipster aesthetic reflects an ideology of hyper-individualism, though this individualism is itself paradoxical because it is socially mandated.

This great quote (above) from the article, gets near the heart of the hipster critique.

I think what is at the root of most negative judgement levelled against hipsters is:

that there is something false and illusory about hipsters - that their fashion, toys, music are all accessories carefully arranged to create a particular image in order to establish a unique identity and thus fit in. One of the comments in the article used the term "posed authenticity"

It is this final goal of social acceptance through false social rebellion that is a primary target for critique.

If true, the critique of hipsters is also of a shallowness.

Hipsters, in their most shallow, are obsessive devotees to the "cult of cool"; at their best, setting trends and at the worst, chasing them, while pretentiously considering themselves above corporate western culture...

Now, let's go through the checklist:

• I have a vintage leather jacket from the '70s.
• I have a polaroid camera collection.
• I've read and listen to Zizek.
• I have a some plaid shirts.
• I shop at thrift stores.
• I love Wes Anderson movies.
• I have a tobacco pipe collection.
• I used to own a '71 VW bus.
• I cut my own hair.
• My jeans have become skinny.
• I have a beard.
• I own an Apple computer.

The only areas I fail the surface hipster test are in music and bike riding.

And I definitely resonate with a desire for the opt-out.

The hipster low-tech fantasy–"the dream of the 1890s"–is one of escape from the complex socio-technical systems that we are highly dependent on but have little control over. It is a fantasy of achieving the most radical expression of individual agency: the opt-out.

So yes, I will ruefully accept the label hipster if you would like to use it on me in whatever sense you feel applies. And I will acknowledge that some of the hipster critique is probably validly levelled against me.

I will acknowledge that I have escapist tendencies; that when I was in high school I wore baggy pants and swore that that would never change; that I find the complexities of modern life overwhelming and difficult to navigate. I am, by nature, an idealist, and struggle at gut level with compromise. I could be legitimately accused in participating in a false rebellion: I supported #Occupy but I didn't occupy anything. I am not a rebel. I am, at most, the image of a rebel. I like my parents...

How can there be real rebellion when rebellion is integrated into the system? I am looking for a radical middle but can there ever be anything radical about the middle?

Allow me a moment of self-indulgent hipster sympathy...
If everything is f#%ked, why not grow a moustache and bury yourself in anxiety reducing irony? 

I think that our contemporary culture can fairly be labelled escapist... which means that "all of us" on some level are aware of how screwed up things are...

Everyone is escaping; they are jet setting on holidays to Mexico; or they are playing massive multiplayer games online; or watching all of their favourite TV shows; or drowning themselves in drugs and alcohol; or work; or sex; or books; or sports. I think have effectively defined away reality...

So what are we escaping from? I think we are trying to escape the hard realities of mortality, not just that we will die but also a lack of meaning and the realization that life is short and we are small, but our problems and the problems of the world are large...

Do we hate hipsters because at both their best and worst they affirm our fear that meaning is an illusion? If the low tech fetish of hipster is not attacked, if those who would opt out, are not undermined as hypocrites, is it possible that the industrial illusion of progress might begin to crack and crumble?

Is the person we have, with disdain, labelled a hipster, fairly critiqued for 'posed authenticity'? Or is their ironic and eclectic choice of clothes, hairstyle, etc an explicit, intentional and acknowledged rendering of the inauthentic and posed nature of lives and interaction? Am I aware of the social forces that have constructed me and my wardrobe? Are you aware of the social forces that are moulding and shaping you? 

So I finish with a few questions:

• Does the word hipster have a pejorative connotation? Or is it neutral?
• In your opinion/experience, is a "hipster" primarily defined by: clothes, music, moustache, or a pretentious attitude?
• Are "hipsters" validly critiqued as hyper individualist? Why or why not?