October 8, 2010
hipsterism deconstructed
It’s in the context of a book review about Christian hipsters (yes, there is such a thing), but the analysis applies to the tension in all hipsterdom, religious or not:
For the small tribe of religiously devoted BMX freestylers, for whom riding was a way of life, there was nothing more grating or irritating than an even larger tribe that grew up around us: the tribe of posers—that band of kids who were taken more with the accessories than the experience. The posers were the group of rich kids who had all the best equipment, wore the latest shoes, sported the latest styles, and then generally spent their time sitting on the sidelines while the rest of us actually rode our bikes. They would scramble their bikes to the top of the ramp, but never actually drop in for a round. They’d be using all the right lingo on the deck of the pool, but never inch over the coping. They’d mull around the parking lot talking a big game, but never actually ride. They didn’t really want to ride; they were just after a look, an identity by association.
I invoke this scene because I think poser is a relevant, important term missing from Brett McCracken’s lexicon in Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide. And in very important ways, McCracken’s project is lexical. He spends several preparatory chapters amassing a catalog of terms that will be regularly used in the book: cool, hip, trendy, fashionable, relevant, savvy, stylish, even “supercool.” But because this lexicon doesn’t include poser, McCracken’s analysis ends up being reductionistic: he thinks anyone who looks like a “hipster” is really just trying to be “cool.” This, I think, tells us more about Mr. McCracken than it does about so-called hipster Christianity.
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I always cringe a little when people start talking about “posers”. Sure, some people get into things because it’s the thing to do. And often, those same people will spend a lot of money just to “fit in”. But for me, calling someone a poser is the same as saying, “I was into Green Day when they released Kerplunk.” Nobody cares.
You could even argue, in the case of skateboarding and BMX, that posers are the reason cities build parks with things like ramps and pools.
I hear what you are saying, but I would frame it this way: nobody cares except the people who are actually posing which, I think, is (the other) Smith’s point.
Nobody cares except the people who are posing and the people who write, read, and talk endlessly about posers.
Thankfully, James Smith doesn’t endlessly talk about them. His project is completely different than McCracken’s.
[...] of the “movement” to find common threads. It’s core is very reminiscent of Smith’s review of McCraken’s Hipster Christianity, the Greif’s “rebel consumer” is Smith’s hipster as poseur: Through both [...]