How the hipster economy went mainstream

The problem with talking about hipsterism is that the term is almost impossible to define. Hipsters, whether they can still be said to exist as a subculture at all at this point, famously like denying that they are hipsters. And while you could say that the figure of the hipster has become a sort of nebulous catch-all for everything we love to hate about the 21st century, liberal-arts educated, neighborhood-gentrifying creative class (see: Brad Troemel’s excellent “Hipster Report” for more on that tip), you can’t really study a group that doesn’t identify as such. 

That’s part of why Alessandro Gerosa, a researcher in cultural sociology at the University of Milan, wrote a book examining hipsterism from a different, potentially more use angle. It’s called The Hipster Economy: Taste and Authenticity in Late Modern Capitalism, and it’s a fascinating (and open source!) look at hipsterism as an economic phenomenon — one oriented around the consumption and production of cultural goods that stand out for their authenticity and distinctiveness, and in the process, sort of magically endow their owner with those same qualities.

Far from being “over,” he argues, the “hipster economy” has become dominant “aesthetic regime of consumption” in our time. But the book also goes deeper, drawing on Alessandro’s study of cocktail bar owners, food truck restaurateurs, and other neo-craft entrepreneurs to show how at bottom, the hipster economy is driven by a centuries-old impulse to carve out spaces of autonomy and self-determination within industrial capitalism. 

He joins us from Milan to discuss the surprisingly long history of our cultural obsession with the idea of authenticity, and how hipster taste is a complex interplay between authenticity and kitsch. We also get into how the hipster economy grew out of the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism, the impact of the hipster economy on cities, and how hipsterism isn’t just a reaction to the dominant culture, but also a reaction to the state of work.   

This podcast was edited by Ben Newman.

Download The Hipster Economy for free via UCL Press. (But also, if you are in Europe, you can pre-order a hard copy. U.S. readers will be able purchase the book starting in August, via The University of Chicago Press.

Follow Alessandro on Instagram and the platform formerly known as Twitter. 

Read more by Alessandro on his website.

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