Hipster

A hipster is a person who is strongly associated with a subculture that has been deemed "hip", or "hep." The term was used originally in the 1940s and 1950s to describe aficionados of jazz, and it eventually described many members of the Beat Generation, but its usage declined in the 1960s, with the advent of hippies. Since the mid 1990s, the word "hipster" has been redefined to refer to members of a different subculture. Modern hipsters are those devoted to ironic retro fashions, indie music and film, alternative comics, and other forms of expression outside the mainstream.

Original hipsters

In the purest sense, the original hipsters were the hip, mostly black performers of jazz and swing music in the 1940s and 1950s, at a time when "hip" music was equated with African-American-originated forms of musical expression.

Related Topics:
Hip - Black - Jazz - Swing - 1940 - 1950

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Although hipsters could be black or white, the term later and more predominantly came to be used to refer to whites who were aficionados of the music, groupies and members of the so-called Bohemian set, or Beat Generation. Because the jazz scene had long been integrated, hipster culture, too, became integrated before much of the rest of society. The use of the term "hipster" for whites who had an affinity for the avant-garde and for African-American culture was popularized in Norman Mailer's 1956 book The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster. Hipsters sometimes were referred to as beatniks, a combination of "beat" and "nik," a Yiddish suffix meaning "person."

Related Topics:
White - Bohemian - Beat Generation - Integrated - Avant-garde - Norman Mailer - 1956 - Beatnik - Yiddish

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Hipsters were cool. That is, they exhibited a mellow, laid-back attitude that is still called hip. Many also were users and popularizers of recreational drugs, particularly marijuana, amphetamines, and to some extent heroin, which was epidemic for a time among bebop musicians such as Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.

Related Topics:
Cool - Marijuana - Amphetamine - Heroin - Bebop - Charlie Parker - Miles Davis

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