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The Evolution of the Hipster: From Broyard’s Hipster and the Beats to the 21st Century

This chapter aims to explore the origins of the term hipster by comparing this contemporary subculture and its attitude toward mainstream culture with the hipster and the Beat culture of the 1950s and 1960s. As Jake Kinzey states, hipsters can be said to be the most postmodern ‘main- subculture’ to date and are perfectly integrated into postmodern late capitalism. Although the contemporary hipsters do not refer to themselves as hipsters, and describe themselves rather as being beyond all labels, the origins of ‘hipsterism’ can be traced into the 1920s and 1930s and the jazz age. In order to gain an insight into the origins of the term hipster and the accompanying ideology, this chapter investigates Broyard’s ‘A Portrait of a Hipster’ and Mailer’s ‘The White Negro’ (two essays which are crucial for understanding the aforementioned worldview), as well as the basic postulates of Kerouac’s writing technique and the Beat worldview. Mailer recognises African- Americans as the source of hip philosophy because their life on the fringes of American society rendered them suitable for rebellious ideas and actions. The jazz scene of the 1920s was established primarily by African-American musicians and it could be identified as the source which engendered hipster and Beat subcultures. Jazz was the origin of hip philosophy and also served as a key inspiration in Kerouac’s literary work: the spontaneity and nonconformism that Kerouac zealously advocated stemmed precisely from jazz, as is stated in his ‘Essentials of Spontaneous Prose.’ As distance, irony, and the inclination towards reusing elements from the past are perceived as key aspects of the contemporary hipster’s worldview, this chapter aims to explore whether modern hipsters share the cultural characteristics of their predecessors or merely present a symptom of the postmodern hypermediated mainstream culture.

Hipster, Beat, The White Negro, Mailer, Broyard, Kerouac.

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