Whew.

At some point, calling someone a “hipster” became insulting. The would-be hipsters, feeling their inherent uniqueness slipping away while spotting their peers at the same thrift store or listening to the same band as them, demoted the term.

The hipster now most generally is a desperate, superficial person constantly trying to stay ahead of the mainstream trends. They use what the Wiki “How to be a hipster” page deems the most “important hipster line: ‘I liked them before they were cool'” as a personal mantra. They strive for authenticity and originality, all the while condemning those with the same goal in mind.

Many may not agree on a specific definition of a hipster, just as long as it’s not defining them.

Mark Greif, a founder of the n+1 literary magazine, wrote an essay for the New York Times titled “The Hipster in the Mirror” about the sociology of hipsterism.

He argues that “‘taste’ is the hipster’s primary currency” and also a “means of strategy and competition.”

Hipsters use their tastes in music, fashion and art as a way of one-upping those who threaten their ability to be the most different, the most authentic.

“The things you prefer’”tastes that you like to think of as personal, unique, justified only by sensibility’”correspond tightly to defining measures of social class: your profession, your highest degree and your father’s profession” Greif wrote.

He differentiates the types of hipsters according to their economic background, identifying everyone from the lower middle class to the “trust fund hipsters.”

The differences in background and opportunity strike up the ongoing competition for superior taste because as Greif wrote “hipster knowledge compensates for economic immobility.”

I have noticed the word “hipster” has become the perfect weapon to demean one’s competition and forge ahead on the planes of superior taste.

So is this where my aversion to the classification hipster comes from?

Well, admittedly yes, but also in the superficiality of it all. If we judge hipsters on the surface level only, then what prevents us from judging or being judged based on other categories like race, gender, sexual orientation or economic background?

In actuality, it’s all the same. We stop looking once we reach the exterior, never delving deep enough to find a hipster’s humanity. We can’t blame one specific group for this type of behavior either. We all participate in it, so we can all make the conscious effort to stop it.

Let’s start here, with hipsters. Before we judge and separate ourselves from them or any other groups of people, let’s keep their humanity in mind while we journey past the exterior.