I am by no means a hipster, but I can understand a tinge of validity in the mindset.
For example, if someone says “I don’t like Pokemon” nowadays, and that person happens to be a teenager, he/she has a considerably high chance with being bombarded with comments like “OMG HOW CAN U NOT LIKE POKEMANZ?! U MUST NOT HAVE HAD A CHILDHOOD.” The same can go with those who do not like Star Wars.
The more popular something is, the higher the likelihood that those who do not like it will be swamped with comments questioning their mental health.
As such, a true Hipster will avoid these “mainstream” things to avoid the morons who cannot comprehend someone having an opinion that’s different than them.
I like Call of Duty. I can understand why a lot of people hate Call of Duty. But a majority of the fans of Call of Duty will openly insult anyone who does not like it.
I was also a PC gamer. By no means did I ever think I was superior for choosing the PC. However, a decent majority of PC gamers openly insult anyone who does not have a $3,000+ gaming PC instead of a relatively cheap $400 console.
I have an Xbox. I by no means insult those who prefer the PS3. I just don’t like the PS3. But since the Xbox is so popular in the US, a decent majority of Xbox gamers insult anyone who doesn’t have an Xbox. Same goes for the PS3 gamers that believe they are superior because they have the more expensive console.
When something gets popular (aka: “mainstream”), its fans become more and more rabid. And along with this, if it is popular enough, it will be one of those many things that you flat-out HAVE to like, or you’ll be called a moron by the thousands/millions that believe this.
I cannot count the amount of times that I’ve read people say things like, “If you don’t like Ozzy Osbourne, you were either raised by shit parents, or you’re a fucking Justin Bieber lovin’ faggot.”
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Now earlier in this post I used the phrase “true hipster”. This is important, because a lot of self-proclaimed “hipsters” are far from it. They started calling themselves “hipsters” because it was cool, they started dressing like the stereotypical hipster because they thought it made them cooler, and they started pretending to avoid mainstream things because they believe that it makes them better than everyone else.
There’s this old insult people would use in various situations similar to this (such as self-proclaimed goths, punks, or gangsters), and it’s the perfect word to describe these people. The insult I’m talking about, of course, is “poser”. The people I described in the above paragraph are nothing more than posers.
A lot of these posers used to be self-proclaimed emos/goths before the internet started hating these people. And soon, they’ll just change their preferences and clothing styles, and start masquerading under the name of another group of people to inflate their egos further.
A real hipster will have constructive criticism and legitimate complaints about mainstream things and their fans, a poser will blindly follow “underground” things because they think it makes them look cool.
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Now, again, the hipster mindset has a bit of validity. “Mainstream” things are often over-inflated in their popularity, and “mainstream” interests are often blindly followed by rabid, blind-fans who hate anyone who doesn’t share their exact opinion.
And while I may like or love some “mainstream” things, I absolutely HATE those rabid-fans that I always run into. So much so that I have cut myself off from several fandoms because of the idiocy of its rabid fans. Along with that, I have actually been driven out of several fandoms because instead of agreeing with the popular opinion and reducing myself to a blind sheep, I brought legitimate complaints and criticism.
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In short;
Hipsters: Nothin’ against ‘em.
Posers: You aren’t fooling anyone you stupid sheep.
