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Late-modern hipsters: new tendencies in popular culture

Acta Sociologica

Published online on

Abstract

The article deals with the cultural significance of a new figure in late-modern Western culture: the hipster. The current hipster culture, so I argue, can be used as a magnifying glass that makes impending changes to our conception of culture and of cultural development visible. It ushers in broader cultural and social changes: different relations among generations, new ways of relating to technology and media, new ways of being together, and new phenomenologies and sensibilities. After a first outline of the figure of the hipster, I mark out two salient traits to hipster culture: its redemptive gesture toward the objects of the recent past and its predilection for irony. The article seeks to unfold hipster culture and sociality in an ongoing dialogue with sociological theory in general and conventional ways of thinking subculture in particular.