Hipsters not cool with US census

There's a very simple reason why the hipsters of Williamsburg, Brooklyn are, according to NPR, reluctant to fill out the US census form : it's entirely to do with marketing. Norman Mailer famously described the hipster archetype as an individual who has chosen to "divorce" his or her self from society – that is, the hipster's "cool" factor came from the rejection of the mainstream. The new form of hipster – or as a Gawker poll recently decided, the "fauxhemian" – works the opposite way, in that its ethos is all-encompassing. It's an aesthetically obsessed subset of western culture recognisable mostly by its fashion, a mosaic of 20th century hangovers. Neon, beat, hippie, punk, hip-hop – all combine into a tactile mash-up of cultural reference points. The adoption, or co-option, of marketing and consumer products into the lifestyle of the new hipster is why the movement has been accused of going nowhere , as it consumes rather than creates. But its mirroring tendencies are no surprise, given the postmodern environment, where the signifier takes precedence over the signified; that is, the product matters more than what it means. And given that environment, is it any wonder that this, the dominant Gen-Y cultural movement, would have consumption at its core? We are a generation for whom "cool" was never based on the rejection of the marketed mainstream, but the adoption of it, and for whom culture had long been reduced to a series of consumer products tailored to our needs. After all, we were the winning generation of the post-cold war world – a demographic that has always triumphed without having to do anything. We're also a generation raised in a perpetual state of Narcissus narcosis, uncritically absorbed in our adopted media, television and the internet, both purveyors of information without separation. The fashion and lifestyle ridiculed on websites like Look At This Fucking Hipster is simply the physical manifestation of an over-exposed generation that has willingly accepted the world as it's been presented – that is, everything instantly gratifying at once. This means that being accepted by the mainstream, or having chain stores hawk hipster fashion (American Apparel, Urban Outfitters) is actually a welcome legitimisation of the subculture. Unlike the beats or the hippies, this is a cultural trend not only borne of an economic system, but fully accepting of it and its pandering nature. The hipster subculture is like every product we've ever known: pre-digested and thus, completely recognisable. Formerly, hipster lifestyles were eventually co-opted into the system that they rejected; that can't happen this time, because self-expression is just a new form of advertising. Williamsburg resident Nate Stark told NPR that perhaps people would be more inclined to fill out the census form, "if they got like five bucks". Fellow hipster, Jamie Lilly told NPR that, despite seeing the ads, she wasn't returning the census questionnaire. She posited that, "…maybe some people, they figure what's the point to be counted if you don't count for much anyway? If we don't count, why be counted?" So rather than simply feeling like a politically ignored demographic, this is apathy driven by a much more warped, hypocritical and narcissistic undertone: that a product like the census simply offers nothing for Gen-Y. It's not instantly gratifying, and although it gives voice to the individual, it doesn't allow for self-promotion. It's just simply data gathering by a faceless bureaucratic machine – the same kind of data gathering that goes on behind any marketing campaign, just without the consumer payout.