Saying Goodbye to the Hipster

For no apparent reason, I’ve always been amused by the reemergence of the term “hipster.” Merrily contemplating the term one day, I decided to do a little research on it.  Turns out that I had a pretty accurate take on its history: rooted in the Jazz era, it has resurfaced here and there over the years.  Thinking back over the decades, I don’t remember it being spoken or written much back in the 80’s and 90’s.

Recently, at least over the last decade, I’d heard it quite a bit.  It seemed to have risen in popularity along with the rise of social media.  But, sadly, I just learned that the popularity of hipster is now over – at least according to this article in Vulture.

It’s a pretty funny treatise on the rise and fall of hipster.  It explores our current generational overlaps and why we were compelled to label certain archetypes in our society as one.  I especially like the graphs on the google searches of the term which show it started its decline in search frequency in June of 2015.

Additionally, if you’re a fan of TV’s Portlandia, the correlation of the fading of the hipster coinciding with the end of the show is not surprising. But what the decline really turns out to be all about is that Millennials are taking over hipsters as the fascinating societal sub-group to understand. As a recent movie popular with Millennials TAG would say: You’re it!

We’d like to hear your thoughts on the Millennials and the fade of hipster, so leave us a comment.

– Mark Salow, Marketing Consultant