I popularized the word hipster in 2000, and for that, I’m sorry. Since I dusted off the word and began applying it, it has taken off and been overused to the point that it seems that everyone is hipster and simultaneously everyone hates hipsters. Would that I could go back warn myself that I was unleashing a pestilence on the world, but I can’t. That’s the curse of being a tastemaker and a trend setter. Some trends you set for good and others, unfortunately, for ill.
In 2000, I had two connotations for hipster. One was positive. It was from “Last of the Spiddyocks” by Digable Planets. There’s a line where Ish (Butterfly) raps “You down with Digable Planets you’s a hipster,” and it sounded so cool that I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want anything other than to be a hipster. The other contemporaneous usage was derogatory and came from Seinfeld. Jerry Seinfeld’s neighbor, Kramer, was often described as a doofus hipster. It is that usage of doofus that informed my own usage of the term. Kramer had a signature look: thrift store pants, bowling shirts, quirky hair. It was a look that was adopted by a lot of people my age. Even after the show ended, there were still people who maintained that look or at least an evolved version of that look. In particular, there were a bunch of guys who hung around outside the English Department at the University of Oklahoma in 2000 who maintained that aesthetic. My little brother called them “Weird Beards” because most of them had bears that were intricately trimmed and maintained like topiaries. They were generally smart guys, but they were the hardest core of the determined-to-be-different lot. I began referring to those guys as hipsters because they were to my mind latter-day Kramers. Well, needless to say soon others began using the appellation, and before too long it must have spread from Norman, Ok, to all points North, South, East and West.
At first, I wanted to stop the spread and use of the term. I could see that the term was quickly being perverted to include people who would more accurately be described as scenesters. Maybe there were some things I could’ve done: aggressive pamphleteering, an edutainment series on public television, or unrestrained tsking whenever I heard the term being used. The spread of the word had just gone too far too fast, and I had to learn to let go. Otherwise, I would have spent years fretting my nights away. Now it appears hipster is here to stay. For that, I just want to apologize. I will try to be more responsible in popularizing words, music, tv shows, and anything else that I might regret later having made trendy. I also apologize for “Like A G6″ which I made popular with one tweet early in 2009.