"We Never Even Called It That"

Was Stomp Clap hipster? Or was hipster going to the club dressed in American Apparel? Was it urban? Was it faux rural? Was it just wearing skinny pants? Was it the last bastion of rejecting normative pop culture? Was it the girls in my high school escaping to the bathroom to buy tickets to see Arctic Monkeys at Lollapalooza? Am I a hipster? Are you? Wait, what was indie sleaze then?

Well nobody ever called it that.

Some recent discourse about what "Hipster" meant has come to the forefront and I've been taken by it. Hipster is a term that some people seem feel sort of precious about because it defined their young life. I think it also matters that it's not really a retrospective term the way something like "Indie Sleaze" is. People were getting called hipsters – however derisively or jokingly – at the time. The same discussion that plagues music genres is at play here: how should we employ the words that were used in real time alongside a social trend versus words that weren't?

With genres of music and scenes associated with genres of music you see this a lot. You hear bands say things like "We never called ourselves emo it was just rock/punk/hardcore music" or "We never liked Hyperpop it was just like what we were doing it's pop music." And I think as a musician you have to think that way. You shouldn't box yourself into an idea. You probably should think of your music, particularly in the moment if pressed to describe it, as the broadest possible umbrella term, but musicians usually aren't communicating for the same reason fans and critics are communicating.

So much of my frustration around genre and scene descriptors is a lack of consideration of why you're using the term. What is the utility of the term? What are you trying to communicate with the term you're using?

I've defended the breakdown of emo into waves. I think it makes sense for synthesizing and contextualizing the genre for the purpose of understanding what sounds a listener can expect and to group bands together. I even think Indie Sleaze is a useful term. I think most people instinctively know what that term is referring to in the retrospect. I think hyperpop and all of the sub-categories of computer music make sense when contextualizing an era of music online. It's not the only way to discuss the music and it's not always the best way, but it is a useful part of it. Being hyperspecific in terminology is only useful to a point, but it all depends on the audience – like how I wouldn't bother telling someone from Germany what suburb I grew up in, but I would tell someone in Chicago.

I think internet writing and the increasing focus on nostalgia-as-culture has broken down the usefulness of a lot of terms. So many words that are useful in retrospect totally lose that utility when you're trying to force a really specific historical context on something that's happening right now – that's why the indie sleaze thing in the present isn't really anything. It's why midwest emo doesn't mean anything right now.

I wrote a while back about what I called the "Choose Your Own Aesthetic Movement" where the focus is on having a word to describe your style instead of anything being based on real subculture:

I think the TikTok obsession with these sorts of "aesthetics," though, is a facsimile of what the underlying impulse is usually connected to. Instead of dressing or cultivating a space that speaks to a community, it's only speaking to a category. It likely will speak to something about you and the way you live your life, but in an individual way. I don't think that's a bad thing inherently, but I do think it's kind of a restrictive and superficial way to engage with what clothes can add to your life experience.

When I look at people discussing what is or is not hipster, it's almost quaint. So much of the way young people conceptualize themselves is within these totally untethered categories that don't make any sense unless you blindly accept that everybody feels like they are destined to become a semi-famous person paying their rent with affiliate links. "Hipster" is a super broad term just like "Punk" is a really broad term. It's not one thing, which is why it's not all that useful to be saying It's This, Not That the way people have been, but in seeing people insist other people are wrong in their perception of what it meant to be a "Hipster" only reinforces how different our online pseudo-subculture world is now compared to the recent past.

I've always found the narrowing of terms to be a natural and useful shift, but I'm not sure how long it can keep going when it's not coming from an umbrella and more like recontextualizing an existing niche term to be referring to something entirely new because that's what's better for marketing. How long can everything be this cowardly and derivative?

I put out a new issue of Portable Model! I have them in hand and will be shipping over the next few days! Thanks so much to everybody who preordered. It genuinely helps me so much and I'm so grateful. If you're a paid subscriber to this newsletter and want a copy of Portable Model, please send over your address and I'll send ya a copy.

Ethan Sawyer published an excerpt from his great PM piece about DJs in Vancouver over on his substack! I also was interviewed a while back about the new issue of PM if you're interested in that.

Thanks for reading as always!

Miranda Reinert is a music adjacent writer, zine maker, podcaster and law school drop out based in Chicago. Check out PDFs of most of my zines at the link on the top of the screen. Follow me on Twitter or Instagram or Bluesky for more reminiscing on the year: @mirandareinert.  This blog does have a paid option and I would so appreciate any money you would be willing to throw me! You may also send me small bits of money at @miranda-reinert on venmo/on Paypal if you want. As always, thanks for reading!