Lately, I feel more and more out of touch. I realize that is what often happens as generations pass, but there are things I just don’t get. It may have always been like this for those living in the 2nd half of life, but sometimes it comforts me to blame the digital age for how lightning fast things change and for the myriad of choices in music, style, tv shows to watch etc. After all, as I grew up there were literally three network tv stations available to watch. Seemed like there was a lot less to keep up with.
Recently I was on vacation with my family and was flattered by an invitation to go out with my two oldest sons. We were staying in a trendy San Francisco neighborhood with a night time destination deemed a “hipster hangout”. Here was my opportunity. I certainly am familiar with the word hipster, but as we walked through the streets I blurted out, “I just don’t get what hipster means.”
So began my hipster education. Words like irony, skinny jeans, meta, beer and oversized glasses dropped into the conversation. Pretty soon I had a visual picture and realized I indeed knew a few people who at least dressed like a hipster. Beyond that, it still seemed a bit fuzzy to me. We sat in the loud and happening bar and talked about much more important things than the definition of hipster. I was 20-30 years older than everyone else in the bar and did get to see various renditions of the hipster look.
A few days later, I returned to this hang out to record a few memories. As I snapped this picture, I caught this guy walking toward the bar and the recesses of my mind whispered “hipster”. He did actually take a right and enter.
San Francisco was a hub for the hippie movement back during the days of my childhood. There was no Wikipedia or 24/7 information stream to help the older generation understand the definition of a hippie. I am sure there were many who asked, “what is a hippie?” or made sweeping generalizations about such people.
On our last night together, my oldest son said out loud a thought that had been forming in my heart and mind as I pondered the hipster question. He compared hippies and hipsters – there are some that enjoy certain music, some a style of dress, behavior or ideology, but there is no definition for either. They are people. These words clarified that I could stop trying to put hipsters in a box.
People are individuals expressing themselves in ways that sometimes overlap. Humans often like to be part of a group, a pack, a herd, but at the end of the day, each one is unique – hippies and hipsters included. Thank you to my two unique sons, with a few hipster characteristics, for showing me the way.
