What Comes After Hipsters?

If we wore these unironically, they could double as reading glasses.

Well I guess we have to start answering that question with another question, which is; what determines culture? In this technologically dependent world of the new millennium culture is dependent on the following in order of importance; television, Internet, music, film, and finally fashion.  

It didn’t always used to be that way, the order was completely diversified and whatever was the new fad would take over for a while, but television has a level of constancy which I hate to (love to) allude back to Warhol when he said; everything will go, books will go, films will go, television will stay. He also said (lest we forget) [that] ‘in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes’. And if we look at what television has allotted us, it is exactly that. The big revolution in television is the reality juggernaut, which allows nobodies to be somebodies for 15 minutes, just for as long as they’re interesting. 

Adele is a perfect example of reversal of hipster culture and return to nostalgia for how things used to be and how things used to sound in particular.

This is key to the hipster sect because young people we call as ‘millenials’ following generation Y (my generation) have an attention span of a worker ant. Therefore, things only exist for them for no longer than 15 minutes. Bands become popular and unpopular in short spans of time, as do fashion fads, shows, etc. Just like Hipster-skewering show ‘Portlandia’ (2011 – present) parodied; ‘something something is OVER!’ 

(Still from 'Portlandia') It's all OVER!

 So if this is all to be true, then the hipsters are running out of time on their 15-minute meter, and who’s to take over? I remember a film from the 30’s, a beautiful piece of art called The Petrified Forest (1938) starring Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, and Leslie Howard where Leslie plays what he refers to as ‘one of a dying breed – the intellectuals’.  I do hope that this is the time for their resurrection. 

Leslie Howard plays the prophetic intellectual who stumbles across a crime set-up in The Petrified Forest (1938), desperate to leave some of his dying legacy behind, which never comes to fruition. His outfit is now worn ironically.

If you look at trends in the media, which as I earlier mentioned dictate popular culture of the moment, it seems that my predictions might be true. People have grown to be more meditative and concerned. Films like Argo (2013) and shows like 'Downton Abbey' (2010 – Present) dominate in accolades and awards, reflecting that our culture is ready for more serious reflection and thought processes. Also instituting a dreamy nostalgia indicating that we’re not exactly amused by our own times anymore. 

The enormously successful 'Downton Abbey' has become a pop-culture institution unto itself, quite unexpectedly strangely enough.

No one wants to be a culture that people look back at with cynical laughter and resentment like we do to the hippies of the ‘60’s, so let’s look forward and strive to not be dictated by pop culture but to define it.

Good god that was serious, now I have to bath in sin, excuse me.