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On the Ground: SNL Insults Hipsters Everywhere

Submitted by Jwinton on December 4, 2009 – 2:21 pmView Comments
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Q: Ok, I feel really stupid. Who are they parodying? I watched this, and thought I should know who the parody is about, but I don’t. Please enlighten me so I can feel really stupider. Thanks.

A:Well, some of my good friends and family think they might be parodying me (but more likely just some nameless urban “hipster” challenging-the-man). You can read a very scathing critique of the hipster movement, if you want to know more about the subject. More or less, it’s a movement that is known for being more interested in “style” (with psuedo-revolutionary overtones) than actual resistance and originality.

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And please don’t feel stupid, as I’m the one who shouldn’t assume everyone is as nerdy as I am about stupid urban social movements and their SNL parodies. The funniest part of the video for me (in terms of social commentary) was that this character has to assert multiple times, “I’m an adult!” It’s as if he wants to be taken seriously and everyone else should get out of his face with the “system.” Then, of course, he is a product of the “system” he confronts everyone with. Unsuspecting “posers” just have to deal with the reality of the situation and their “obvious” allegiance to The Man. His approach for bringing the system down is to “throw it on the ground,” which we can all see as a ridiculous, rude, empty act.

Actually, the funniest part has to be the line where he says to his “so-called girlfriend,” as she hands him her cellphone and says its his dad: “Man, this ain’t my dad! This is a cellphone!” So, he threw it on the ground. Cue the music.

Anyway, if you want to humor me with the sketch you could respond by saying something like: “You can’t trust the system!” or “Please! You can’t buy me hot-dog-man!”

Have fun at work!!

Jason

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About Jwinton

I'm 30 yrs old, married to Julissa, father to Santiago. Our little family has recently begun experimenting in a radical Jesus life. We are working alongside a haphazard band of "accidental" community members who hope to give my one-year-old son and others like him a real knowledge of God's Kingdom Among Us.

  • The video isn't a critique of hipsters at all - or if you like, not the same hipsters in the "scathing critique". The target here is the young, anarchist/leftist, AdBusters-reading, Che-t-shirt wearing countercultural figure who tries to reject the system, consumer culture, "hollywood phonies", etc. Hipsters embrace consumerism, even oversubscribing to it, openly seek fame, etc.

    If anything, these two positions are opposed to each other, and isn't it clear that the hipsters win the debate with the video? AdBusters wants counterculture to be "lifestyle activism", a site of revolutionary potential, of inventing new ways of existing outside of consumer capitalism; The hipster response is that this is just a pretense - it's just an excuse to adopt another stylized, aesthetic performance, self-importantly justified with meaningless moralizing against "the system", never actually achieving anything.

    The interesting thing is that virtually every counterculture can be mocked by pointing out how they take themselves too seriously - that's what the video does. Hipster culture is the opposite - they are embarrassed when you take them seriously, which is why they reject the label "hipster" - it misattributes to it some critique of mainstream society, plus a positive alternative vision. But actually, hipsterism critiques the countercultural movement, and its failure in countering right-wing authoritarian politics since the 60s, and it does this by fully assuming what classic countercultures strenously try to deny: they're just lifestyles. They fail at achieving their officially stated ends because the real goal is to conservatively preserve their own cultural distinctiveness.
  • J-DAWG
    dude... did you get a PHD in "hipster?"

    if i called andy samberg and asked him if this was targeting hipsters and he said "yes," would you recant your lengthy "critique" of this comedic note?

    more importantly, i refuse to let you define hipster for me... after all...

    I'M AN ADULT!

    (... and my dad's not a phone... duh!)
  • thecharismanglican
    there's a link at the bottom of your blog post that says 'ShareThis'

    Man, you can't tell me what to do.

    I'm not going to tweet or retweet.

    I'm an adult.
  • you'd like me to comment, but that'd just be buying into your system! i'm an adult! it ain't gonna happen! i just threw your website on the ground!!!
  • Happy Birthday to the ground!
  • Sorry for not including the link to the SNL digital short. You can find it here.
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