Hipsters Hearld

Is it just me, or has the word "hipster" suddenly gotten more widely used? Up until a few weeks ago, I never saw the word unless I was watching some show from the '30s. However, sometime this last month, I suddenly saw the word starting to creep into all my Google Reader feeds. Very odd.

And apparently Google feels the same way. I just looked up the word "hipster" in Google Trends and this is what I saw. According to the graph, usage of the word has been increasing steadily since the beginning of 2009 (probably earlier). What is it with this term, and why has it become so popular? Intrigued by this phenomenon, I found the following article which somewhat touches upon my thoughts: Is the Media's "Hipster" Grifting Soon to End? I also found this Wikipedia article describing what we "know" as "hipsters".

To be honest, until reading the Wikipedia article, I had no idea what a "hipster" actually was*, probably because it seems that nobody identifies themself as a "hipster". Nevertheless, the term seems to be becoming more pervasive, especially in technical blogs and pop news outlets. Who knows, maybe someday soon, this term will actually gain some kind of self-identifiable meaning.

Additional articles:
http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/researchers-tackle-the-hipster-phenomenon-24863/
http://gawker.com/5500197/your-new-hipster-slur-fauxhemians

*I've heard of "emo", "metrosexual", "baller", and "yuppie", but never "hipster" in the contemporary sense.


From "The Theory of Hipster Relativity" via Laughing Squid.

Also, check out "The Evolution of the Hipster 2000-2009" from Paste Magazine for a relevant breakdown.