“hipster” as a contemporary subculture of a fashion-forward, creative group of individuals
belonging to the middle or upper class who share a “personal aesthetic of minority culture
symbols and appropriated countercultural fashions. Although this group presents themselves
excluded, uninterested and self-exiled, the hipsters never cut themselves o from their cultur-
ally and economically dominant status in society”. According to Jenkins, as American values
change, the country’s citizens “look to Indians to represent ideals that the mainstream Eu-
ro-American society is losing” (2). In this paper, “the country’s citizens” will only include those
belonging to the hipster subculture.
is subculture is notable for their consumption of minority cultures, best explained
in Henke’s term: “an anti-capitalist pro-consumerist group” that consumes tangible and intan-
gible cultural products in order to self-express. But while they appropriate minority cultures,
they simultaneously take advantage of the many benets of the middle-to-upper class society
to which they naturally belong. ey simultaneously reject and nd comfort in their majority
status. Murphy claims that the popularity of Pocahontas chic-fashion inspired by traditional
Native American dress-and the appropriation of indigenous and other non-white cultures can
be pinpointed to individuals associated with the contemporary hipster subculture. In accor-
dance Scadi argues, “ose of us blessed with choice naturally go in search of cultural capital
and varied experience,” characterizing the vain attempt of hipsters to appear cultured. e
hipster subculture by denition has the nancial advantages to consume, and because they are
fortunate to have a choice in matters of consumption, they express themselves in a cultured
and worldly manner. Native American culture is a victim of this consumption among many
other minority cultures and the Plains’ Indian headdress just one object of curiosity for the
hipster subculture.
Henke and Murphy both claim that lately the hipster subculture has “heavily trended
towards appropriations of Native American culture” (Murphy 2). However, contrary to initial
reactions from Native Americans, Henke suggests that hipsters do have a genuine appreciation
for the cultural capital it produces. ey consume tangible and intangible cultural products
such as media, art, and nostalgia. Consumerism is their primary means of self-expression,
not solely a tool for a rebellious end, and their purchases consist of retooled, old countercul-
tural symbols. Most hipsters are more concerned with consuming cool rather than creating
it. Henke and other cultural commentators see a possible correlation between the adoption
of minority symbols and the rebellion against one’s own class. ey want to create as much
distance as they can between themselves and an ordinary “Christian-inspired existence,” “me-
diocre,” “a slow suicide” (11). In conclusion, the eorts of hipsters to appropriate do show to
be genuine signs of appreciation and respect, although these eorts do not appear that way to
Native Americans, evident by reactions such as those by Kim Wheeler and Adrienne K. Mur-
phy suggests a dierent perspective, that perhaps this demographic appropriates Native Amer-
ican imagery “in an attempt to manifest revolutionary identities and assuage white imperialist
guilt” (2). is idea suggests that cultural appropriation is aected more by the identity crisis
hipsters are facing and less by the identity crisis that Native Americans are facing.
While Kulis, Brown, Wagaman, and Tso demonstrate no outside strain on the identity
of Native American youth (292), Murphy claims that the hipster subculture that is appropriat-
ing Native American culture does not identify with their heritage. e hipster wishes to “dis-
tance herself from the whiteness of the Bush era, globalization and corporate personhood and
return to a pre-colonized America that she perceives as genuine, peaceful and pure” (Murphy
3). In the recent 2008 recession the American dream was shattered, “leaving once potentially
prosperous youth with conicted feelings of deance and remorse” (Murphy 4).
According to Mark Greif, turning to minority suering as a source of identication
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A U C T U S // VCU’s Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creativity // Social Sciences // May 2017