Literature week 41. Representing the middleclass ‘hipster’: Emerging modes of distinction,
generational oppositions and gentrification.
The hipster is a contested middle-class social type who is the object of both denigration and prestige.
The hipster is typically represented as a young person associated with the middle-class fraction of the
cultural intermediaries who is engaged in a particular set of reflexive and trendy consumption
practices, often performed in gentrified urban spaces and linked to the creative industries. The article
suggests that the disputed status of ‘hipster cool’ is indicative of shifting class distinctions in cultural
taste and classificatory struggles within the middle class between generational groupings that involve
questions of authenticity.
‘Hipster’ originated during the 1930s and 1940s in the United States among young White urban
counter-cultural middle-class males who sought to emulate the tastes and lifestyles associated with
the African American jazz scene. It has subsequently diffused globally and become the object of
widespread interest and contestation in public discourse. Present-day hipsters are, like their
predecessors, depicted as young urban middle-class people whose lifestyles are oriented towards
authentic experiences and formed in rejection of mainstream forms of consumption. Hipsters are
micro-entrepreneurs associated with the creative industries and thus members of the middle-class
fraction of cultural intermediaries, as identified by Bourdieu. Other studies show how hipsters
establish retail enterprises in gentrified neighborhoods. Gentrification research, the term hipster is
increasingly used to describe the trendy, young, White, middle-class gentrifies moving into urban
working-class neighborhoods. Academic studies have identified hipsters as young ‘creative’ middle-
class people found in gentrifying working-class neighborhoods who adopt certain consumption
practices and tastes.
A significant strand in research on class and consumption is, like this article, influenced by Bourdieu’s
class analysis, in which tastes and consumption practices are bound up with classificatory struggles
between classes and class fractions over forms of capital, recognition and worth. This article explores
how representations of the middle-class hipster type are constructed, not only vis-á-vis working-class
culture but also in relation to classificatory struggles of value between different generational
groupings within the middle class. Traditional highbrow forms of consumption (e.g. watching art
house cinema, visiting modern art museums) have declined as markers of prestige and distinction.
Elites frequently make distinctions against others by adopting flexible and selective tastes, through
which traditionally popular or lowbrow forms of culture are legitimated and transgressed. Traditional
highbrow cultural capital typically builds on mastering canonized knowledge in highly consecrated
fields such as those in the arts mentioned above. Generational factors entail that individuals born
during a certain time period come to share certain experiences, which may serve as the basis for the
formation of a common generational world-view and identity. The middle-class appropriation of
popular or lowbrow culture has also a spatial aspect through the gentrification of urban working-
class neighborhoods. . Gentrification processes are also linked to post-industrial restructuring where
cities become increasingly dependent on the creative, financial and business sectors, and hence see a
concomitant increase in middle-class inhabitants. During early stages of gentrification, gentrifies are
often artists and other middle-class groups with high cultural capital but less economic capital.
Authenticity is a central theme for hipsters and other gentrifies’ motives for moving into a working-
class neighborhood, their taste for a gentrification aesthetic and formation of a local identity. The
hipster gentrifies quest for authenticity. It can be traced to the bohemian artists’ romanticization of
poverty. Early gentrifies may therefore draw boundaries against later gentrifies for destroying the
authenticity of the neighborhood and hence its sense of cool and edgy.
Hipsters are sometimes seen as cultural intermediaries involved in forms of micro-entrepreneurship,
for instance, in artisanal food and beverages. Male hipsters in particular are most typically identified
in discourse through their markers of style and consumption, which include workwear, vintage-style
generational oppositions and gentrification.
The hipster is a contested middle-class social type who is the object of both denigration and prestige.
The hipster is typically represented as a young person associated with the middle-class fraction of the
cultural intermediaries who is engaged in a particular set of reflexive and trendy consumption
practices, often performed in gentrified urban spaces and linked to the creative industries. The article
suggests that the disputed status of ‘hipster cool’ is indicative of shifting class distinctions in cultural
taste and classificatory struggles within the middle class between generational groupings that involve
questions of authenticity.
‘Hipster’ originated during the 1930s and 1940s in the United States among young White urban
counter-cultural middle-class males who sought to emulate the tastes and lifestyles associated with
the African American jazz scene. It has subsequently diffused globally and become the object of
widespread interest and contestation in public discourse. Present-day hipsters are, like their
predecessors, depicted as young urban middle-class people whose lifestyles are oriented towards
authentic experiences and formed in rejection of mainstream forms of consumption. Hipsters are
micro-entrepreneurs associated with the creative industries and thus members of the middle-class
fraction of cultural intermediaries, as identified by Bourdieu. Other studies show how hipsters
establish retail enterprises in gentrified neighborhoods. Gentrification research, the term hipster is
increasingly used to describe the trendy, young, White, middle-class gentrifies moving into urban
working-class neighborhoods. Academic studies have identified hipsters as young ‘creative’ middle-
class people found in gentrifying working-class neighborhoods who adopt certain consumption
practices and tastes.
A significant strand in research on class and consumption is, like this article, influenced by Bourdieu’s
class analysis, in which tastes and consumption practices are bound up with classificatory struggles
between classes and class fractions over forms of capital, recognition and worth. This article explores
how representations of the middle-class hipster type are constructed, not only vis-á-vis working-class
culture but also in relation to classificatory struggles of value between different generational
groupings within the middle class. Traditional highbrow forms of consumption (e.g. watching art
house cinema, visiting modern art museums) have declined as markers of prestige and distinction.
Elites frequently make distinctions against others by adopting flexible and selective tastes, through
which traditionally popular or lowbrow forms of culture are legitimated and transgressed. Traditional
highbrow cultural capital typically builds on mastering canonized knowledge in highly consecrated
fields such as those in the arts mentioned above. Generational factors entail that individuals born
during a certain time period come to share certain experiences, which may serve as the basis for the
formation of a common generational world-view and identity. The middle-class appropriation of
popular or lowbrow culture has also a spatial aspect through the gentrification of urban working-
class neighborhoods. . Gentrification processes are also linked to post-industrial restructuring where
cities become increasingly dependent on the creative, financial and business sectors, and hence see a
concomitant increase in middle-class inhabitants. During early stages of gentrification, gentrifies are
often artists and other middle-class groups with high cultural capital but less economic capital.
Authenticity is a central theme for hipsters and other gentrifies’ motives for moving into a working-
class neighborhood, their taste for a gentrification aesthetic and formation of a local identity. The
hipster gentrifies quest for authenticity. It can be traced to the bohemian artists’ romanticization of
poverty. Early gentrifies may therefore draw boundaries against later gentrifies for destroying the
authenticity of the neighborhood and hence its sense of cool and edgy.
Hipsters are sometimes seen as cultural intermediaries involved in forms of micro-entrepreneurship,
for instance, in artisanal food and beverages. Male hipsters in particular are most typically identified
in discourse through their markers of style and consumption, which include workwear, vintage-style
