Cool as code of honour

[imomus]

In my latest column for Playground, the "trendy web magazine" from Madrid, I propose modern cool as a latterday version of the chivalric code, and use Cervantes' "ingenious knight of La Mancha" as its foremost forerunner. Mine is a notably more Eurocentric thesis than the one expounded in BBC4's recent TV study Arena: Cool, which looks at "how the American jazz music of the 1940s and 50s gave birth to the notion of 'cool'". There are some overlaps, though -- look at how many of those musicians gave themselves the titles of eccentric European aristocrats, for instance (Count Basie and Duke Ellington amongst American jazzers, Count Ossie and Prince Buster in the Jamaican world of ska and reggae). Perhaps they too are descended from Don Quixote.

Momus
Playground column
April 2009

El ingenioso hipster de la Mancha



Playground is a trendy web magazine, don't you think? I think so. It has an elegant design and a tasteful selection of music and culture. It appeals to people in-the-know, people more-than-usually interested in creativity, originality, style. I don't like the word "hipsters", but Playground appeals to people like that, whatever we call them, don't you think?

Whether we use "hipster" or prefer Richard Florida's term "the creative class", we probably mean the kind of people who colonize poor, decaying areas of cities, adding value in the form of art galleries, global fusion restaurants, and fixed-gear bike shops. The kind of people who improve an area, drive the rents up, and have to move to another area. But that's okay, because they're flexible, energetic, resourceful young people without deep roots. They like things to be fresh, challenging, and always changing.

Of course, some people hate hipsters. Usually -- as when Adbusters magazine ran a feature last August called Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization -- it's slightly-less-hip hipsters who hate slightly-more-hip hipsters for snubbing and excluding them. So we can dismiss most of that as jealousy.

If you attack hipsters, you're supposed to attack them from the left rather than from the right, because otherwise you'll just look like a square or a killjoy. So you're supposed to say that they're politically conservative, and should be carrying rocks instead of cameras, and smashing things instead of photographing each other for street style blogs. Or you're supposed to say that hipsters are just a marketing demographic, and that (despite the fact than any group can be marketed to these days) that that makes them invalid, somehow. But despite this attack-from-the-left, you'll still probably come off looking like a conservative. Or a disgruntled ex-hipster whose girlfriend just ran off with a cooler guy.

Will I be opening myself up to attack-from-the-left if I say that I think being trendy is essentially about having that old-fashioned thing, a code of honour? For me, it's chivalric. That's a good word, "chivalric", because it conjures up the image of knights like Don Quixote, but also the idea of the horses they ride (cheval). The chivalric code of honour was essentially an etiquette, a series of Dos and Don'ts for the aristocrat who wanted to cut a dash. The key elements were that you should do brave and virtuous things, be honest, and be good at swordsmanship and riding. There was also a romantic side to the chivalric code: in "courtly love" (amour courtois) a man assumes a woman's independence to choose or reject him. (The system before chivalry had used arranged marriage.) Trying to win his lady's favour, the knight had to be gallant in his efforts to please and praise her. He had to master the arts of poetry and singing.



For me, the nearest contemporary equivalent of the chivalric knight of the 11th and 12th centuries is the trendy hipster. Like the knight, the trendy hipster pays great attention to dressing well and acting according to an etiquette of cool. He masters poetry and music, either by making it himself or selecting and quoting it well (we call this modern serenading "DJing"). He is often a skinny, nerdy fellow who didn't get much attention from girls at school; in his 20s he learns how culture can give him an appeal that nature never did. He starts to get laid, and ends up (thanks to a combination of loose bohemian morals and youthful looks) having much more sex with many more partners than the athletic alpha males who got the girls in high school do. They all settle down quickly to biological reproduction, whereas our trendy hipster is intent on reproducing himself by cultural means. And getting laid.

What's the role of music, for the trendy chivalric knight? Music is very important to him, but not as music per se. His music taste must reveal the hipster's status as a member of some inner circle of the wise and cool -- a clique, a cognoscenti. He must make the correct references, or -- better still -- must be working at what I've called the battlefront of re-evaluation: that magical place (a flea market, perhaps, or junk store, or secondhand record store) where things that have been out of fashion for a decade or so are being reassessed and given new value.

Music, for our young Don Quixote, isn't just music but a Friends Filter, an asset in his strategies of social differentiation, a way to forge the right bonds via social networking software, to accumulate cultural capital. This might sound terrible, but it's okay -- really! Music has never been just about the resonance of sounds. It's always encoded important social functions; that's what makes it socially important.

Of course, those of you who've read Cervantes will say to me, "Your comparison with knights is fine, but Don Quixote wasn't a young trendy hipster, he was an old eccentric." That's true, but, speaking from experience, I'd say the really cool thing is to get older and more eccentric without losing the chivalric virtues of hipsterdom. The saddest thing about being trendy and hip is that people stop doing it after their 30th birthday, or after they get married and have kids. And the second saddest thing about being trendy and hip is that it can become simply an alternative sort of conformity.

So I'd say three things:

1. Don't be ashamed! It's important to be trendy!

2. Don't give up! Stay with it, even as you get older!

3. Don't go straight! Get weirder and more experimental!

The saddest moment in the tale of el ingenioso hidalgo de la Mancha is when the old eccentric loses his faith in chivalry, and becomes sane. Make sure it never happens to you!

Comments

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Music has never been just about the resonance of sounds. It's always encoded important social functions; that's what makes it socially important.

So just because, for the "hipster," music encodes important social functions, this means that these particular social functions are important? I'm not sure one follows from the other, necessarily. I agree with your premise, but I still think that the "importance" of hipster social functions is open to argument, as is the quality of any social function.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

for the "hipster," music encodes important social functions

Not just for the hipster, for everyone. Opera without the social scene that surrounds it is unimaginable, and if you dislike that social scene (as I do) it's extremely hard to like the combinations of notes and gestures and sets which comprise opera formally, even in theoretical isolation.

[eptified.livejournal.com]

There isn't enough vomit in the world for this one, Nick

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

Quick, get to posturing so people will know you're better than hipsters who dare to embrace their status as such.

[eptified.livejournal.com]

I'm just the guy pukin' in the corner, sir - which is not really a good position from which to posture. I have nothing against hipsters per se; it's just this article, which combines a defense of the strong against the weak, weird ad hominem attacks, an ahistoric and completely perplexing celebration of aristocratic social norms, and an across-the-board dismissal of art for art's sake. Describing hipster behavior as a kind of laudable social darwinism. The blithe way in which he passes over hipsters flipping neighborhoods with an "oh, the kids will be all right" - and who cares what happens to the people who actually lived in the neighborhood before - yeah. Dry heaves. I'll move on in a second - take your beardy condemnation elsewhere.

Jeez, seriously. If he hadn't said all of these things before in this space I'd think this was satire.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

lol, beardy condemnation. If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: The beard is a fetish, not a fashion statement. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SI_OLNRhz8) What was that about ad hominems?

I did scoff at the "adding value to neighborhoods" bit, but where else is l'art pour l'art possible for most people but in a place with low rent overheads? I don't see any place where he denies that art has its own intrinsic value, just that its production and consumption inevitably has a social dimension to it.

[tropigalia.livejournal.com]

pedophile glasses are ugly and i will not feel ashamed for condemning people who think it's ok to wear them

[imomus.livejournal.com]

How is championing the "skinny nerdy fellow who didn't get much attention from girls at school" a "defense of the strong against the weak", Eptified? Where are the ad hominem attacks? The only people I mention by name are a fictional character, his author, and a sociologist!

As for the neighbourhoods thing, my experience is that both hipsters and the people who live in the kind of poor areas they tend to move to lay down extremely shallow roots -- the immigrant underclass and the incoming "creative class" share a cosmopolitanism of the poor (http://imomus.livejournal.com/217216.html) which makes it as easy to move on as to move in. This flexibility is just one of many things these two groups share.

[eptified.livejournal.com]

No doubt - it's one of the big insoluble problems of being an art brat. Some would argue that part of the deal when you're moving in to a neighborhood as a privileged (?) artist type is that you should take care of it, and try actively to stop it from being gentrified or redeveloped, but why should an artist have to be a community organizer, any more than they should have to be t-shirt salesmen?

The beardy bit was less an attack than an acknowledgment of your manly powers. It turns out my response to the article was actually a sublimation of my bitterness about not being able to grow one myself (without which I will never be a real hipster, either.)

[eptified.livejournal.com]

Why, you're defending the successful darwinian hipsters against the unsuccessful darwinian sub-hipsters, of course. (And I should not have said ad-hominem, you're correct. What do you call it when someone accuses their critics of being jealous and sexually frustrated?)

The cosmopolitanism of the poor bit is an area where we're going to have to agree to disagree, I think.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Some would argue that part of the deal when you're moving in to a neighborhood as a privileged (?) artist type is that you should take care of it, and try actively to stop it from being gentrified or redeveloped

Artists "taking care" of neighbourhoods inevitably gentrifies them, though. You do at least seem to be aware of this.

Why, you're defending the successful darwinian hipsters against the unsuccessful darwinian sub-hipsters, of course.

I stress eccentricity and experiment in my article. I don't think these are qualities associated with Darwinian success. People who want success at all costs conform.

The cosmopolitanism of the poor bit is an area where we're going to have to agree to disagree, I think.

Well, I'd be interested to hear why you think it's wrong. A non-cosmopolitan poor would of course be the white indigenous working class rather than the immigrants I'm talking about, and of course their roots are deeper. Is that who you're championing against the hipsters?

[(Anonymous)]

It seems according to your reading, only men can be hispters...

[(Anonymous)]

what a beautiful, invigorating, encouraging piece. thank you nick. right from its last line, i was convinced i'd take its message to my grave.
btw, this has got to be the most forward thinking magazine i've ever known/read in the hispanic world ever (i'm hispanic). you certainly know how to choose them, for sure.

eDwin

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The piece is written from a male perspective... It's a combination of "write what you know" and "know your reader" -- music publications are read, overwhelmingly, by males.

Naturally females can also be ingenioso hidalgos. Actually, Kathy Acker wrote a role-reversed Don Quixote.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

They chose me, eDwin!

[(Anonymous)]

ah! , isn't that something.

eDwin

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

My problem is not with your general premise (that music encodes social functions), but that you seem to think all of these social functions important. Perhaps they're important to the organisms they serve ("hipster culture," etc), but I wouldn't be sad if hipster culture or opera culture morphed into other more pleasing cultures. I don't think there's anything particularly "important" about hipster culture.

[gothikfaerie.livejournal.com]

As an active member of the creative class who just turned fifty, i have to say bravo to your three things. When i first got out on my own in the late 70s, i was fortunate to be briefly exposed to a lot of individuals who were still 'letting their freak flag fly' - and saddened when they all vanished from the scene within months or a year of my entering it. i wanted to get to know them, learn from them, hear their stories.

Now that i'm on the other side of that equation, i find being around people of classic 'hipster' age is beneficial for all of us. It keeps me active and involved as an artist; whereas i can provide them with a living example of how to survive without selling out. General wisdom holds that the 60s generation had no respect for their elders - i wonder if its more that most elders at the time didn't give them (us) anything we *could* respect. i hope i'm doing some small part to bridge that gap in my local community.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah. So women have to be honorary men.

[(Anonymous)]

And the second saddest thing about being trendy and hip is that it can become simply an alternative sort of conformity

Isn't the catch 22 of hipsterism that it seems to require photocopying a look started by someone who either makes more money or gets more sex than you do ? Exhibit A - the army of dad be-glassed, ball-strangled, check-shirted, mocha- stained terries ..Can a footsoldier in a clone army be truly hip ? If fashion is a language, aren't terries just a very dull novel composed entirely of fullstops set in 12 point comic sans ?

[(Anonymous)]

This is a ridiculous piece. I see no great correlation between being creative and being trendy. If anything, "trendiness" is a deadening convention which true creatives avoid. Trendiness and eccentricity are in fact binary opposites. Also your idea of "creativity" is incredibly restrictive. Are people doing fundamental physics not creative? Are people working out ingenious ways to engineer bridges not creative? The whole goal of hipsterism according to you seems to be a new chivalric order to achieve the jock-ish desire to "get laid" (which rather leaves women out of the equation). And this notion that having children and being creative are somehow either/or choices is truly preposterous. I don't see any evidence that creative people are less likely to have children. Randomly pick ten straight successful artists over the age of 50 and nine of them will have had children. The correlation with childlessness is not with creativity but with lack of economic success, in any endeavour.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I agree with aspects of your article, but I agree with aspects of eptified's critique.

Most intelligent people I know are wary of labeling themselves, especially in regards to their personality. By pigeoning holing yourself you start to portray yourself as being somewhat cardboard, disregarding all the subtleties of your identity in favor of a catch-all term to sum yourself up. (The irony is, you then fall into the trap of "Only real hipsters deny being hipsters". But that old cliche is more of a cynical attack on people than a rule and isn't particularly true.) If someone was to really push me to describe who I was accurately, I wouldn't use the the labels I casually use for brevity's sake because they lack nuance. For this reason, I don't really identify as a hipster or a member of the creative class.

But by admitting that, I almost open myself up to your following rebuttal, which seems to be "Any criticism of hipsterdom is done by less cooler people who are just jealous of how cool we are". I thought you were joking the last time you said you agreed with Gavin McInnes that only fat bloggers criticise hipsters, but you seem to genuinely believe this. Speaking as a fat blogger, I call bullshit on this. Everytime you criticise the big-breasted, blond bombshells on the front cover of Maxim or FHM, is it because you secretly want her? Everytime you champion post-materialism as an antidote to excess is it because you secretly wish to be filthy rich?

Finally, your maxims... they lack. They lack in the same way label hipster or creative class lacks.

"be trendy, stay trendy, don't conform."



This is from a show on BBC3 called "Snog, Marry or Avoid" which showcases girls and guys who take mainstream looks to extremes. He's not particularly trendy and cool by hipster standards, and yet he is one of the truest eccentrics I've ever seen. There's so much to love and so much to hate. He clearly bases his look around boring archetypes of mainstream beauty, and yet he "conforms" to such extremes it's not boring anymore. He clearly revels in being creative and an individual, and yet, it's just boring, unashamed attention seeking -- "I'm doing this for attention, I want to be famous". The only difference between this guy and a certain type of hipster is his choice of clothes, the venues he attends, and the fact he freely admits to himself and to everyone around him he's primarily devoted to seeking attention.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"If anything, "trendiness" is a deadening convention which true creatives avoid."

Trendiness is more to do with tribalism I think. Each group has it own idea of trendy. Trendiness is a pack rite, a mating ritual, something to bond around, a meeting of minds and values, a signifier. It's not without purpose or merit though, it depends what you value more. My only concern with trendiness is sometimes it can make people closed minded to difference if taken to extremes, but Momus acknowledges this.

"The whole goal of hipsterism according to you seems to be a new chivalric order to achieve the jock-ish desire to "get laid" (which rather leaves women out of the equation)"

Because only men like having sex, right? Women never actively go out on the prowl?

"this notion that having children and being creative are somehow either/or choices is truly preposterous. I don't see any evidence that creative people are less likely to have children.

He never said they stop being creative, he said they stop trying to be hip and trendy, which is generally true I think.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

People accuse me of social Darwinism -- how about the makers of shows with titles like The Weakest Link and Snog, Marry or Avoid? Or how about Endemol's recession-friendly Someone's Gotta Go (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/you-really-are-fired-reality-show-to-end-with-layoff/), which selects which employees get laid off in the recession -- for real! Now that's what I call Social Darwinism!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Did Kathy Acker live, write and die so that you could draw this sorry inference from her work?