Hip(ster) Semi-Stasis

Perusing over blogs last night, I came across the Gawker article, "Lawsuits: Racist Hipsters Schooled by Ex-American Apparel Employee," yet one more example confirming the stereotype, and even the ideal for some, that hipsters tend to be both white and racist. This example also further condemns the general mindset of American Apparel, where sexuality - and some might say sexual exploitation - is a fundamental part of the company's ethos. "Living On The Edge At American Apparel" an article published in June 2005 in Businessweek, examines the controversy surrounding Dov Charney, the CEO of American Apparel.

Charney, whose company has become a hipster empire for its stylish, sexy, unlabeled American-made sweatshop-free clothes, considers himself a bohemian, free-spirited individual unconstrained by traditional corporate policies, including not to have sexual relations with employees. He argues that as long as the activity is consensual, it is unproblematic and private. Similar to Charney's risque attitude towards sexuality in the workplace, he considers offensive and crude language just par for the course. A 2006 NBC article, "Sexy marketing or sexual harrassment?", details Charny's responses on deposition video, in which he claims that derogatory language is generally welcome at the workplace and the term "slut" is often endearing rather than offensive. As Businessweek concludes, Charney's primary obstacle in his search for worldwide commercial success may ultimately be himself.

From the 2005 Businessweek article:


Charney's attitude perhaps embodies the epitome of the prevailing hipster attitude: to embrace one's personal beliefs with complete disregard to what is considered professional or PC. And thus he still reins successful in the commercial and hipster spheres, with ads featuring images of scantily clad, sexualized young adults parading all over the media, both in print and online.

Interestingly, the Gawker article on hipster racism links to a New York Times article about Vice Magazine with an eerily similar title to the Businessweek article on American Apparel: "The Edge of Hip: Vice, the Brand." This 2003 NY Times article discusses the Vice construction of the hipster as an upper-class, dirty, Pabst-Blue-Ribbon-chugging, college-educated kid, probably living in Williamsburg, who achieves rebel status and street cred by assuming a working-class image and borrowing from its lifestyle. Vice, which unabashedly voices its un-PC opinions, promotes a brash form of counterculture that simply argues, according to the article, that the current generation is immune to the sting of ethnic slurs and considers it all a part of our contemporary cultural posturing.

And these articles, written from 2-5 years ago, all still ring true today. Perhaps that Adbusters article scathingly denouncing hipsters as vapid cultural consumers and regurgitators, was really on to something after all - at least, unfortunately, in some spheres of our culture.