http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/11/sincerity-not-irony-is-our-ages-ethos/265466/ Wampole's article made me mad when it first surfaced, and it makes me maybe even angrier now. I remember talking to my mom about it way back when- as the single most well-read and up to date person I know, I like kicking current events back and forth with her. Her only response to this one: "sounds like somebody just got dumped by a hipster."
This article actually really raised my hackles. It made me quite upset! I don't think Wampole has the right idea at all! I spend a lot of time with groups of "hipsters," my classmate and friends, and I myself tread a line somewhere between mainstream and what she condescendingly calls ironic. These people whom she claims revel in their irony and apathy so much that they lack the sincerity to accomplish anything or cause meaningful progress and movement are some of the most impassioned people I know. They are the activists who march, speak, write, and engage in the community. I've watched them affect legislation and change how certain things are run. A group of dedicated, ragtag hipsters, through persistent and organized activism and pressure, persuaded our fossil-fuel-gobbling university to formally commit to green energy and renewable resources. That is tangible change. These same hipsters work tirelessly on political campaigns that they believe in. They support local initiatives to make the community a better place through community gardens, bike-friendly roads and laws, and volunteer work. They consume the news, poetry, literature, and philosophy at an astonishing rate, and they asses these things critically in important, engaging discourse! They support local artists and business, they have real jobs, they vote, they are upstanding members of the community. They may spend hours rummaging in thrift stores for old flannels, scarves, goofy hats, sweaters from the nineties, and crew necks with ironic prints on them. They may have vinyl record collections more impressive than my father's. They write in leather-bound notebooks, and may be coffee and beer aficionados, but I'll be damned if they aren't the most sincere and passionate citizens I know. I can't speak with conviction about why hipsters prize nostalgic clothing and materials so much, or why irony is so much their trend, but I can say with certainty that Wampole has it dead wrong. I think she is too alienated from these people. She is making unfounded assumptions about them and- ironically- basing many of them on appearance. Maybe she needs to spend more time coffee shops getting to know these folks.
I feel like in large part she's using the extreme examples in order to make her point about the more general, less poignant irony. The easy cynicism of being an engaged adult (Especially an engaged young adult, because they have lost their idealism less recently) in 2014, in a western country (I'm hesitant to make this a US exclusive thing.)
You're certainly right. It is wise to avoid the assumption that this is just a US thing. And surely even the hipsters of one neighborhood are different from the hipsters of another. Subcultures within subcultures and whatnot. Her frame of reference, also, is obviously much different from mine! She may be using extreme examples but I think she's also generalizing in an extreme way that is damaging both to her argument and to her credibility.
Usually when someone muses on a cultural phenomenon that hasn't fully played out yet, they end up looking like an idiot before it's all said and done.