Hepped on “hip”

Paste magazine just published an interactive timeline called “The Evolution of the Hipster 2000-2009.”  Paste magazine was launched in 2002.  It monitors the scene in hip new music and video, including a monthly sampler of new releases.  So looking back on the decade just passed is a retrospective on the pop culture that Paste has been covering all along.

But what exactly does the hipster of the 2000s represent?  Is this scene really the cutting edge of culture?  Or is something missing, something important, that is, from a marketing standpoint?

What the Paste timeline shows are the various personas that were celebrated as the coolest of cool during that year.  Certainly, we recognize these characters.  We saw them in the media.  We saw them on the street.  We even knew them personally.  They were real, and they’re still around.  But are they the characters we need to follow in order to know what’s going to take the marketplace by storm?

No.

For one thing, this sort of timeline obscures the fact that diversity not uniformity is what characterizes life these days.  Everybody adopts his or her own personal style, but only in the context of a diversity of personal styles.  Nowadays, there are lots of ways to be hip.  So, this timeline is interesting but by no means definitive or sufficiently inclusive.  This is the broad problem with all such generalizations of today’s consumers.  There is no single style that is representative of an entire period anymore.

Which is not to say, by the way, that a single style can’t dominate.  For a period of time, a single style can enjoy crossover appeal and momentum.  Just not any of the hipsters in this timeline.  So portraying them as central characters misrepresents the minor roles they played.

Want to know who dominates right now?  Well, it’s no hipster.  It’s Susan Boyle.  Her appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent” captivated audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.  And now her U.S. and U.K. number-one-selling CD, “I Dreamed a Dream,” is the biggest debut CD/album ever for a female artist.  That’s bigger than Rihanna.  Bigger than Beyoncé.  Bigger than Mary J. Blige.  Bigger than Mariah Carey.  Bigger than Cher.  Bigger than Olivia Newton-John.  Bigger than Shania Twain.  Bigger than Trisha Yearwood.  Bigger than Diana Ross.  Bigger than Janet Jackson.  Bigger than Faith Hill.  Bigger than Patsy Cline.  Bigger than Celine Dion.  Bigger than Dolly Parton.  Bigger than Whitney Houston.  Bigger than Barbra Streisand.  Bigger than Christina Aguilera.  Bigger than Britney Spears.  Bigger than Madonna.  In its second week, it is holding its number one position.  And it’s predicted to enjoy a third week atop the charts, with a good chance of outselling Taylor Swift for the top-selling CD/album of the year.  Non-hipster Boyle.

Maybe the definition of hip is the margin not the mainstream.  If so, then hip is inherently a niche marketing opportunity.  Unfortunately, niches mean less scale and less scale means lower margins and/or higher prices, either of which means a tougher business to sustain.

Or maybe it’s just that hip is something different than we think.  Maybe hip is not the style of the outsider who breaks away from the crowd.  Maybe, instead, it’s the style of the outsider who attracts a crowd.  By this definiton, we wouldn’t include any of the hipsters on the Paste magazine timeline.  Their crowds were small.  But we would include people like James Dean, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.  And Susan Boyle.

For marketers to get hepped on hip there has to be a business in it, not just a cultural statement.  Sometimes, brands get lost out on the edge where they can’t find the market in the middle.  That’s the only hipster timeline that matters.  [J. Walker Smith]

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