Protest in Guangzhou: Why would you burn garbage?
Week Around the Ists
Barbie Spa: For the cosmopolitan plastic beauty in you
Interview: Coco Zhao, from jazz to M. Butterfly
Cinematheque: Mulan is finally Chinese again! (and other film news)
This may have been obvious to anyone who's ever been at a show at Zhijiang Dream Factory, but Shanghai (and we're assuming greater China) has got an ever growing population of *gasp* hipsters! Exhibit A: M-Style magazine, which has apparently been churning out monthly issues since January 2008.
Everything to denote adherence to the hipster lifestyle is here: Terry Richardson-esque (perhaps without the porny-ness) grainy-styled pictures, skinny girls posing amongst vinyl LPs, an addiction to retro fashion, ironic T-shirts, and - of course - Converse... but while a part of us is snickering a little at this import from the West, we're going to say that, overall, we're in support.
Hipsters get a lot of flack in the U.S. and Europe for fetishizing elements of fringe movements and regurgitating them into something completely sterile and inauthentic - all of the style and none of the substance, so to speak.
And yet (for us, at least) the cheap beer and great music is a welcome escape from the whisky-and-green-tea, Eurotrash house, everybody clad in some skimpy shade of black scene that's dominated Shanghai so far.
So we say: Bravo, M-Style! May you live long and prosper (not too much though, because then you would've totally sold out).
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I think it's great that China is getting more and more inspirated by Western influences.
And we have also seen that the Western world is influenced by the East. Mutual influence :)
Where can I get this magazine?
I'd like to say thank you for not engaging in gratuitous hipster bashing. It's too easy.
But I have to admit that part of me is looking forward to the gratuitous hipster bashing that will probably ensue in the comments field. It's so easy!
I have to say that I still am not sure exactly what "hipster" is. Does that make me [gasp!] too old?
Regardless, any mag that offers headlines like "My little sexy" deserves to be greeted with a giggle or two.
"...skimpy shade of black scene that's dominated Shanghai so far"?
"Skimpy shade of black." The f**** is that? And, I'm curious: how long is "so far"?
Actually, the budding hipsters are a nice break from the incessant glam-o-rama set (http://inactionhero.blogspot.com/2007/05/two-pictures-are-worth-54-words.html ).
Still, bashing is one of Shanghai's great pleasures, so the hipsters are going to get theirs (especially those French hipsters), just as the [s]expats get theirs, Crocs wearing dorks (like me) get theirs, fake DJ-ass types and faux clothing designers get theirs, and third rate blog reporters and their commenters get theirs.
Inaction Hero: in the stratum of "third rate blog reporters and their commenters" did you also include yourself? because the description seems fitting at first, but your blog completely lacks commenters.
Anyway, every single shade of angst has been already used against hipsters, from amicable disapproval but ultimate sympathy, all the way to ultraviolence (thank you, mr. Bret Eaton Ellis).
Personally, I like the version with blood being spilled better.
lasecondababele:
Yes, I wholeheartedly include myself. To type away here is to admit as such. What's more, I would say my blog is not even third rate as what a blog can potentially be; and it's purpose is anything but to drum up comments.
Back to Hipsters.
Actually, I think it's a bit sad that the term "hipster" has been co-opted so badly. Where it once actually implied a sense under-the-radar independence and reserved cool, it now has near clownish connotations.
In in its traditional sense, the moment someone reflected upon themselves as a "hipster," they would cease to be.
I don't care what anyone says, hipster chicks are hot and I would totally do those. Well, maybe not the last two.
Inaction Hero: I am wary of people so willing to seclude so surely blogging from satisfaction of ego, which is boosted, petty to admit it but that's the ultimate beauty of it, by any kind of attention (comments or replies to flames). And I don't buy the blasé attitude at all.
BTW, props to the thought on "hipster" even though there are words, better, etiquettes, with much sadder finales. think about all the mud emo's been dragged through.