Oooh, my favorite pet topic! The term "hipster" has gotten totally warped to be almost meaningless now. It is both an insult and something people aspire to be. My friends with more of a social analytical bent say that hipsters enjoy the irony of poverty as an aesthetic on a big budget. Like ordering Pabst Blue Ribbon and looking like a starving artist while riding around town on a $3,000 Italian city bike.
It's like the term "geek". Geek chic by the way is also an element of hiptser culture. Ooh, or the term "punk". It meant something once but has basically blown up so much in the public consciousness and the public eye to be come mass-produced, acknowledged commercially, and mass imitated to the point where it is just a look to try on for the tweens and Millenials. Now it basically means shopping at Urban Outfitters.
Also, look at what happened to the website 'nerve.com' once a bastion for hipster dating.
Personally, I have always maintained that it takes *work* and an aesthetic eye to be a hipster. Wearing a
keffiyah (or "keffiyah inspired" scarf) doesn't cut it.
This is just my own ridiculousness, but I get annoyed when people throw the term "hipster" to basically anyone under 30 who rides a bike. The term has become totally bastardized into meaninglessness in some parts of the country or some scenes.
Like any scene, there are specific aesthetics and proclivities that you have to maintain and meet to qualify as a hipster. Hipster aesthetic has chutzpah in my opinion and a sense of daring and originality in arts/entertainment that I appreciate. Purely on aesthetic grounds, I'm insulted for hipsters when I see large segments of totally unstylish, not even trying, boringly dressed people described as a "hipster".
This is my own ridiculous rant. It has merit though.