What is a hipster?

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On a warm, sunny day, Bradley Davis can be seen tiptoeing through campus barefoot with his shoes tucked awkwardly into his back pockets. Apparently hobbits are not the only ones making a statement by walking around campus without shoes. Another equally eccentric group known as hipsters are doing the same.

Few topics elicit as much emotion as the progression of the hipster movement. The battle between individualism and collectivism continues.

Almost everyone thinks they know exactly what a hipster is, and for some reason they either love them or hate them.

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Bradley Davis and Bethany Pratte define what it means to be a hipster.

Davis, a junior advertising major from Riverside, Calif., would be categorized by most as a hipster, and he doesn’t even know it.

“I don’t know if I’m a hipster,” he said. “What is a hipster anyways? I just wear what I want and do what I do.”

Yet one of his closest friends, Marianne Braithwaite, a sophomore biology major from Lindon, says he is.

“Brad is definitely a hipster,” Braithwaite said. “He wears old sweaters and thick-rimmed glasses. Sometimes he doesn’t even wear shoes. And he loves photography. Every hipster loves photography.”

Even Braithwaite seems to know exactly what a hipster is, but it’s still hard for her to explain it.

“I just know one when I see one,” she said.

Nelson Lee, a sophomore business major from Draper, said he thinks he has hipsters figured out.

“In general a hipster is someone who wears thick-rimmed glasses, T-shirts with stuff like ninja turtles or smurfs on them, skinny jeans, they love beards and mustaches and old sweaters from their grandpa’s closet,” he said. “They only listen to obscure bands and are obsessed with vinyl records. For some reason it’s like if nobody knows about the band it’s better. Oh, and Apple products. They love Apple.”

Yet it appears it is not so much what they wear that stirs up strong opinions but why they dress the way they do.

“Some hipsters dress and act the way they do because they want it to appear like they don’t care what people think about them,” Braithwaite said. “In reality, they care the most. If they didn’t, they would dress like zoobies. Come on, everyone knows what a zoobie is. They are crawling all over campus.”

Rainey Rogers, a junior business major from McKinney, Texas, finds it difficult to group them all together but does have a strong opinion about hipsters.

“It’s too hard to categorize all into the same definition, but in my experience, hipsters are attention-craving individuals who aren’t creative enough to display their personalities except through their clothes,” he said.

Joe Celano, 23, from Pacific Beach, Calif., thinks differently. He said hipster haters need to calm down.

“They are awesome people with a whole new kinda swag,” he said. “So many haters and not enough love. Let people do what they want. The way someone dresses doesn’t affect any of you. We should just love everyone no matter what.”

The hipster movement is happening, and it most likely won’t be going away anytime soon.

“I’ll just be who I want to be and you just be who you want to be,” Davis said. “What I wear or how I dress shouldn’t have any bearing on who I am friends with. We should just accept each other for who we are, especially here at BYU.”

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