Hipster
A hipster is a performer or devotee of jazz and swing music and followers of the associated subculture, particularly marijuana and amphetamines. The term originated in the 1940s and 1950s. Hipsters were devoted to a mellow, laid back attitude that is still called hip. Many terms in the hipster argot, such as hip, kicks, square, like and cool continue to be used in their original hipster meanings. The cartoon jazz fan in beret and zoot suit is a hipster.
The term was applied both to black performers and to white Americans who became involved in the hip music scene. Hipsters were also known as hepcats. Both terms fell out of common usage with the coming of hippies in the 1960s.
The word hipster has, in the late 1990s and 2000s, been re-adopted into usage to describe performers and devotees of indie rock, emo and related styles of music, and those who follow the associated fashions and tastes. Trendnik has made an appearance in New York City as an alternate term for hipsters.
Original hipsters
1940s and 1950s:
- Harry the Hipster Gibson, pianist, singer of "Who put the benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?
- Lord Buckley, monologist, "The Bad Rapping of the Marquis de Sade"
- Billy Eckstine, singer and bandleader
- Slim Gaillard, musician, "The Groove Juice Special" and "Cement Mixer Puti Puti"
- Al Jazzbo Collins, disc jockey, broadcasting from the Purple Grotto, hip lexicographer
- Mezz Mezzrow, jazz musician
- Lenny Bruce, comedian
- Mose Allison, singer, pianist, songwriter
- Ken Nordine, creator of "word jazz"
- Henry Jacobs, whose persona was Shorty Petterstein
- Terry Southern, author of "Blood of the Wig", a hipster classic about getting high using a serum derived from the blood of a schizophrenic.
Hipsters come lately
1990 and beyond:
Quotations
- "Carrying his language and his new philosophy like concealed weapons, the hipster set out to conquer the world." -- Partisan Review, 1948
- "The hipster is man who's in the know, grasps everything, is alert." -- Mezz Mezzrow, Really the Blues
