Lipka: Of stereotypes and skinny jeans

By Carolyn Lipka
Guest Columnist
Tuesday, February 1, 2011

I am not a hipster. No, actually. I don’t only listen to unknown and independent music, wear thrift-store clothes or reference deliberately obscure literature. But ask anyone who doesn’t know me well and sees me around, and they will inevitably claim that I’m a card-carrying hipster. It’s the big headphones, Doc Martens and predominantly black wardrobe that will fool them. At first I was upset that people labeled me without actually bothering to get to know me. But should I really expect anything else?

We all make first impressions, and these impressions are usually superficial: What someone is wearing, what they say and where you meet them are the first metrics of judgment. Meeting me for the first time, some were surprised that I was a freshman; “there aren’t very many freshmen hipsters” here at Yale, they said. Did they say that because we were at Modern Love — and if that were the case, were the 20 other freshmen in attendance also hipsters? Or was it because I was wearing a completely black, partially lace outfit with red lipstick and combat boots that they decided to label me?

These kinds of assumptions are not limited to the perennially ambiguous hipster label. A number of people have asked me if I’m from New York, or some other big city, and are surprised when they find out I’m from a small town. The other day, my friend defended people who labeled me by suggesting that I was intentionally wearing two different socks as some kind of fashion statement: Actually, I just don’t care. And besides, my wardrobe should not indicate the kind of person that I am — especially in a community as ostensibly open-minded as Yale.

Like most students, I do not dress for the job I want. Even at home, when I expressed interest in majoring in ethics, politics and economics, people suggested that I look into film studies or photography — hobbies, not career paths or even fully fledged passions. Perhaps it’s my fault for not dressing more conservatively so that people will take me “seriously.” But if people think that they can peg someone by the way they dress, they are sadly mistaken.

Unfortunately, Yale’s social atmosphere facilitates an environment where individuals freely pass judgments about intelligence, ambition and interests based on the way someone appears. Our competitive Yale bubble catalyzes judgment and decreases personal choices — from fashion preferences to taste in music, we water down our tastes in order to conform.

Social groups, especially in the freshman class, are homogenizing. Not in a Foucaultian, panoptic way, but in how they coalesce individuals with similar interests, in similar extracurricular activities, with similar tastes. Even worse, some freshmen forge friendships with exclusively students from similar socioeconomic backgrounds or types of schools simply because it’s what they are used to. It is easy to claim that we are branching out, since a university naturally has more variety than a high school. When the student body is as diverse as Yale’s, it’s impossible to have a group of friends as isolated as in high school. But we’re just as cliquey, only less willing to admit it.

Ultimately, we need to resist the urge to label. Of course, a group of people who do not subscribe to a stereotypical set of ideologies will be more complex, and sometimes, problematic; but that is the challenge that faces any diverse community. We should embrace it as an opportunity. Yet, we often make the oldest, most clichéd mistake in the book — judging a book by its cover.

Carolyn Lipka is a freshman in Jonathan Edwards College.

Comments

  • user_name

    Very nice article. I appreciate the positive sentiments.

    To put in my own two cents… it seems too naively idealistic. People seldom put the wrong “covers” on their “books.” If one doesn’t care what “cover” they put on, that itself says something. When you wear a “a completely black, partially lace outfit with red lipstick and combat boots,” what else could that mean? That you like making people think you’re a hipster, later telling them that you’re not? Completely black outfits and combat boots are hard to come by in a normal shopping sense – when you look for them and buy them, that shows you like them. What you wear doesn’t make you a hipster, but what else would it mean? Should it mean absolutely nothing? Then what happens when you dress well and look pretty? Should it equally imply and mean nothing?

    “Actually, I just don’t care” – I like that you don’t view fashion as a way of life. Though why do you remain such a fashionable hipster? Perhaps this article is the pinnacle of being hipster – the denial of actually being a hipster, while showing all the signs of being similar to one.

    I love your idealism – I wish people could be truly diverse at heart and branch out. But would that process itself not destroy them? If they lose/delay their exploration of the “similar interests” what would they become? In reality, people will always gravitate toward those similar to them – and this will cause the Asians to be with the Asians, the preps to be with the preps, etc. The doors to join these groups are open, of course, but no one walks through them just for the sake of exploration. I love that you encourage people to step out, but I seriously doubt that anyone will. Sometimes, branching out means the very destruction of oneself (if carried far enough)…and most have a desire to self preserve.

    Know what, I dare you to be the first to follow your advice. I dare you to join the Korean Americans group, a sorority, a performance group, an academic org, a government org, a club sport, a fashion group, a lgbtq group, a religious group, a activist organization, an engineering org – you get the gist. If you find time over your years (assuming you’re not a senior…) you should try you branch and truly connect with everyone you meet. You should diversify yourself. You might find yourself in a lonely boat, however.

    See if your ideals come to light.

  • jlinshi

    i see you c-lip

  • jlinshi

    yea girl you keep wearing those crop tops

  • penny_lane

    1. You choose to dress the way you do, and there’s a reason for it. This is true of everyone, from you to the girl who only wears mom jeans and t-shirts from the aquarium. Those Doc Martins ain’t cheap, and neither are those mom jeans. People don’t spend lots of money on things they don’t care about. Claiming anything else is whiny and disingenuous. Write in again when you’re done with your adolescence.

    2. Adverbs modify verbs, not the nouns that are the objects of the verbs. You and the YDN editors need to make this your new mantra. The following phrases made me squirm:
    “…reference deliberately obscure literature…” (Was the writer trying to obfuscate the true ideas behind his work with vague phrasing, much as you do with your wardrobe? Also, “reference” is a noun. You meant “refer to.”)
    “…some freshmen forge friendships with exclusively students…” (That’s the worst solecism I’ve seen in the YDN in a long time.)

  • River Tam

    Writing a YDN column about fighting the human instinct to “label” is prototypically hipster.

  • jnewsham

    Reference is also a verb.

  • lightandtruth

    Hipsters often clarify what they mean to say by using the phrase “not in a Foucaultian,panoptic way”.

  • The Anti-Yale

    People who use the word “solecism” turn me off.

  • user_name

    People who use words turn me off.

  • mpl

    What is her “opinion” here?

  • penny_lane

    What would you have called it, PK? “Grammatical error” is both much longer/clunkier and slightly less accurate. Calling a spade a spade shouldn’t turn you off. Aren’t you a high school English teacher? Isn’t part of the beauty of English that we can use a single word to convey a complex concept, when other languages would have used a longer phrase? I worry for the writing skills of your students.

    JN-Only hipsters and lazy academics use “reference” as a verb. The rest of us use “refer to.”

  • xfxjuice

    Apparently, the Oxford English Dictionary writers are either hipsters or lazy academics.

  • natashathondavadi

    adverbs can modify adjectives. obscure is an adjective…

  • penny_lane

    xfx, you have it backwards. Frequent use leads to its appearance in the dictionary, not the other way around.

  • The Anti-Yale

    Talk turkey, not pheasant or capon
    “That’s the sloppiest English I’ve seen . . . in a long time . . . “

    solecism (plural: solecisms)
    1.Error in the use of language, especially an error concerning etiquette.
    2.In written language, the intentional use of misspelling and/or incorrect grammar to affect the vernacular of a particular dialect.
    3.Any faux pas involving a transgression against the norms of expected behavior.

  • penny_lane

    Natasha- That’s true, but the way Ms. Lipka wrote that sentence makes it sound like the literature is obscure and deliberately so. However, common sense leads me to believe that she was actually talking about the stereotype of hipsters making references to literature that few people have read, hence my mocking statement about obfuscation and vagueness. If that was unclear, I apologize.

    Your argument about adverbs modifying modifiers actually makes more sense applied to the “with exclusively” bit. You would be right to suggest the possibility that “exclusively” modifies the descriptive prepositional phrase “with…students from…”, and not the verb “forge,” but either way, putting it after the preposition is an example of truly horrendous stylistic control. I’m actually fairly willing to forgive Ms. Lipka for it–we all miss our mistakes, from time to time–but the editors should have caught it.

  • penny_lane

    PK- I don’t know what dictionary you used, but I prefer the definition from Merriam-Webster:

    Definition of SOLECISM
    1: an ungrammatical combination of words in a sentence; also : a minor blunder in speech
    2: something deviating from the proper, normal, or accepted order
    3: a breach of etiquette or decorum

    “Sloppy English” still doesn’t quite convey what I wanted to say. You, I and Mr. Wordsworth can debate the various merits of turkey and pheasant another time.

  • The Anti-Yale

    I think what bothers me about “solecism” is it’s latent snootiness. Correcting someone is an art. A put down is not. I prefer a lift up.

  • The Anti-Yale

    Speaking of lift-ups—-how does that apostrophe of mine manage to creep into ” its ” in all the wrong places?

  • blahahah

    Simply denying that one is a hipster is actually quite stereotypically hipster. There is no escape!!!

  • psades14

    for heavens sake, guys – stop passing so much judgement!

  • Jaymin

    As Dave Chappelle would say, “alright lady, fine…fine…you’re not a hipster. But you are wearing a hipster’s uniform, I’ll tell you that”.

  • amenhotep

    Dress, as far as I can tell, serves as a means of expression in two distinct ways.
    1. Sexually, or, more broadly, aesthetically.
    2. As an arbitrary signifier.
    Much hipster dress deliberately challenges or forsakes conventional aesthetics. The hipster uniform, as an arbitrary signifier, has also become incredibly familiar. So when someone sees you wearing the hipster uniform, they take it for just that – the hipster uniform.

    If you wore a marching band outfit around, would you be surprised to learn that people thought you were in a marching band? Would you consider that unfair labeling?

  • amenhotep

    Wrote that before Jaymin posted, but agree with him entirely.

  • natashathondavadi
  • Jaymin

    @amenhotep I never understood the complaint against dress-based prejudgement. Your clothes are a primary means of self-presentation. They are a highly visible product of your choices and thus inherently convey some aspect of your identity. If you dress like a fireman, people will assume you’re a fireman. If you dress like a whore, people will assume you’re a whore. If you dress like a hipster, people will assume you’re a hipster.

  • PC2011

    reference, v trans.
    a. To mention, refer to; (originally) spec. to cite as a reference.
    definition 5, OED

    ijs

    also, people wear what they like and what they think looks good. other people hate. that’s the way of the world (clothing-wise). unfortunately, part of the generally accepted (was that right? not sure I got the adverb placement straight there. prolly not) definition of “hipster” involves rejecting the label. That makes writing about how one is not a hipster a lost cause.

    I’m probably not a hipster, but maybe I am. And if I am who cares?

    That might be the most hipster thing I’ve ever written.

  • please
  • y_13

    “Like most students, I do not dress for the job I want. Even at home, when I expressed interest in majoring in ethics, politics and economics, people suggested that I look into film studies or photography — hobbies, not career paths or even fully fledged passions. Perhaps it’s my fault for not dressing more conservatively so that people will take me “seriously.””

    Film studies and photography are not “serious?” Let’s all study ethics, then!

  • jlinshi

    i still see you c-lip

  • m4u

    @jaymin- ditto. “Dressing is a way of life.”- Yves Saint Laurent. Or rather a visual language on which society generally depends for communicating connotated messages about class, gender, and aesthetic preference. Lipka, WAKE UP AND STOP WHINING.

  • MohawkMonk87

    “JN-Only hipsters and lazy academics use “reference” as a verb. The rest of us use “refer to.”"

    …Which makes “reference” the appropiate verb insofar as English of the colloquial-Yalie variety is concerned. :)

  • yale_undergrad

    This is terribly annoying.

  • dolores

    People who don’t want to be hipsters don’t talk about hipsters.

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