Hipstagram

Hi guys,

First of all: do not judge me before you have read the whole post. I am not prejudiced. Thanks. 

For a while now I've been on Tumblr. If you don't know what Tumblr is, here's a brief explanation: Tumblr is a website on which you have a sort of blog. You can follow other blogs, whose posts will appear on your dashboard. You can either like the post, reblog the post (which makes it appear on your blog and on the dashboard of people who follow you) or just scroll past it if you're not interested. Now, there are some 'sections' of Tumblr, or corners, or however you'd like to call it. You've got the fashion corner, in which my sister likes to scroll around (follow her if you like!), there's the art section with all sorts of art. Then there's the fandom section. A fandom is a group of people who really really really like this show/actor/film/musician and post gifs (moving pictures) about this certain fandom. (So the word fandom is used for the people loving the show/actor/film/musician and the show/actor/film/musician itself). Also you have the 'hipster' corner of Tumblr.

Oxford dictionary has this definition:

Definition of hipster

noun

informal

• a person who follows the latest trends and fashions.

The fandom corner and the hipster corner seem to be at war all the time. I think this war is based on the fact that the fandom people consider themselves very not cool and forever alone and claim not to leave their room and the hipsters consider themselves the cool guys who do what they want and look good doing it. Some examples of hipster things:

- Hipster clothes

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- Hipster pictures

- Hipster posts laughed at by fandom people

This post for example. Let me explain it a little bit. The picture of the statue is from Doctor Who (A television series of which I am a massive fan, as you might have noticed). The statues are actually not statues. They are aliens. They can only move when no one sees them: hence the DON'T BLINK thing. The fangirls assume that hipsters like this because it looks sad and a bit like an artsy photograph.
In this first version of the post they even wish the hipsters death. I know this is just meant as a joke, but still. Also I know the feeling when you understand something and one picture of one statue means a whole story to you and knowing that other people don't know that. It gives you the feeling that you're cool. I just don't think that this means that other people who don't know that are not cool.

This second version kind of offends me. '.. Blink and you're stuck in a charity shop posting pictures on Instagram'. That bit is rather unfair. I love walking around in charity shops / thrift stores and posting pictures that you made of you and your friends or something fun you saw is something we all do. I don't thing it's a hipster thing, really.

I must admit, some of these pictures are cute and some hipster songs are nice. I like Lomography and I wear H&M clothes. 

I just think we shouldn't call everything hipster and therefore avoid it. It's become something of a swearword and even hipsters won't want to admit they're hipster. Why don't we just all like what we like and not give names to those things? I like some hipster things and I like to be in fandoms at the same time. I don't think there's anything wrong with that!

That's kind of what I wanted to put out there, on the lovely internet.

Love,
Mia

PS: My sister suddenly said HIPSTAGRAM to Instagram and that made me laugh so hard that I made it into the title. Thanks Sis.