Emily,
Does the fact that I’m middle-aged and going to a music festival with my husband mean that I’ve become what I’ve once dreaded: The Aging Hipster?
Dorigen
Dorigen,
You are not an aging hipster. You are not a Janeane Garofalo. An aging hipster is a matter of 1) time/place and 2) whatnot. Allow me to explain:
TIME/PLACE
Long ago, as a senior college student at a small town Midwestern liberal arts college, I attended the first party of the year and found in attendance a guy who had graduated just a few months prior. He was cool when he attended school and was the same person as before, but he was universally mocked for not immediately moving on with the times. “What’s HE doing here? Didn’t he graduate?”
Sometimes the social need to move on has a very tight window. However, this is not the case in New York City. You live in a wonderland of adult freedom, where you can do whatever the hell you want for as long as you damn well please, and everyone does so with style. In New York “aging hipster” is a misnomer for “fashionable sophisticate.”
image from: The Sartorialist
WHATNOT
Janeane Garofalo is an example of: the “whatnot” that she wears = aging hipster. There’s even a website defining her as such.
image from: Wake Up Black America
She is stuck in 90’s attire – thick black leather snap bracelets, white wife beater tanks, ill fitting sag jeans, and combat boots. IF you wear anything truly 90’s (not to be confused with the off-center 90’s redo of Urban Outfitters) to Coachella, then you WILL be an aging hipster. To clarify, this also includes a white baby T with a full length, floral print, spaghetti strap dress and a frail, synthetic fabric cardigan tied around your waist.
Just keep it cute, and you’re fine.
Emily
DorEm Answers 