THE SEARCH FOR AUTHENTICITY: HOW HIPSTERS TRANSFORMED FROM A LOCAL SUBCULTURE TO A GLOBAL CONSUMPTION COLLECTIVE A Master’s Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Communication, Culture and Technology By Lauren M. Alfrey, M.A. Washington, DC April 19, 2010 Copyright 2010 by Lauren M. Alfrey All rights reserved ii THE SEARCH FOR AUTHENTICITY: HOW HIPSTERS TRANSFORMED FROM A LOCAL SUBCULTURE TO A GLOBAL CONSUMPTION COLLECTIVE Lauren M. Alfrey, M.A. Thesis Advisor: D. Linda Garcia, Ph.D. ABSTRACT New media technologies and the global exchange of goods have dramatically expanded opportunities for identity signaling. Previously hidden or distant populations are now seen through online search engines, and images of American culture are being exported to far reaching corners of the developed and developing world. Despite these significant social changes, however, familiar patterns of identity signaling persist. These developments raise questions of how cultures and subcultures are maintained in an ever more complex social landscape. Using the hipster subculture as a case study, this paper will examine the role of taste and of consumption in allowing subgroups to maintain internal cohesion and social distinction. Using theoretical and empirical analyses, including a survey to a mixed sample, the creation of a taste scale, and statistical analyses of the relationship between consumption preferences and attitudes about conformity and divergence, this paper examines how identity status is reified through collective expressions of taste. iii This thesis is dedicated to my partner in life, J.R. Atwood. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks go to Professor D. Linda Garcia, whose passion, intellectual aptitude, and bold idealism inspired me to pursue a thesis topic formerly (and perhaps presently) considered by others to be “unanswerable” or just plain silly. Had it not been for her generous giving of time and encouragement, I would lacked the confidence to embark on and complete this project. Many an anxious night was alleviated by Linda being just a phone call away. I also owe a great deal of gratitude to my second reader, Professor Nicole Fernanez, whose class on social network analysis opened my eyes to a new corner of social science. Her insistence that everyone can learn math allowed me to do just that, and her advice on data manipulation was nothing short of inspired. Thank you, Professor Fernandez, for taking a chance on a once wayward student of cultural studies. To Professor Diana Owen, thank you for humoring the incipipent subject of this study and for your constant giving of time. Your assistance with my pilot survey and scale was instrumental in bringing this project to fruition. A special nod to Josh, my CCT husband and late night lab partner. His skills with stats got me through my analysis section, and his generosity as a friend always guarunteed that I arrived home safely and well-fed after late nights of thesis work. Thank you to all the CCT students and friends who took my survey and/or distributed it to their personal networks. This thesis would have lacked data to stand on if it was not for the grassroots efforts of my peers. Thanks go to my family for their material and emotional support during this sometimes frustrating process. I am grateful for my mother’s patience during conversations that focused on the minutae of my research, and for her regularly mailed greeting cards signaling that I was in her thoughts despite the great distance between us. To my dad, thanks for supporting all my educational edeavors despite their significant departure from your own. To my fiance, J.R. Atwood, thank you for your unwavering support and constant reassurance that my ideas have significance. Your skills got me through many moments of frustration with document and presentation softwares. And, your reminders that this is, in fact, just a paper helped keep my efforts in perspective. I would not have mustered the courage to travel across the country for graduate school if you had not believed in my potential so strongly. The greatest ackonwledgement goes to my grandfather, Robert Joseph Alfrey. He was the generous funder of my graduate education, without which the luxury of a semester long thesis project would have been improbable. His passing during the writing of this paper was an immense blow, but his positive impact on my life will always be remembered. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter II: Socioeconomic Frameworks and Their Role in Identity Construction …………… 9 Chapter III: The History and Evolution of Hipster Taste …………………………………… 26 Chapter IV: Methods, Analysis, and Discussion of Empirical Findings ……………………… 42 Chapter V: A Canary in the Cultural Coal Mine: What We Can Learn From Hipsters …… 65 Appendix (with survey instrument and illustrations)………………………………………. 71 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………. 84 vi INTRODUCTION In a world that grows ever more connected by the day via new media technologies and the global exchange of goods, the stage for identity signaling has expanded dramatically (McCracken, 2008). Over the last two decades of development, structural changes have meant that previously hidden or distant populations may now be seen through online search engines, and images of American culture are being exported to far reaching corners of the developed and developing world (Dowd and Dowd, 2003). In this global climate, opportunities for self- expression are richer and more diverse than ever before. Yet, despite the expanding opportunities for social interactions and the resulting enhancement of larger social structures, familiar patterns of identity signaling persist. These developments raise questions of how, amidst increasing spanning of traditional boundaries and the growing complexity that ensues, cultures and subcultures are maintained. This paper will address these questions through theoretical and empirical analyses. In particular, it examines how changes to socioeconomic frameworks and digital technologies have altered the landscape for identity signaling, leading members of subcultures to reify status through narrow expressions of taste. While the topic of subcultures and signaling is far from new for sociologists and cultural theorists, scant academic attention has been devoted to the subject since the information revolution transformed our everyday social interactions (Beniger, 1986). In the beginning of the twentieth century through the early 1980s, investigations of subcultures often centered around differences in taste or aesthetic preferences according to seemingly clear disparities in race, class, or educational attainment (Simmel, 1903, Veblen, 1934, Hebdige, 1979, DiMaggio, 1983, 1 Bourdieu, 1984). Many such theories were linked to the idiosyncratic elements of place, be it neighborhood, community, country, or social world (Hebdige, 1979, Fisher, 1984). While theorists recognized the often weighty influence of mass culture during this period, it was long before media corporations consolidated, use of online social media erupted, and divisions between the lower and middle class became less discernible in a country where 1% of the population controls 50% of its wealth (Saez, 2007). These economic and social conditions have led to an environment of paradoxical interconnectedness. While popular culture is perhaps even more ubiquitous, online communications technologies provide a plethora of channels for the circumvention of traditional boundaries (physical or social) and innumerable opportunities for self-expression. In this current climate, any person with Internet access is free to share his or her most intimate experiences, learn about current events as they unfold, and access a wealth of information via online search tools and social networks. We must consider, then, that many previous assumptions about the social and physical boundaries that define cultures may no longer apply. Given the increasing connectedness of people and information, this paper argues that expressions of taste divergence, or “the act of moving away in different direction from a 1 common point” , guide the emergence of contemporary subcultures in America. Consider that culture is a kind of communication field in which human’s have the capacity to classify and encode experiences symbolically and to communicate those encoded experiences socially (Tyler, 1874). Ephemeral elements (interactions or experiences) and material products (goods) are both involved in a social process that produces shared meanings referred to as culture. While the amalgamation of symbols may result in nuanced interpretations and negotiations among actors (i.e. individuals, social groups, or institutions), there is a great 1 Definition for “divergence” retrieved from www.thefreedictionary.com/ 2 deal of evidence to support the notion that culture is the product of shared meanings produced through social interactions. The pervasiveness of globalization, however, has caused once disparate cultures to assimilate toward a perceived or experienced “cultural center” (Dowd and Dowd, 2003). This center represents the products and images of American culture, be it fast food or film, exported and consumed around the globe. If similar representations of culture permeate our everyday experiences, we are given a reference point for normality or what is commonly referred to as mass culture. Many of our choices in terms of self-expression are thus situated in direct relationship to the perceived symbols and meanings of mass culture. Subcultures evolve through interactions with these dominant meanings and symbols. The conventional definition of subculture has been a subgroup that is part of the dominant culture, but that differs from it in “some important respects” (Dowd and Dowd, 2003). Chinese immigrants who live in China towns, residents of Southern Appalachia, and the Amish are all examples that have been used in research on subcultures (Dowd and Dowd, 2003). Like a common culture, we can think of subcultures as dynamic, constantly changing as they respond to the influences of mass culture. As such, subcultures may become less pronounced over time given constant pressures to assimilate toward perceived norms (Dowd and Dowd, 2003). The practice of theoretically distinguishing subcultures from countercultures is, however, somewhat convoluted. Scholars have argued that the difference lies in passive versus active forms of resistance. A counterculture, therefore, may invent means of differentiation to challenge values or norms of the common culture. Motorcycle gangs, hippies, and revolutionary political groups are all examples used to characterize this conceptual definition (Dowd and Dowd, 2003). The “otherness” of countercultures is thereby symbolic; countercultures cultivate difference 3 though intentional acts of distinction while subcultures may experience marginalization through religious or cultural uniqueness. However, these acts of resistance may be merely perceived by the researcher rather than experienced by members in real life (Dowd and Dowd 2003). As Dowd and Dowd (2003) suggest, it is difficult to discern, for example, how the hippies and the Amish are categorically distinct when both groups worked to create alternative agrarian lifestyles that do not rely on industrial or commercial systems. We cannot argue with any degree of objectivity that the anti-war demonstrations common among hippies during the 1960s were more “active” forms of resistance than the Amish’ collective choice to live off the grid in rural regions of America. Thus, to determine whether a groups’ actions are symbolically divergent, it is necessary for both members of the subculture and the common culture to perceive acts as confrontational or critical of dominant values, practices, or beliefs. A strong indicator of how cultural categories are used, or how they move from conceptual to actionable activity by persons, is to investigate the more tangible measure of individual taste. Taste is the “system of practice through which individuals classify themselves by their… classification of consumer goods as more or less desirable, acceptable or valuable ([citing Bourdieu] Zukin, and Maguire, 2004). An expression of taste – what music genre, sports team, or literature one prefers – imbues persons with opportunities for public expressions of uniqueness or individuality. By the same token, taste supports the human need to understand others through social categories. The physical expression of taste, the act of consuming goods, is thereby a heuristic tool for bypassing complexity and reifying social categories. Displays of consumption can communicate status or group affiliation, providing similar individuals the chance to “converge together” or dissimilar individuals the opportunity to diverge in order to “avoid signaling undesired characteristics" (Berger and Heath, 2007, p.123). 4