Can someone explain hipsters to me?

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I live in the Hipster capital of the world, Montreal...

i don't look down on hipsters any more than any other group. seems like it's "cooler" to put down hipsters than it is to BE a hipster in the first place.

i don't see how hipsters as a group are distinct from anyone else. people paint them like they are identical, but they are just like you... no better, no worse.

I've no use for labels.

I wonder if it isn't just the tragic effect of globalization...

People feel the need to be both "cool" and "original".

Nowadays, people are exposed to so much information via the world-wide-web and thousands of television channels. It's as if everything "cool" has become so popular that it's no longer considered "original", therefore, people are forced to decide which is more important to them. Being cool becomes unoriginal, and terms like "mainstream" are used in an almost derogatory sense, to describe things that are seen as cool but are fairly unoriginal. So hipsters are simply those for whom being original is more important than being cool, so they embrace the uncoolness of their originality, sometimes to such an extreme that they fear that doing anything "cool" makes them unoriginal. This explains the extreme clothing styles and interests better than anything else I can think of.

It takes a lot of talent and effort these days to be considered "cool" AND "original" for any length of time, because as soon as people see something they think is cool, they begin to imitate it. Even the biggest Hollywood stars are clamoring desperately for originality. Once they are imitated, they have to become more shocking, more extreme, or so it seems. I have nothing against originality, even in its extremes, but I do believe there is a difference between self-expression and attention-whoring.... but people can only know in their own hearts what their intentions are, so I try not to judge.