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The Math Behind the Hipster Effect
rossgneumann writes If everyone always wants to look different than everybody else, everybody starts looking the same. At least, if you use a recently published mathematical model describing the phenomenon. "The hipster effect is this non-concerted emergent collective phenomenon of looking alike trying to look different," in the words of Jonathan Touboul, mathematical neuroscientist at the College de France in Paris.
Lady Gaga could write a book about this topic. I wonder if she could write a challenge to the mathematical model too.
"Hipster hate" makes a great deal of sense compared to disliking other subcultures, because those other subcultures may not appeal to you but they're marked by their own clothing, behavior, and ritual. Hipsters however don't embrace a particular ethos beyond mocking other cultures. They appropriate symbols and cruft from different eras and movements and display them in a mocking 'irony' to underscore how 'uncool' is item X or garment Y. Of course their Ray-Ban sunglasses and Smurf lunchboxes are stripped of context but there isn't much cogitation involved, just peacocking. Put simply, hipsters are reviled across cultures because those hipsters are already hating you.