“Hey, have you seen the new Queen movie?” I piped up, eyes locked to the Twitter feed on my phone screen. “My friends won’t stop talking about it!”
“Ugh, of course, they’re stealing all this stuff from my generation!” came my Baby Boomer friend’s exasperated retort. “I listened to Queen when I was in high school, when they were a thing.”
I smiled, knowing she would say that. And what’s more, I cannot blame her for feeling so possessive of Queen and the memories she associates with the band.
In 2011, my favorite indie band, fun, burst out of the depths of Tumblr niche fandom and onto the Billboard top hits with their song “We Are Young.” An angsty 12-year-old overcome with jealousy, I remember indignantly proclaiming, “I used to listen to their EPs way before you knew about them! From 2009! And you wouldn’t even like those!” Each time the hit came on the radio, I insisted the station be changed--in essence, I did not handle the transition of my treasured musical secret into the hands of the public very well.
I reflect on this now and label it a show of what I have always called “hipster tendencies”: my feelings of possessiveness and jealousy when it comes to lesser known/less popular media reaching others.
The term hipster came to be in the late 1930s, referring to an extremely knowledgeable and/or enthusiastic fan of jazz music. However, one may look to a (rather bitter) 2013 Urban Dictionary entry for the modern interpretation of the word: “Hipsters are people that try too hard to be different (and genuinely do think that they're being different), by rejecting anything they deem to be too popular.” One who is called a hipster today is someone seen as snobbish and protective of the content to which they subscribe.
My family friend displayed her own hipster tendencies over Queen and Bohemian Rhapsody. The band was hers, not theirs--yet, I cannot blame her in the slightest. In my friend’s mind, the artist which was to her encapsulated in a precious 1970s memory was being almost gentrified by a newer generation. She had snapshots in her memory of nights in high school, out with friends, singing along to the 1977 ballad on a radio. Now, millennials were filling their Spotify listening histories with “Radio GaGa,” “Don’t Stop Me Now,” and many others out of fleeting fascination and trendy excitement.
I think it is fair to understand the plight of the hipster, as we all place much of our identities in the love we have for our selected art. To feel that a song is special, set aside, and your own precious item away from the rest beckons to our natural desires for attachment and identity outside of ourselves. I protect the band fun and my friend safeguards Queen in our minds as sacred gems, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Likewise, there is equal need to understand that trend-followers and bandwagon-hoppers are just as valid in their interests. To be a part of a collective movement of enthusiasm and admiration for a cultural item for a distinct period of time is exciting, connection-building, and wholly distinct. Phases of fanaticism take both nostalgic and modern form, and neither is of greater merit than the other.
When the day comes that my children listen to Ariana Grande out of ironic intrigue, I cannot guarantee I will not feel a similar need to claim the soundtrack to my college experience for my own, insisting they will never love it like I did. Hipster tendencies die hard, but the memories of music’s impact on us live forever.
References:
https://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/features/the-hipster-an-old-term-thats-taken-on-a-whole-new-meaning