Last week’s New York Times featured an article by Princeton Professor Christy Wampole on that favorite subject and object of ridicule—the hipster. She argues that hipsterdom is just a symptom of a larger cultural epidemic, and thus ridiculing hipsters is, in a way, ridiculing ourselves.
With all their retro clothing, hobbies, and gadgets, hipsters are simply the most obvious and visible examples of our ironic and insincere culture.
When I read Wampole’s article, I couldn’t help but think about how all this talk of insincerity applies to Columbia. Is the Columbia culture as ripe with irony and insincerity as Wampole claims the rest of American culture is?
On one hand, Wampole’s characterization seems to fit. General examples of our impulse to be ironic rather than sincere are everywhere. How many of us roll our eyes (smh, if you will) when we see a Facebook status about having a bad day or sappy song lyrics that express someone’s inner feelings?
Instead we tend towards witty or pithy statuses and look down on such sincere and sentimental confessions. But such behavior is hardly uniquely Columbian.
