Throughout my lifetime I have been both a middle class college student and a summer hitch-hiker dead set on finding the real heart of America, and on this episode I’ll cop to the facts: I’m a poser. We will explore one of the most hated archetypes of the modern age: the ironically-dressed middle and upper class young adults whose aggressive individuality is anything but. The hipsters we know today are not a new phenomenon, and neither is the phenomenon we know as ‘cool.' We’ll look at the long term history of the hippest white kids who shirked their privilege to experience to the life of the marginalized, copying black, queer, and blue collar culture and pouring into spaces where the mainstream forbade them to go. From the transcendentalists of the 1800s and the ‘slumming parties’ of their urban counterparts, to the jazz age popularity of cool black musicians and wild queer drag parties, to the beat poet Jack Kerouac’s hitchhiking days and Nirvana’s grungy working class flannel trend, hipsters have always sought to emulate those without the same privilege, and maybe, in the process, absolve themselves of their own.

Please consider donating to Black Art Futures Fund

American Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Produced and edited by Clear Commo Studios
Research and cowriting assisted by Riley Smith
Co-Produced by Miranda Zickler
Show art by Roache
Voice Acting by Will Rogers

Become a Patron for extra episodes, interviews, and videos monthly
Follow American Hysteria on social media:
Twitter: @AmerHysteria
Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast