This research aimed to identify self-understanding and practices within the social milieu labelled as hipster, but it emerged as a paradigm for western, capitalist, liquid societies. The contradictions in hipster spaces demonstrated tendencies in contemporary society that shape current modernity. Hipsterism amplifies these tendencies and as such can be utilised to analyse the development of recent modernity and indicate what challenges of identity and action are faced by young adults in the new spirit of capitalism.

It also aimed to answer the question whether hipsterism can be understood as a counterculture of contemporary society. Based on a participant observation, supplemented by media analysis and narrative interviews with key individuals, it can be concluded that hipsterism demonstrates contradictions of urban space and demonstrates key conceptions that shape engagement in a consumerist, liquid society shaped by a new spirit of capitalism. The results indicate that actions and statements in the sphere of hipsterism express implicit criticism of milieu formation. Their attempts to counter milieu formation, which they see as contributing to the progress of society, fail in practice. They cannot be seen as countercultural in the classic sense, but rather emerge as individuals searching for ways to contribute to the dissolvement of milieus they find problematic, through a lifestyle and politically intended everyday actions, mainly through consumption and conversation.

By entering the field and assuming Hipsters did not exist and working with an emergent design, this study focussed on the practices themselves and the meaning assigned to the labelling and distancing processes in general, rather than being stuck on the definition of a subculture, that doesn’t see itself as such, and also avoids being associated with it, because it finds such processes of labelling and the milieu formation itself problematic.

It was possible to overcome challenges of observation and to work with and adapt the questions in an ethnographic and emergent way, enabling a purely inductive approach. The emergent design allowed for a flexible development of the research, focussing first on what could be observed and then explaining its meaning and the conceptions behind it. As such hipsterism emerged as a paradigm for developments in modernity that are not unique to the hipster milieu, but express obstacles for countering milieu formation in general.

It was expected that the observation would show that while the label Hipster is a fickle and somewhat empty signifier, the practices undergone within hipsterism are invested with conceived meaning. Analysis through the lens of space made contradictions that were only felt, through self-reflexion and the logbook, and existed implicitly, explicit. By using an emergent design, the interim conclusions of these findings enabled a deeper analysis of conceptions in contemporary society that frame young adults’ approaches to action.

To gain a holistic understanding of hipsterism, it was necessary to understand the environment and dominant culture. Because hipsterism combines issues of labelling and distancing, modernity and capitalism, the milieu was observed from various philosophical and social perspectives. By understanding how hipsterism is socially embedded, the tensions that characterise their environment became explicit.

The findings of this study show a number of conclusive insights, that are not only about hipsterism itself, but that also contribute to the body of knowledge on modernity.

By analysing the practices and self-narrative within the milieu, hipsterism demonstrated contradictions of the urban order in reference to Lefebvre, because it contains a mentally conceived and socially produced space, that does not show itself in spatial practice. Milieu formation is criticised and individuals attempt to counter this, but are unsuccessful in everyday practice.

The social milieu expresses a distance and even disgust with neoliberalism and capitalism, while many of them are engaged in building their own businesses.

Hipsterism is distancing yourself from politics, but expressing strong progressive views.

The social milieu has a clear antitype that they criticise and distance themselves from. This antitype is closely connected to mindless work and consumption and neoliberalism, while at the same time a very neoliberal attitude such as Do-What-You-Love can also be detected within hipsterism. Feelings of belonging and access to the space of hipsterism are evoked by distancing yourself from the antitypes. My respondents distanced themselves from consumerism. While fashion and distinction plays a role in hipsterism, the symbols of hipsterism are not constantly changing because of fashion and distinction towards the masses. There are ideals behind the distinction that are related to their reading of society and can thus be understood as idealogically countercultural. However, the strong identification with specific modes of consumption, while distancing yourself from consumption, marks another contradiction.

The countercultural tendencies or ideals follow a process of transition into an adapted and conforming lifestyles. Hipsterism, observed as a progression of young, idealistic adults to entrepreneurs or workers, demonstrated this process. The ethical behaviour is more visible on the consumption side, rather than sales and production side of the economy. This demonstrates the difficulty to make purely ethical decisions in an economy that is based on supply-demand chains and profit orientation.

Access boundaries of hipsterism showed that the imagined space of hipsterism and Kreuzkölln is invested with meanings of tolerance, non-judgement and multiculturalism. However, as hipsterism has shown, the diffusion and ultimate dissappearance of milieu boundaries is not possible thus far. However many signs that refugees are welcome you hang up in a café, refugees do not necessarily enter. To observe how other milieus living within the same physical space react to these spaces and what obstacles they perceive and experience, remains a question still to be answered.

In the sense of an emergent design and an inductive approach, these observations led to the second part of the study and the question of what obstacles hinder the realisation of these conceived representations into spatial practice. The interviews conducted with key individuals identitified from the respondents led to a conceptual framework within hipsterism that seems to significantly shape engagement, self-narrative and action.

Generally, we can observe progressive values and political attitudes within hipsterism, but rather in a sociopolitical sense. The respondents identified themselves as apolitical, because of an implicit understanding of the obstacles to achieve their goals in traditional forms of political engagement. In reference to Lefebvre, we can say that while the space of hipsterism appears political, the action is not shaped or framed as such. This became clear because of the identification of the three moments of space: the conception is political, the spatial practice is not. The conception opposes distinction and promotes multiculturalism, but the spatial practice does not show generated or actually practiced crossover between different cultures, languages, ethnicities or classes. This contradiction irritates in the lived space. The invested meaning and the symbolism of hipsterism is not expressed in practice.

This contradiction does not go by unnoticed by the milieu itself, clear through the interceptions like “I love my job, it’s great, but maybe I was fooled by capitalism, I pressed myself into the shape and never go on holiday”. Another example is the statement “It’s ironic, me a white male trying to do good for indigenous populations, but there you have it”.

Their attempts to counter society, or to contribute to its progress, are shaped by a number of conceptions, the first of which is trying to transform society from a position of privilege. This challenge is a fundamental one and not just an issue for hipsterism. Hipsterism demonstrates a growing understanding of issues of power and domination that take place at the intersection of race, culture, class and progress.

As such hipsterism demonstrates negotiation between individuality and collectivity, that respond to individualism and citizenship. Individualism plays a large role, as can be seen in the attitude of non- judgement of other lifestyles as many statements implied, and awareness of the power imbalances that occur when one tries to apply personal moral reasonings to others. This results from the aforementioned understanding that there are issues of power and domination when concerned with questions of normativity, morality and progress.

Furthermore, the respondents’ conception of human nature sometimes paralyses collective action in an organised way. Thus the desire to contribute to the progress of society develops in a normative, individual way, with an imagined community, rather than a practical one.

Hipsterism shows the conception of collective individualised action. It demonstrates that mass individualisation does not mean that groups or communities lose importance. The conceptions detected in the respondents hinder them from being involved in any traditional political or collective way. They also mistrust the institutions in the sense that they believe that these are unfit to address the problems they see and want to solve—at least in a manner that they would agree with. Decisions and the impact of the nation-states seem paralysed from the outset, because global issues, such as climate change for example, are influenced by and affect all nations and peoples.

The institutions are deemed unfit, too neoliberal, or too national, to adress these issues. Furthermore it is deemed problematic for the respondents to attempt to spread their own ideals from their position of privilege, because they are convinced of attitudes like non-judgement and radical indvidualism. Hipsterism demonstrates a response to this challenge, by reassigning the contribution as a citizen to the individual level.

Hipsterism shows that responsibility is reassigned to the individual level, but that most of these decisions and reflections still have a collective horizon. Hipsterism affirms an underlying belief, that traditional forms of collective action organised in contemporary society are not a viable option for engagement. This does not necessarily disorient or demotivate young people. Hipsterism has shown that individual actions are understood more in the light of collective individualised action based on solidarity towards an imagined global collective. The individuals engaged in hipsterism will likely not experience the worst impacts of climate change, but are still making everyday decisions framed by the knowledge about it and assume there are others who do the same. They imagine or narrate themselves as part of a movement.

A breadth of underlying assumptions about human nature can be found in hipsterism, which show that while these individuals dream of a just world, where people and animals are treated fairly, where the environment is safe and the challenges of consumerism are overcome, they are sometimes frustrated by an image of the individual as self-interested and egoistic. However, an underlying assumption of humans as possible agents of change motivates some to try to spread the ideals through their behaviour or conversations. These conversations are reinterpreted and understood as political in nature.

All in all, hipsterism emerges as an attempt to navigate between individualism and collectivity and thus form a kind of citizenship based on an imagined global community that they empathise with and feel solidarity towards.

Resulting from these circumstances are a variety of forms of action, while searching for better ways to contribute and engage at the same time.

In the self-narrative, what Hipsters do for a living is reinterpreted as an attempt to counter capitalistic and consumerist tendencies. Through their work they try to express an anticapitalist lifestyle. However, it became clear that this is not sustainable long term, and the commitment to these ideals weakens with time, because it evolves along an adaption to structures that were criticised initially. Thus work is not necessarily sustained throughout the course of life as a politically intended element of their lifestyle.

However, there were other actions that could be understood as politically intended, and hipsterism shows that these activities can be raised to a level of lifestyle.

The politically intended actions within hipsterism are a whole spectrum of activities with varying degrees of commitment. From trying to create a holy and spiritual experience of life to expressions of creativity, from low waste and vegan consumption to conversations as a tool of spreading political ideals, all these activities hint at the potential of transformative and negotiating power that hipsterism could have. Attempts to try to construct spaces where different cultures, genders and ethnicities are welcome might fail in spatial practice, but their practices in sum still leave a trace in (consumer) culture.

Hipsterism expresses a response to act in a politically intended or motivated way within the realm of consumption. Not only in the act of consuming, but also conversations about it, reflection and self-criticism in consumption, and in groups of friends that are organised by their way of consumption.

The criticism that can be found in hipsterism can be related, but not reduced entirely, to a contemporary form of artistic criticism in reference to the new spirit of capitalism. It seems to express a new form of criticism, one expressed through consumption choices and consumer pressures on the production process. Especially movements around responsibility towards the environment and towards fellow human beings through fair trade consumption expresses a criticism of modes of production within capitalism.

Generally hipsterism seems countercultural, but not as a group, but rather as an expression of their possible wish for a transformation, stumbling over the obstacles for that change. The obstacles showed that they are not only hindered by their own theoretical framework, but also by a reading of reality, and thus are searching for different ways of engaging.

Hipsterism also showed that discussions and questions around power structures and milieu formation, formerly associated with a specific margin of society, like academics and political actors, are slowly seeping into a wider, albeit privileged, sector of society.

One challenge in countering milieu formation is that problems and disputes about tolerance and multiculturalism and morality often do not have a clear answer. This is exemplified by situations where an individual wants to be very open and friendly and welcoming towards refugees, but then stumbles over traditional forms of life in a segment of society where the genders have very clear and binary roles. This contradicts the wish for absolute openness and abolishment of gender roles and sexism. This is an obstacle that hipsterism demonstrates, but is not limited to.

In this respect, to continue this research, hipsterism is an exciting looking glass to modernity and where it is headed. An intial step could be to analyse in which instances and how ideas of imagined community and political action are taken further than the individual level, and can emerge as movements and communities, such as Fridays for Future or Occupy Wall Street.

To transform society to vibrant and diverse communities without problematic milieus, the way Berlin and Kreuzkölln are portrayed in the hipster discourse, there are still obstacles to be overcome. A beginning of such a conversation, could be taking practices of hipsterism seriously, because the actions also spread and effect the rest of the world, however erratic and inconsistent they may be. What remains to be studied is how the populations that are not considered hipster, but live in proximity of this neighbourhood, react to these attempts.

Hipsterism takes attempts to counteract milieu formation and consumption patterns to the level of a whole lifestyle to express solidarity towards an imagined community. With an (implicit and explicit) understanding as a privileged section of the world population hipsterism shows how individuals take their seemingly highest and most effective form of power—their purchasing power—and try to use it to contribute to the progress of society.

Hipsterism can be seen as a paradigm for adaption to society, while trying to contribute to its progress and navigate its obstacles—but not without leaving a mark on consumer culture, and culture in general.