Hipster. To some it’s a dirty word, to others, it’s a lifestyle. Unlike most sects of people, most cultures, you can’t really define hipsters by what they are, but rather by what they are not. Stereotypically, they are the group of people who operate by flight of fancy, and that fancy is what the mainstream culture doesn’t know about. Granted, this is a crude way of viewing the hipster community, as I’m pretty sure not everyone in those Brooklyn neighborhoods turned on everything they once liked when those things became popular. However, the battle cry of the hipster, and again, I’m speaking in stereotypical terms here, is “I liked it before it was popular.”
Compare that with how Internet fans view wrestling. One could say that the relative size and scope that comprises the Internet fan community is about the same relative to the total fanbase as the hipster population is to the total population, period. I don’t have the numbers to back me up, but I think it’s a fair assumption. However, while hipsters seem to want to keep their favorites to themselves, not to share them with the mainstream, Internet fans? Yeah, they totally want their favorites to be pushed to the moon.
Just look at all the posts, tweets, cries and articles that are seen on the Web on a daily basis. As many different people who populate this diverse and inaccurately-described-as-hive-minded community are there different arguments for who should be pushed. However, the theme is the same; someone who isn’t in the main event should be pushed there. Whether it’s a guy as universally beloved as Daniel Bryan or someone with niche support like Santino Marella, it feels like the “smart” (ha!) wrestling fanbase won’t be happy until someone new is pushed to the top. Hilariously enough, when someone does make it, there are calls for that guy to be replaced by someone new.
In a way, we the Internet wrestling fans and hipsters are of kindred spirit. We both tire of the mainstream, whether it’s in wrestling or just in general, and we desire something that hasn’t gained traction with the mainstream crowd enough to be popular. Hipsters despise Justin Bieber, Michael Bay and CBS. Internet fans tend to sour on John Cena, Randy Orton and WWE. However, if a true hipster was a wrestling fan, they’d be perfectly happy with Austin Aries staying in the indies, or Bryan not wrestling on a show above the exposure of Superstars. That’s where the difference lies between the two groups. One is isolationist almost to a fault, while the other is militant on everyone liking the people they like, business be damned.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Honestly, I don’t know if it’s either. It’s an observation on two groups of people that I see a lot of, both on the Internet and in real life. While I feel like I’d never be a hipster and while I also understand that if you push everyone, you’re pushing no one, hey, no one can fault a person for their opinions (as long as those opinions don’t start bleeding into creating facts that aren’t facts at all). That being said, it’s a fascinating study in character on how two different groups handle their rage against what’s popular.
TH writes The Wrestling Blog and broadcasts The Wrestling Podcast. You can find him on Twitter, or at various other spots around the Internet. He also loves Chikara, and quite frankly, thinks you should too.
Edited by K Sawyer Paul while typing on a keyboard you’ve probably never heard of.
