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This thesis forms a sociological investigation of the ‘hipster’ subculture that has grown in importance in recent years. Using the methodology of semiotic analysis, it examines the trends and themes shown by the images that hipsters post on the microblogging website Tumblr, as well as analysing hipster journalism, texts and companies. This communication is conceptualised with reference to Jean Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality in order to show that hipsters communicate in a way that distorts the perception of real space and results in the abstraction of the meaning of ideas like “global” and “local”. It also explores the importance of secret knowledge in a community that manages to be both secretive and extremely open, comparing this example with the historical case of the Beat Generation, who hipsters have adopted as their progenitors, and discusses how their influence drives the hipster to view the world as a literary text to be re-read and re-interpreted.

babel is a collection of nonfiction essays in which I explore a female twenty-something’s crossdimensional dilemma of spirituality, racism, art, and love in the wake of Bible-belt hipsterdom. I board the train that is human pride, that great metal snake by which we essayists craft our lives, and measure out my stories by cities and coffeespoons—dotted with dark roast, preferably. The train of my collection glides through the first ‘burg and its Godlike aspirations, Babel; travels a ways to Virginia, specifically Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University and Prince Edward County, which was the hotbed of the Civil Rights in Education Movement; says hello to Bowling Green; and emerges a world away, in a mosaic of people on cow-peppered Indian streets. This master’s thesis—as a tangible fixture of my own words in a realm where greater folks have preceded me and still fallen (far and hard as Icarus)—is prideful, exploratory, and ultimately human. The titular pun may be taken more or less seriously. Hear the train whistle. It is our attempts at the Divine, a nexus of journeys and somehow in itself too a destination.

The American Genre Film Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established in 2009 by Tim League, founder and CEO of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. With a sense of rebellion against established film archives, AGFA is dedicated to the collection of 35mm prints of exploitation films from the 1960s-1980s in order to conserve and distribute these neglected films. A confluence of issues including the history of the films in the collection, AGFA’s connection with the Alamo Drafthouse, and influences from the hipster subcultures combine to inform AGFA’s practices and mission. This thesis will explore how the American Genre Film Archive conforms to and rebels against the established archive community by means of its mission and institutional structure. Also, this thesis will explore AGFA as a hipster institution through its collecting and exhibition practices. AGFA’s roles in the wider film archive community and the hipster community converge into an unusual archive serving unusual films. / text

Uppsatsen är ett försök att applicera kulturvetenskaplig teori på en kontemporär subkultur. På så sätt kan den avkodas och dess kopplingar till samhällstendenser kan belysas. Tesen är att hipsterismen innehåller element som utmanar sättet vi vanligtvis tolkar och förstår ungdomskulturer på. Vidare visar forskningen att hipsterismen är ett resultat av nästan 40 år av nyliberal kapitalistisk utveckling, kombinerat med gentrifiering, konsumtionsvanor, kulturellt kapital och subkultur. / This essay is an attempt to apply the theories from the cultural studies tradition on a contemporary subculture, decoding and reviewing the societal implications of the cultural phenomenon that is the hipster. The thesis is that hipsterism contains elements that challenges the way we usually view and understand youth culture. The thesis argues that hipsterism is a result of 40 years of neo-liberal capitalistic progress, combining elements of gentrification, consumption, cultural capital and subculture.

The series Adam Ruins Everything (ARE) provides an opportunity to contemplate White, hipster masculinity and its professed progressivism in U.S. culture. As seen in ARE, hipster masculinity claims—in part—to possess an enlightened social politic, challenging sexism, racism, and heterosexism, yet the figuration of the White, cisgender-male hipster we get seemingly adopts feminist positions as means to insulate and expand his own social privilege. Using rhetorical strategies to win debates against cultural hegemony, the hipster of ARE becomes a superior masculinity, a trusted voice to guide and liberate White women and people of color, centering himself as the source of a singular truth. The essay provides the opportunity to consider ongoing tensions and ironies between men/masculinity and feminism.