I posted this as a comment, but it didn't embed the video I wanted to show. So is just so people know what I'm talking about I wanted to share this. Happytree posted 'confessions of a hipster' earlier in the semester:
I enjoyed this post, and it reminded me of another video about queers battling it out to be the most queer of all. The connection I draw is that there is ways in which we construct ourselves, and there are ironies when identities get so wrapped up in certain signifiers or ideological boxes that sometimes confine all the same. I struggle to find this balance at times and find myself cautiously and critically approaching technology and academia and finding ways to adapt rather than reject some mainstream conventional ways of being. I am still finding ways to live as 'happily queer' in a sometimes overwhelmingly unjust world, finding some queer spaces to be more exclusive and directed towards particular ways of life that can be ironic for sure. Having certain interests in music, movies, food, authors, events, bars, websites, clothes, hair style, etc. all come to signify a sort of loose group identity. For both hipsters and queers, which are problematic and sometime indistinguishable-ish categories, it seems that identity is shaped equally by what we do/wear if not more by what is signified by rejecting certain conventions or norms. Using myself as an example, biking, eating organically with very little meat, not watching mainstream t.v. (mostly), my engagement with queer politics, thrift store shopping, and other behaviors in part relate to my rejection of some aspects of consumerism and waste. It becomes problematic when we become self-congtradulatory and hyper-critical of others, or when these become only signifiers of an identity being constructed as more radical, more unconventional, and more 'queerer than thou' without serious self-reflection or deeper understandings of their potential significance.
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