The Unhip Hipster: Analyzing the Manifestation of the Hipster Subculture in the Philippines Through Media Consumption

Title: The Unhip Hipster: Analyzing the Manifestation of the Hipster Subculture in the Philippines Through Media Consumption

Abstract: The hipster is a subculture that exists in the contemporary and is a widely used term yet there is no one definition for it. In essence, it is subculture that exists within a specific set of parameters including choice in music, taste in clothing, interests in films which are influenced by a main worldview of the rejection of mainstream culture. This led the researcher in addressing the research problem of how the hipster subculture in the Philippines is made and influenced by media consumption. To answer those questions, the study explores how the subculture’s definition was formed and continuously being recreated based on how the members consume media. And finally, the study aims to know why the subculture is gravitating towards consuming unpopular culture.

The research was done through an autoethnography which was analyzed under the lenses of Cultural Semiotics and Circuit of Culture. A qualitative survey and a reflexive dyadic interview with selected key hipster informants was also done and an Art Studies perspective was also made through a discussion with two leading researchers of the field. All the data analyzed was married under the lenses of cultural hegemony.

The result asserts that the hipster is a subculture in a poststructuralist sense and is mainly made as a reaction against mainstream culture. Media consumption affects and influences the creation and recreation of this subculture by being the currency in which the subculture expresses its characteristics and main worldview.

Key Words: Hipster Culture, subculture, culture creation, hegemony, ideology, media consumption, dyadic, circuit of culture, cultural semiotics, popular culture

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