Abstract
The Hipster Economy: Taste and Authenticity in Late Modern Capitalism by Alessandro Gerosa offers a bright insight into the state of late capitalism, analysing a new aesthetic consumer regime in the most diverse contexts such as food, drinks, clothing, music, tourism, craftwork and the digital and the urban sphere. Compared with previous literature, such as Scott (2017), which focuses on production and micro-entrepreneurship, this study has the merit to situate the discussion in a more global context.
The analysis starts from seemingly frivolous themes and topics, which pave the way for a dense and rigorous academic review on authenticity and consumption. Gerosa’s work critically examines a phenomenon that is arguably elusive: hipsterism. For Gerosa, the hipster economy is the paradigm of authentic consumption but is difficult to grasp and define. Hipsters are portrayed as more than a subculture or a stereotype with rather blurred edges. Indeed, it is not easy to define hipster culture and economy exactly. Hipsters are nowhere to be seen but we are full of venues that, for want of a different definition, we define under this aesthetic. The author himself confesses that when he began his research, talking to friends and relatives about his interviews, he struggled to explain exactly the nature of his object of study:
After a while, I realised that when I had to explain to external people who the targets of my research were – for instance, when talking to friends or academic colleagues – the easiest way to get my message across was to label them as part of the urban ‘hipster economy’. My interlocutor, who had looked at me with a confused stare until that point, usually nodded positively at this reference. (p. 4)
While a few years ago it may have been possible to identify and map venues with an authentic hipster aesthetic in the various neighbourhoods, that aesthetic has now become widespread and almost hegemonic: wooden surfaces, craft beers, kombucha, organic fries. . . No one is hipster (are they?), but our gentrified cities are full of hipster places. This aesthetic diffusion underscores Gerosa’s provocative thesis: if hipsters ever existed, they were never too relevant – yet our consumer society has become hipster-like, as what we have always labelled as hipster is merely the stereotype of an aesthetic. This stereotype transformed our burgers, our towns and our imaginaries. Gerosa’s insight is beneficial as he shifts the focus from the hipster as an individual to the hipster within the self. He suggests that we manifest hipster traits when we choose a local and artisanal restaurant, opt for an independent library or grab a cappuccino in an organic coffee shop. Hipsters are nowhere but in us, and hipsterism is not merely a subcultural figure but the reflection of a new aesthetic consumer regime.
This work takes up the binomial ‘commodification/hipster counterculture’ that already appeared in the literature (Currid-Halkett, 2017; Erbacher, 2012; Greif et al., 2010) widening the analysis. From the blurred boundaries of hipster aesthetics, we can read a profound interpretation of modernity, as already done by Gandini (2020) in Zeitgeist Nostalgia. Beyond the commodification contradiction, Gerosa highlights how the aspiration to achieve authenticity is still an important means of expression, autonomy and creativity (even when for sale). In The Hipster Economy, even if late capitalism constantly harnesses, domesticates and commodifies authenticity, the assimilation of the hipster regime into the consumption paradigm reveals a deep-seated desire, dating back to the onset of industrial capitalism, to escape the alienation of industrialisation in western society since the 19th century.
Even if Gerosa’s analysis could be enhanced by a deeper exploration of the role of platforms in the diffusion of the aesthetics he studies (despite his description of the dominant model of digital platforms and acknowledgement of hipster culture’s influence on the Californian ideology), this book presents significant strengths through its comprehensive examination of authenticity within consumer culture, offering valuable insights into the complexities of late capitalism. To grasp the essence of The Hipster Economy by Alessandro Gerosa, one has to ask: where are the hipsters? They are everywhere and nowhere. They are a product of capitalism, embedded within us as we seek to connect with something authentic, even if that authenticity is embodied in something simple and on sale as a well-crafted gin. Gerosa suggests that hipsters represent our internalised search for authenticity while exposed to the commodification dynamics of the capitalistic system.