viz.

Image Credit: Imgur

H/T to Matt

For me, humor is one of the most powerful tools available for both pedagogy as well as social resistance.  It seems appropriate therefore to introduce myself to the viz. blog with something a little offbeat and (potentially) funny.

The term “hipster” has experienced a resurgence in American vernacular in the last few years – at least I’ve heard it used with increasing regularity since I moved to Austin.  For quite some time I found myself a bit perplexed about what people meant when they called a person a “hipster.”  Since it generally seems to be used as a derogatory sobriquet, I felt it important to have a clear idea of what the term encapsulates.

As I should have known, the populist and notoriously un-academic resource, urbandictionary.com, offers an extensive and thorough discussion of the term.  I was surprised by the thoughtfulness of several of the entries, and amused (as usual) by others. Much as I’d like to elaborate on those entries here, this is a visual rhetoric blog and I want to address the ways in which “hipsterism” is shaped by these images.

Image Credit: Imgur

What I find interesting here is the ways in which this series of images constructs hipsterism through visual cues and conversation bubbles.  These “Hipster Dinosaurs” illustrate both a fashion sensibility tied to the hipster identity as well as an intellectual and anti-consumer attitude.

From these images, we gather that hipsters are coded as often (but not always) wearing thick-rimmed glasses, having manicured facial hair, smoking all-natural cigarettes and generally expressing intellectual disdain across a wide variety of subjects. However, finding humor in the pictures requires a foreknowledge of the identity.

Image Credit: Imgur

The use of dinosaurs is particularly intriguing.  Since the term originated in the 1940s, is the use of dinosaurs meant to argue that contemporary hipsters are seeking to resuscitate an extinct species? Or, conversely, is it meant to indicate that hipsters are headed for extinction?  Are they bound to be fossilized through their own intellectual elitism?  Is it their own negativity that enables them to be put forth as a subject of ridicule?

Using coloring-book images and crayons to illustrate these drawings, the creator links the hipster persona with juvenility – seemingly the “know-it-all” attitude of youth.  One could also argue that the act of creating such images is an equally juvenile and petulant response to a rather harmless subculture.  This raises the question of authorial ethos.  What assumptions can we make about the person that made these cartoons? Can we make any assumptions?

Humor generally relies on somebody being the butt of the joke, and who it is and is not appropriate to ridicule is an interesting question in the (post?) politically correct landscape. As is the question of who is allowed to do the ridiculing. The element of risk seems fundamentally linked to all forms of humor, but that very danger strikes me as the reason it is used and talked about so infrequently in academic discourse.

After writing this post, and getting ready to upload it, I found myself suddenly wondering if this was even appropriate to use.  Would it offend someone?  Would it get me in trouble?  What if I self-identify as a hipster?  Is self-mockery the only safe form of humor left?