Today’s post is inspired by my recent visit to Bellingen in the hinterland region off the ‘Coffs Coast’ (mid-north coast) of New South Wales. Bellingen is one of those towns that has a hippie-ish, other-worldy vibe to it. I personally love the vibe! Other towns on the east coast of Australia with a similar vibe that come to mind include Byron Bay, Noosa and Mallacoota.
While we were there I was thinking about the things that the stereotypical Bellingen resident (aged 35-55) is interested in - yoga, organic produce, hemp-wares, sustainable living, veganism, etc ... hardly anything out of the ordinary for 2019, and then I thought ‘What subculture would these interests align with?’. Hipster? Too old, too alternative, not enough beard. Hippie? Too modern, not alternative enough. So although these interests are very relevant today, the demographic of the Bellingen resident is just not hip enough to pass for hipster or crusty enough to be considered hippie. So my wife and I came up with a new subculture (together with a name) that fits the profile of the stereotypical Bellingen resident - the hippister. We debated the spelling and pronunciation - should it be hippiester, hippie-ster, hipister, or simply hippister? We settled for the latter, because hippiester looks like it might be pronounced hippies-ter, hyphenation would be silly and hipister just looks like a typo for hipster. The pronunciation is ‘hippie-ster’, but the spelling is hippister.
One of the defining characteristics of the hipster is that if you think you’re a hipster then you’re not a hipster. So if anyone ever asks if I’m a hipster I say no because if I was to say yes then I wouldn’t be one (not that I want to be one anyway - also I’m too old!)! So I asked my wife, are we hippisters? She said ‘Well we own a VW T3 campervan and we eat a lot of organic food, so people would say we’re hippisters’. Then she went on to name various friends of ours and other people we know and said that they would also be considered hippisters. Birds of a feather flock together, so they say!
Do you identify with any subcultures? Skater? Surfer? Punk? Grunge? Emo?
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Bellingen is quite different, but really cool also. Home of the alternative lifestyle in the Coffs area. How long ago where you up here? I live in coffs, still yet to meet a steemian in the flesh.
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We stayed for three nights from Wednesday to Friday last week.
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Was the music festival on while you were there? I wanted to get out but couldn't.
I think the defining characteristic of a hipster is the quite long but impeccably manicured beard. If you have one of them, then there is no doubt.
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The beard is definitely the hipster’s defining characteristic. Thankfully I have no beard at all! We were in Bellingen for the start of the festival. We went to a few shows on Friday night. I’ll probably put up a post later today with a brief summary of my favourite acts.
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