Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

What's with all the heavy metal distinctions?

Sad White People + Occasional Clapping

Seinfeld writers just invented the term so they had something to call Kramer!
Seinfeld writers just invented the term so they had something to call Kramer!

Dear DJ: On an episode of Seinfeld, Elaine called Kramer a hipster dufus. Sure, Kramer was a doofus, but was he a hipster doofus? Did they have hipsters in the early ’90s? — RJ Narlian

Sponsored
Sponsored

Of course they had hipsters in the early ’90s — but what a trip if they didn’t, so the Seinfeld writers just invented the term so they had something to call Kramer! The moniker would fit: vintage clothes, gainful unemployment, and sincere investment in questionably useful pursuits fall within the hipster bailiwick. The thing about your early-’90s hipsters is that they had a certain grungy integrity. Maybe it was 99 percent bullshit, but that core legitimacy was really something that hipsters these days can’t and won’t cop to, hence the ironic detachment. Your ideal ’90s hipster was a mashup of mythically resourceful slacker (Cosmo Kramer or the Dude), drug-addled revolutionary (Kurt Cobain), and painfully sincere auteur crippled by the undeniable weight of every genius who came before him (D.F.W., Kevin Smith, and Richard Linklater). They set the coolness bar so ungodly high in regards to coolness that later generations of hipster have had to reinvent themselves as the third-wave-coffee-slurping disenchanted malcontents you know and love today!

Dear DJ, What in the name of the Prime Hipster is with all the heavy metal distinctions? Do you find them to be as funny as I do? I can’t decide whether my favorite metal category name is avant-garde metal or neoclassical metal. They’re both so ironic. What’s your favorite? Why is there no hipster metal? — Maedhros Feanorson

With that particular sobriquet appended to your correspondence, I’d have had you pegged as a power metal fan down for 17-minute anthems combining excruciating recapitulations of obscure events from The Silmarillion with extended guitar solos. But, hey, what do I know?

The propagation of metal genres owes its existence — if a root cause exists — to the zealous enthusiasm of its fans and practitioners. Hipsters may flit effortlessly to whichever band best encapsulates the “Sad White People + Occasional Clapping” genre at any given time, but that fairweather friendship stands in stark contrast to the quasi-religious devotion some metalheads will show a chosen genre. For example, Dave the Metalhead doesn’t just like Norwegian melodic black metal, he loves it. You might even say he lives it. And, should you mischaracterize his fandom as an obsession with, say, Finnish thrash metal he will (a) pity you, (b) lecture you, (c) destroy you, and (d) pity you further; not necessarily in that order.

But, before you get to thinking that heavy metal is the only flavor of music that has splintered into a thousand incrementally differentiated genres over the course of its almost 50-year lifespan, I refer you to the excellent (though somewhat dated) interactive guide to electronic music at http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/.

Fair warning: Before you go down that rabbit hole, I recommend tying yourself to a lifeline like those scuba divers who explore underwater caves, from which they often fail to return.

Since you asked, I’m partial to the most hipster of the metal bands, System of a Down. Although they may not be a metal band per se, they’ve got songs about being held captive by television and advertising, which is super hipster.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Centennial Salute to San Diego’s Military, East Village Block Party, Birding Basics Class

Events March 29-March 30, 2024
Seinfeld writers just invented the term so they had something to call Kramer!
Seinfeld writers just invented the term so they had something to call Kramer!

Dear DJ: On an episode of Seinfeld, Elaine called Kramer a hipster dufus. Sure, Kramer was a doofus, but was he a hipster doofus? Did they have hipsters in the early ’90s? — RJ Narlian

Sponsored
Sponsored

Of course they had hipsters in the early ’90s — but what a trip if they didn’t, so the Seinfeld writers just invented the term so they had something to call Kramer! The moniker would fit: vintage clothes, gainful unemployment, and sincere investment in questionably useful pursuits fall within the hipster bailiwick. The thing about your early-’90s hipsters is that they had a certain grungy integrity. Maybe it was 99 percent bullshit, but that core legitimacy was really something that hipsters these days can’t and won’t cop to, hence the ironic detachment. Your ideal ’90s hipster was a mashup of mythically resourceful slacker (Cosmo Kramer or the Dude), drug-addled revolutionary (Kurt Cobain), and painfully sincere auteur crippled by the undeniable weight of every genius who came before him (D.F.W., Kevin Smith, and Richard Linklater). They set the coolness bar so ungodly high in regards to coolness that later generations of hipster have had to reinvent themselves as the third-wave-coffee-slurping disenchanted malcontents you know and love today!

Dear DJ, What in the name of the Prime Hipster is with all the heavy metal distinctions? Do you find them to be as funny as I do? I can’t decide whether my favorite metal category name is avant-garde metal or neoclassical metal. They’re both so ironic. What’s your favorite? Why is there no hipster metal? — Maedhros Feanorson

With that particular sobriquet appended to your correspondence, I’d have had you pegged as a power metal fan down for 17-minute anthems combining excruciating recapitulations of obscure events from The Silmarillion with extended guitar solos. But, hey, what do I know?

The propagation of metal genres owes its existence — if a root cause exists — to the zealous enthusiasm of its fans and practitioners. Hipsters may flit effortlessly to whichever band best encapsulates the “Sad White People + Occasional Clapping” genre at any given time, but that fairweather friendship stands in stark contrast to the quasi-religious devotion some metalheads will show a chosen genre. For example, Dave the Metalhead doesn’t just like Norwegian melodic black metal, he loves it. You might even say he lives it. And, should you mischaracterize his fandom as an obsession with, say, Finnish thrash metal he will (a) pity you, (b) lecture you, (c) destroy you, and (d) pity you further; not necessarily in that order.

But, before you get to thinking that heavy metal is the only flavor of music that has splintered into a thousand incrementally differentiated genres over the course of its almost 50-year lifespan, I refer you to the excellent (though somewhat dated) interactive guide to electronic music at http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/.

Fair warning: Before you go down that rabbit hole, I recommend tying yourself to a lifeline like those scuba divers who explore underwater caves, from which they often fail to return.

Since you asked, I’m partial to the most hipster of the metal bands, System of a Down. Although they may not be a metal band per se, they’ve got songs about being held captive by television and advertising, which is super hipster.

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Navy solves San Diego homeless crisis by retiring four locally moored ships

Decommision Accomplished
Next Article

Nation’s sexy soldiers stage protest at Pendleton in wake of change in Marine uniform policy

Semper WHY?
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.