On the Russian Hipster Variant

An oft-quoted saying of expats around here is that everything that every big trend in the US hits Russia ten years later. Things that have become astronomically popular in the US are slowly showing up, for example our habit of carrying coffee to go in paper cups. Recycling is still basically impossible. The mojito reigns supreme, although it’s being challenged by absinthe. Of course this isn’t true for everything–last year all the ladies were atwitter about Seks v Bolshom Gorode (Sex in the Big City, the translation of Sex in the City) was huge and I recently made my students talk about Lady Gaga.

Case study on this issue: the Russian hipster. Last summer when I was here, it seemed that they did not, in short, exist. Skinny jeans, that hipster hallmark, were spotted infrequently. Instead  it seemed that the outlandishly bleached, dyed and weathered jeans of the past continued to dominate, along with vanity t-shirts emblazoned with rhinestone slogans like “Buy Me Things”. Little did I expect to return a year later to find this:

In the wild

A girl with blunt bangs wearing fake glasses! A boy in a sweater and a boytie! (Somehow I missed the memo that it was bowtie night at the club. They were rampant) This photo is from a “hipster club” where hipsters go to talk about where to by Cheap Mondays. At this club, I met a guy with a gum piercing (who knew that was even possible?) who had a tattoo of a baby doll and was wearing two kinds of matching plaid. On the night featured above, most of the guests would visually have fit in in the New York nightlife scene. Several were, inexplicably, wearing fake mustaches.

But what kind of music do these newly minted hipsters, in their slouchy beanie hats and cartoon t-shirts and lace-up ankleboots, like? What kind of music did the club play? On this particular night, the songs that really shut the club down were “Faith” by Limp Bizkit and something by Nirvana. They also played “The Twist,” which by and large was interpreted as a kind of leg-kicking dance, the Beastie Boys’ “Fight for Your Right to Party” which no one but us knew the words to, Kriss Kross’ “Jump Jump” (I have had more encounters with Kriss Kross since I got to Russia than I’ve had in several years of watching VH1 and that’s saying something), House of Pain “Jump Around,” “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen and at least 3 songs by The Killers. Normally at this hipster nightspot, there’s some kind of terrible techno that is impossible to dance to, but DJ American Gigolo really brought the jams.

So frequently, there is no substance behind the image!