Global Reflexive Hipsters Vs. Local Abject Bogans: Towards Understanding Affective Inequalities in Youth Cultures

This paper looks at terms like ‘hipster’ and ‘bogan’. Using ‘figurative methods’, analysing the ways these terms are operationalised towards young people in media and popular culture can enliven global comparative youth sociology. These floating signifiers enable distinction to be performed while eschewing the very notion of class. Both terms are mostly used as a pejorative towards various youth taste cultures. The hipster is a global figure used in many English speaking countries. It tends to equate with middle class endeavours and is at least allowed a reflexive irony that sees the term used in a quite playful way. On the other hand, the bogan is a specifically Australian term but has relations in other countries that denote a similar class position such as ‘chav’, ‘white trash’, ‘red neck’ etc. Through processes of symbolic violence, the ‘bogan’ has rapidly become a prominent cultural folk devil in Australia. For Skeggs, ‘Some people can use the classifications and characteristics of race, class or femininity as a resource [hipsters] whilst others cannot because they are positioned as them [bogans]’ (my additions). These figures are indicative of the ways class is made and of the ways the boundaries between them, both local and global, are fuzzy sites of cultural conflict. As precariousness becomes normalised for even the well-educated middle classes, these figures also serve to highlight processes of global social change as they illustrate new forms of class based anxieties. The ‘bogan’ and terms like it tap into middle class insecurities producing forms of ‘downward envy’ (Everingham) and ‘disgusted subject’ (Lawler). The ‘hipster’ plays a dual role: it represents a kind of clown that allows the middle class to both ‘reflexively’ laugh at itself alongside an ‘ambivalent’ and somewhat sheepish recognition of the ‘cruel optimism’ (Berlant) of consumer culture.