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Hipster Business Models: A New Book by Priceonomics

priceonomics.com

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Re: Hipster Business Models: A New Book by Priceonomics

#11

Post by o_____________o »

temuze wrote: post #7
debacle wrote: post #4

I dislike the fact that they conflate being a hipster and being a maker. In my experience, the segment of makers that are also hipsters isn't really all that different from the general population. Hipster is a pejorative. Connotating it with maker puts makers in a negative light.

The book is about making products that didn't exist before, so I think the authors are referring to hipsters as 'people who knew about something before it became cool'. You can be a maker and make things that are already mainstream. Carpenters, for example, are makers but not all carpenters are hipsters.

The word for someone that 'makes products that didn't exist before' is inventor.

Re: Hipster Business Models: A New Book by Priceonomics

#12

Post by tjradcliffe »

temuze wrote: post #7
debacle wrote: post #4

I dislike the fact that they conflate being a hipster and being a maker. In my experience, the segment of makers that are also hipsters isn't really all that different from the general population. Hipster is a pejorative. Connotating it with maker puts makers in a negative light.

The book is about making products that didn't exist before, so I think the authors are referring to hipsters as 'people who knew about something before it became cool'. You can be a maker and make things that are already mainstream. Carpenters, for example, are makers but not all carpenters are hipsters.

Hipsters and makers are unrelated to each other. One is about social signalling, the other is about making.

For example, in the cycling world the canonical "hipster on a fixie" has nothing to do with newness or functional capability. The cool is in the retro, the inconvenience, the social signalling that "I have such incredibly high conventional social status that I can afford to waste unbelievable amounts of time riding this ridiculously out-of-date and inefficient bike".

Makers, on the other hand, may be interested in making new things or old things, but they are primarily in it for the making, not the social signalling. Makers make. They only talk about it now and then when they feel like it. Get a few beverages-of-their-choice into a maker and they'll be apt to talk about stuff they've made that they never mentioned to anyone before because it just got lost in the ruck.

There are no hipsters on a desert island. There can be makers, though.

Re: Hipster Business Models: A New Book by Priceonomics

#13

Post by itsallthesame »

debacle wrote: post #4

I dislike the fact that they conflate being a hipster and being a maker. In my experience, the segment of makers that are also hipsters isn't really all that different from the general population. Hipster is a pejorative. Connotating it with maker puts makers in a negative light.

It's pretty hipster to demand to be called a maker

Re: Hipster Business Models: A New Book by Priceonomics

#14

Post by readymade »

itsallthesame wrote: post #13
debacle wrote: post #4

I dislike the fact that they conflate being a hipster and being a maker. In my experience, the segment of makers that are also hipsters isn't really all that different from the general population. Hipster is a pejorative. Connotating it with maker puts makers in a negative light.

It's pretty hipster to demand to be called a maker

+ 1M

Re: Hipster Business Models: A New Book by Priceonomics

#16

Post by hawkice »

debacle wrote: post #4

I dislike the fact that they conflate being a hipster and being a maker. In my experience, the segment of makers that are also hipsters isn't really all that different from the general population. Hipster is a pejorative. Connotating it with maker puts makers in a negative light.

I personally attempt to use 'hipster' to refer only to ironic culture, people who enjoy things defensively (potentially the opposite of 'geek' whose enjoyment knows no bounds, including social expectations), and whose choices are primarily driven by fear of embarrassment (for instance, looking ridiculous so that they cannot be embarrassed by it, to know it was on purpose instead of trying and failing).

And yet, other people use words in other ways. I do not like what _I_ mean when I say hipster, but what the Priceonomics fellows mean is very different (closer to the true definition of 'indie'), and I have no problem with them associating that with makers, me personally, our industry (although tech in general encompasses much more), etc.

Re: Hipster Business Models: A New Book by Priceonomics

#17

Post by toasted »

tjradcliffe wrote: post #12
temuze wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book is about making products that didn't exist before, so I think the authors are referring to hipsters as 'people who knew about something before it became cool'. You can be a maker and make things that are already mainstream. Carpenters, for example, are makers but not all carpenters are hipsters.

Hipsters and makers are unrelated to each other. One is about social signalling, the other is about making. For example, in the cycling world the canonical "hipster on a fixie" has nothing to do with newness or functional capability. The cool is in the retro, the inconvenience, the social signalling that "I have such incredibly high conventional social status that I can afford to waste unbelievable amounts of time ri…

sounds like somebody's girlfriend got pulled by a hipster
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