A couple of months before leaving Romania I went to an event at MNAC - the shining new National Museum of Contemporary Art that has become a frequent venue for cutting-edge parties. As we approached MNAC''s funky glass box, I was amazed by the gloriously hip and trendy crowd spilling out of its doors. The pretty girls and boys could have easily rivaled their counterparts in London, New York or Berlin with their retro-ironic and glam-distressed clothing and adventurous facial hair.
Inside, the proceedings turned out to be too trendy indeed even for my usually with-it tastes: a DJ spun something resembling an unholy offspring of industrial rock, thrash metal and (I can''t believe I''m about to sound like my dear granny) pure noise. Yet, the scenesters inside seemed perfectly pleased with the barrage of sounds assaulting their eardrums and even grooved along with the mildly terrifying screeching.
As we escaped unto the steps of the museum to rest our ears and drag on much need cigarettes, I continued my survey of the uber-cool crowd and then, suddenly, the realization hit me: the hipsters were finally in Romania. This observation filled me with unbridled joy, despite my ruined Saturday, for I am convinced that far more than the booming construction of office high-rises or influx of foreign capital, the existence of hipsters is the clearest mark of a thriving country.
Hipsters are an almost purely Western phenomenon and a recent one at that - they only became a significant cultural force some time in the early to mid-nineties. If you have any doubt as to whether hipsters do indeed constitute a major subgroup, you only need to look at the bulk of advertising (especially in the US and the UK) directed at the 25 to 35 demographic. It''s use of a cocktail of irony, obscure cultural and musical references and sheer surrealism are all geared at the hipster (or hipster wannabe) consumer. And if that is not enough, one only needs to glance at the lengthy article in the latest issue of Harper''s - a premiere magazine for American intellectuals - which utilizes a staggering number of graphs, footnotes and scientific references to analyze the impact of hipster culture on the culture and business at large.
More important, however, is the very nature of hipster-dom, and it is what makes me so happy to see it flourish in Romania. There is an old saying that we get the leaders we deserve. To paraphrase it, we also get the youth movements we deserve. To wit, the decadent, post-fin de siecle Roaring Twenties gave us the hedonistic flappers; the turbulent sixties gave birth to hippie counterculture, while the eighties spawned ever-hungry stockbrokers with their chilling "Greed is good" motto.
Then the nineties came and the youth of America (and, to a large extent, of Western Europe) suddenly seemed to have no battles left to fight. The Berlin Wall has crumbled, racial and sexual discrimination was, at least officially, defeated and with the rise of the internet boom money became almost too easy to make. And thus, out of the disillusionment, consumerism and millennial malaise the hipsters were born.
In the world that offers them little to care about, the hipsters choose to care all too deeply about all things shallow: being tuned into the right kind of music, literature, film, clothing and websites all became a prerequisite for membership in a seemingly exclusive group, while requiring no real or practical action.
Indeed, it seems that a wholehearted embrace of futility is almost a hipster prerequisite. In fact, one of the largest recent hipster trends (analyzed in the Harper''s article) was the Flash Mob, which consisted of a large group of people converging at some random urban point, performing some brief and utterly meaningless act (e.g. standing on leg) for a period of ten minutes or so and dispersing without a trace - meaninglessness as art.
It seems obvious then why until recently hipsters could not have existed in Romania: when fighting for survival and basic human dignity is an everyday reality, there is little time left for worshipping false gods. One''s music taste becomes far less of a concern when access to the most basic of necessities is far from guaranteed.
This is why I was so pleased with the crowd at the FNAC event: they were all young and most of them were not rich. I knew some of them - artists, young professionals - and none of them were flush with cash. Yet, they were comfortable and, most importantly, secure enough in their lives to be able to just relax and worry only about wearing the right clothes, listening to the right music and going to the right kind of parties.
In the West, and especially in the US, the hipsters with their vacuous pursuit of cool seem to me somewhat odious and even dangerous. There are enough things for them to worry about and enough injustice to rally against, that their drive to be "in" could find a far more productive outlet. Yet, in Romania the sight of the trendy hipster flock warmed my heart.
The people of Romania have been through hell and they have struggled long and hard enough. They have earned the right to just kick back and, at least for a while, worry only about being the first to discover that cool new band.
* Lola Gusman is a lawyer who has returned to the US after spending several years in Romania
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