Throughout my lifetime I have been both a middle class college student and a summer hitch-hiker dead set on finding the real heart of America, and on this episode I’ll cop to the facts: I’m a poser. We will explore one of the most hated archetypes of the modern age: the ironically-dressed middle and upper class young adults whose aggressive individuality is anything but. The hipsters we know today are not a new phenomenon, and neither is the phenomenon we know as ‘cool.' We’ll look at the long term history of the hippest white kids who shirked their privilege to experience to the life of the marginalized, copying black, queer, and blue collar culture and pouring into spaces where the mainstream forbade them to go. From the transcendentalists of the 1800s and the ‘slumming parties’ of their urban counterparts, to the jazz age popularity of cool black musicians and wild queer drag parties, to the beat poet Jack Kerouac’s hitchhiking days and Nirvana’s grungy working class flannel trend, hipsters have always sought to emulate those without the same privilege, and maybe, in the process, absolve themselves of their own.Please consider donating to Black Art Futures FundAmerican Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-SmithProduced and edited by Clear Commo StudiosResearch and cowriting assisted by Riley SmithCo-Produced by Miranda ZicklerShow art by RoacheVoice Acting by Will RogersBecome a Patron for extra episodes, interviews, and videos monthlyFollow American Hysteria on social media:Twitter: @AmerHysteriaInstagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices