"you know it when you see it"

Modern hipster is definitely characterized by a play of surfaces, a game of outward signification (“you know it when you see it”) and can be described by the following keywords;

skinny jeans

trucker hats

undershirts called wife beaters worn as outwear

the aesthetic of basement pornography (flash-lit Polaroids + fake wooden paneling)

aviator glasses

tube socks

the late Johnny Cash album produced by Rick Robin

tattoos

Vice magazine, (which moved from New York to Montreal in 1999)

American Apparel and Urban Outfitters, the boutique chains (that now sells lomo-cameras as a fashion accessory) that started in 1999

the hipster branding-consultancy-sneaker store called Alife, which also started in 1999

and Wlliamsburg as an example of urban neighborhood that has been taken over by the hipsters and the hipster aesthetic – that previously "belonged to" by so-called un-meltable ethnics -