Living your best life is intimately connected to how we spend our money and how ‘real’ we are to our values. But is the hipster economy something to embrace, or to be sceptical of? Allesandro Gerosa argues hipster authenticity is increasingly its own brand, co-opted by the social networks and financial interests it claims to evade but it does give genuine opportunities to shape society around us and support our communities. We must consider this balancing act if we are to understand our culture, economy, and capitalism itself. Authenticity is the buzzword of the day, with its opposite ‘fakeness’ being a fate almost worse than death for social standing. Drake’s supposed ‘fakin for likes’ took pride of place in his and Kendrick’s recent rap feud while Taylor Swift decries the ‘fakers gonna fake…’, but what really is authenticity, how does it work, and how does it change over time? A famous sociologist from the 70s, Melvin Seeman, once wrote that the con…
Read the full article which is published on IAI TV (external link)
