Second Presentation

I decided to do my second presentation on the same topic as my final paper, which is The Conquest of Cool. While writing my paper, I noticed (like Zoe below me) the parallels between the counterculture movement of the sixties that Frank writes about, and the rise of today's "hipsters." The counterculture of Frank's study flouted tradition by ignoring the traditional values of power, stability, and conformity, preferring to strike out on their own and adopt a more free-spirited approach, in the process creating a new identity for themselves distinctly outside of that of mainstream culture. Today's Hipster Handbook notes that hipsters, by definition, "walk among the masses in daily life, but [are] not a part of them, and shun or reduce to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream." Hipsters, like Frank's countercultural movement, associate firmly with liberal political view, and also tend to be young, relatively affluent consumers with plenty of disposable income.

The advertising industry of the sixties first recognized the marketing potential of the targeting the "cool," and of using product association to reflect a certain opinion or stance. Perhaps the most successful example of this in modern advertising are the famous Apple commercials, in which a young, trendy actor represents the hip, sleek Mac, while an old, conservative man plays a stodgy PC. Macs, the commercials claim, are cutting-edge and visionary; PCs are outdated and resoundingly dry and mainstream. Though plenty of people have their own reasons for choosing their brand of computer, generally, whether it's the effect of the commercials, or the inspiration of them, or some combination of the two, Macs are associated with artsy hipsters, while PCs are the stuff of computer geeks and Linux fans. Apple has successfully co-opted the new "hipster" trend for its own image.