What is a hipster? An exploration of undefinable versus physical attributes and the future of computing. by Cory Forsyth There is no definition of a hipster. To suppose there is a definitive criteria for hipsterdom would likely offend one of these postmodern aesthetes. Instead, hipsterdom is an exclusive club for the self-initiated, entrance made all the more impenetrable for its nebulous boundaries. The central idea seems to be that you either are or are not a hipster, and while transcendent ascension into the fold is possible, no amount of conscious effort will get you there. Hipsterdom is not the only quality that is defined, at least in part, by a paradoxical rejection of concrete definition. The quality of "coolness," a trait closely linked to hipsterdom, is similarly presented. As anyone who has found himself an outsider in the U.S. school system (and at some point, we all have) will attest, you can buy the cool clothes and the cool music, and hang out at the cool places, but that doesn't make you cool. Coolness, in this sense, is a simultaneously sociocultural and intimately personal experience. Yes, it's about how you feel and how you act (and what you wear), but it's also influenced by how you are perceived--in fact, some would say the perception of coolness is the most important part. The postmodern philosophy, which has over the last half-century or so reverberated through many different media including painting, photography, architecture, and literature, and is now permeating certain aspects of our popular culture, has brought the concept of pluralism to the mainstream. The idea of pluralism is that points of view that go beyond simple exclusionary opposites (i.e., right or wrong with no middle ground, good or evil with no Michael Jackson, etc.) are possible, even preferable. The idea that it might be possible to hold opposing viewpoints simultaneously in one's head, to think in a realm beyond the absolutes, is a liberating one. Pluralistic thought enables us to internalize the world not in black and white, but in shades of gray. I believe that it is the tension between this cerebral notion and the inherent physicality of the real world that provides the color. For even though many aspects of our day-to-day lives are unknowable and undefinable, others are very much concretely definable. Disregarding scientific/philosophical objections about the subjectivity of perception, we can agree that a glass is an object that holds liquid, has a certain heft, and will shatter when dropped. I am interested in the conceptual models we as humans must make to coordinate the differences and intersections between our physical reality and our mental reality. The use of computers only underscores this tension, for computers, despite their literality, are inherently capable of plurality in their operation, yet humans expect them to behave in a very physically-grounded fashion. For instance, with only a few deviations, the conceptual models in prevalent use in computing are models that rely on real-world references. In the desktop computing world we have files that we "save" to a "location" that is contextually defined in relation to a hierarchy of "folders." In reality, however, the computer is not limited to these models for its operation. Your "file" is saved at an address in memory, but so are the "folders" and there's no reason for there to be only a single path to your file. It would be all the same to the computer if you never specified a "location" in which to save your files and instead saved them all indiscrimnately and just "searched" for them when you needed them (in fact, Google would probably just as soon have you do so). Using aliases (on Macs), shortcuts (on Windows) and links (on Unix) allows us to break down the location metaphor somewhat when referring to files, but we are still rather far from a pluralistic digital file system. Online, we move a little closer to the plurality that computing allows, but we still lean on mental crutches in the form of "shopping carts," "bookmarks," and the like. Hyperlinks allow a bit more freedom in defining relationships between different "pages" (another metaphor), but except for some online experiments in postlinear narratives, the capabilities are underutilized. Even so, the fluidity of the web is acclimating us to the fluidity that is possible in all computing environments. If there are some characteristics of our lives that reject definition, like postmodernism, how can we say for sure that they even exist? Generally, when attempting to understand an object, we first capture it with language. By using words to enumerate the qualities of an item, we can pin down its meaning. What, then, is to be done with a subject that we are unable to define in words, or unable to wholly define? Supreme court justice Stewart famously declared, regarding obscenity, that "[He] knows it when [he] sees it." People can probably spot a hipster without being able to define what one is, and everyone knows who the cool kids are. But there are other ideas in the digital realm that may not be so clearcut. If we can no longer describe the relationships between our files, will we still be able to say that they are related, or know if they are? if we can't see them, will we still know them? Like the hipsters marching ever further into the five boroughs, is computing on an ineluctable path towards more chaos and pluralism? I believe that we are now taking the first steps away from traditional metaphors in computing and will be moving quickly into a world of computing where the organization and categorization of our "files" (to use an archaic but persistent term) will be done by the computers. File names will be optional or--more likely--irrelevant. As computer systems bear less relationship to the physical world, will our methods of interacting with them become less physical? It seems like as soon as a computer starts to behave pluralistically (able to branch into several, possibly contradictory, lines of "thought" at once), and humans are suitably acclimated to the new medium, we will be ready to communicate with them directly via our brains. It may sound like science fiction now, but it seems like the writing is on the wall. You'll know the time has come when you see all the hipsters jacking in.