I work in a playhouse, and recently we were cleaning out our in-house costume shop, and I was able to work with our technical director, our marketing intern, and one of our actors 16 yr. old son. While cleaning out 27 years worth of costumes, props, hats, buttons, lingerie and whatever whatnot that got shoved into the space above our main stage, I learned a lot about these ridiculously awesome people.
(you tend to bond with people while breathing dust from 1907 and carrying a potted poinsettia that you could literally wear, down the stairs)
1. They love Rod Stewart (Who doesn’t?!)
2. They are have a great, skewed yet clean sense of humor.
3. They have an actual work ethic, something that I find missing from a lot people around me.
4. Definitely NOT Republicans, or leftists..or extreme in any way.
5. Really do NOT like Hipsters.
Okay, I am going to leave off about what I learned about them at numero cinco, and go with the ‘Hipster’ … thing. While in this talk about Hipsters and Republicans, I was called one. That is, I was called a Hipster. The reasoning behind this, I wear large glasses, a funky hat on occasion, and tight pants. First of all, I would just like to state for the record that I do not wear tight pants! I wear large glasses because I have horrible depth perception (I once ran into a chest high, 3 ft. in diameter blooming flower pot) and I ride a bike that is made for tooling about town ( I am a tooler..HAHA) and I think Sam Spade has the best wardrobe..EVER. I must be honest and state that I was miffed by this… moniker, but only because I like these people, and they do not like Hipsters…so if they don’t like Hipsters, and I am a Hipster…then by default they don’ t like me? A conudrum!
At this point, in the conversation, the tech director pulled out his iPhone (break time!) and looked up the term ‘Hipster’ on Wikipedia. (I would also like to state for the record, again, that Merriam-Webster says a hipster is someone who follows the latest trends and fashions) This entry in Wikipedia is full…full of examples of hipsters, full of explanations for why hipsters, and full of the history of hipsters. Reading through this with the other, we came to the conclusion that all of us were a little bit Hipster. Shut the front door!
Where I am going with this is here, Hipsters are often misunderstood by ‘mainstream’ culture, just like librarians. Since I began SLIS almost a year ago, we have been struggling with two, tried and true, stereotypes. That of the Frumpster, and the Sexed up librarians(and of course, the myth that librarians must be female). I have met different librarians who reject both, and some welcome both, and some who would prefer one or the other. But, in all actuality, we are neither, or either, or one or the other. First and foremost, we are librarians! How we dress is a personal choice, not a librarian choice. After attending ALA, and meeting all the great people from HackLibSchool and other libraries and schools around the country, I must be honest and say that I saw none of the two stereotypes mentioned above, I saw more fellow Libsters who could be ‘classified’ as the Hipster type…. if you were into judging people, which I am not. (besides, cardigans and red lipstick go together like peas in a pod)
Waiting at an airport on their way to the Conference in New Orleans, I had a friend who said they could tell which of the passengers were librarians, and which were not. I am not entirely certain of my direction at this point, but what I wanted to get across is that there are always going to be stereotypes, I guess we can live up to them, or we can live down to them, or we can accept them, or acknowledge them, or ignore them, or whatever you want to do with them. It would be nice to say that stereotypes are going to disappear, but that is against human nature. We can strive to make the best of them, and to re-educate the people who judge us by them, but they are never going to disappear. Now my friend, the one in the airport, felt a sense of …well, I would say well being, but that might take it too far. I will say comfort instead, they felt comfort because they were people who were ‘like her’. Librarians. It gives me a weird sense of dichotomy that even while we push so hard against something like stereotypes, we welcome and include other people who have been judged as having the same stereotypes.
As always, I am noob and these are opinions, be nice in comments!
