Time swings, and with it the styles of culture. Once, men wore cravats and women whalebone corsets. Now, men prefer the ugliest of athletic wear, and women attempt to stay their youth with oversized sweaters and leggings in lieu of jeans. Some decades are anathema, such as the unforgettable '90s, and some are considered a height of human genius. All that we see as we flip through the old family albums become sociological exercises for historians, and then the pendulum of time swings. We see the world change once more, and we learn another lesson. Therefore, what does our generation give to the world, and what of the reemergence of tobacco pipe smoking?
A long time ago in a nation we no longer recognize, Flappers emerged. They cut their hair, shortened their skirts, and swept the world away with their flair and charm. These women were revolutionaries who cast aside their petticoats and coifs for their era's form of freedom. A fashion and savoir-faire like theirs may not have been seen since the conquest of the Church over "barbarian" Europe. Leave it to the Americans to stir the pot of radicalism.
Skip time forward, pass over Rosie the Riveter, her feminine bicep proclaiming the power of women in the absence of men, and settle with the Hippies. These wild people, a new species preferring organic food and natural odour, splurged on LSD rather than cigarettes and burned bras rather than learn to swing-dance. Hippies lasted a while, then hit a fast-fade phase. They still exist in hidden pockets around the country, like crab grass in dust, and for them we hold an odd reverence but still shake our heads. Their generation shifted the culture, and for that, I thank them. Eternal housewifery had to stop at some moment.
Women have relaxed these days. The freedom of the internet may have tamed them, or it tamed the young male population enough that the sexes have traded places. While this thought is baneful to any female seeking a manly man––oh dear, 'tis bleak––this switch has made certain choices more socially acceptable. Tattoos, for instance, are now artistic, rather than fit only for beatniks, sailors, gang members, and convicts (or are the last two essentially the same thing?). Even then, a tattoo is a one-time decision, even a one-time mistake, and its status as a culture shift is "so '80s" anyway.
What is the new "trend" these days? Hipsters. Hipsters, whose greatest joy in life is to be different, are a quasi-respected yet simultaneously sneered-at minority. I do not know from whence came their appellation, though it too may be "Hipster," aka ironic. How do they achieve this? Male Hipsters wear suspenders, bow ties, combat boots with trousers, and fashionable, though honestly femme scarves. Female Hipsters wear . . . . it's not even worth trying to describe what they wear, for women's fashion is always changing; suffice it to say that whatever both the male and female variety of this sub-group wear is over-priced but supposed to look as if it came from a thrift store and cobbled together by an artistic hobo. I doubt Americans know the true definition of ironic, unless it be Hipster. Modern Internet America spends many happy hours poking fun at these "artistes" for their fashion choices, and ironically Hipsters have spawned a fashion revolution.
We come to this essence: modern America does not know what it is, nor what it wears. Fifty years lay between the Flappers and Hippies, and fifty years between Hippies and our generation. Perhaps the pendulum has swung once more, and perhaps what my generation wears now will not the outrageous uniform of fashion-less parents that stand out so awfully in old albums. We may be the next generation of radical dress. In this case, those Hipsters who smoke tobacco pipes now because it is "different," and who will cease once it is once again mainstream for something even more unknown are not beginnings of a tectonic culture clash, but they have inspired the earthquake. Rather, those who smoke because we like it and continue to out of true liking and not for a minority statement, are the heads of some movement. We are not revolutionaries. I doubt we would even accept that term. History shall show, though, what our daily decisions create. Are we the wink of a fifty-year pendulum, or are our puffs like the trimming of a skirt?
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