'All hipsters look identical'

Feeling alienated from mainstream culture, hipsters make a statement that they are not part of it, but millions of others make the same choices. Thus, all hipsters look identical, which is the exact opposite outcome of their intended countercultural statement. Their desperation to achieve their own unique anti-conformist identity results in their homogenous sameness in which they are indistinguishable from the conformist herd.

'Unpopular, obsolete, or obscure'

Science has inexplicably failed to come up with a precise definition of "hipster", but from my limited understanding a hipster is a person who deliberately uses unpopular, obsolete, or obscure styles and preferences in an attempt to be "cooler" than the mainstream. But why would being deliberately uncool be cooler than being cool? In certain situations refusing to signal can be a sign of high status.

'Conspicuous consumption'

Thorstein Veblen invented the term "conspicuous consumption" to refer to the showy spending habits of the nouveau riche, who unlike the established money of his day took great pains to signal their wealth by buying fast cars, expensive clothes, and shiny jewelery. Why was such flashiness common among new money but not old? Because the old money was so secure in their position that it never even occurred to them that they might be confused with poor people, whereas new money, with their lack of aristocratic breeding, worried they might be mistaken for poor people if they didn't make it blatantly obvious that they had expensive things.

A generic hipster buys vinyl in Shoreditch.

'Generation Hipster': A Rotten Avocado