To Mike's (Stop Breathing) comment about not living in a urban area and this cultural trend not applying to him: the influential Gen X are now yuppies with money and the craft brew and foodie craze can only be enjoyed if you can afford gourmet prices. Yes, there are people making affordable, locally-sourced and well-made food and craft brews, but your average/mainstream American still isn't buying organic or eating food with fancy ingredients.

Also, AAA radio helps silent-majority rock proliferate. Femdisco is a big fan of all silent-majority rock. I, Pitchfork reader, introduced her to both Avetts (who I found out about on my own via seeing a random show of theirs in '05) and Mumford and they are basically now her favorite bands (she also likes Animal Collective though, so the two aren't mutually exclusive). She asked me about Foster the People the other day. Nashville just so happens to have one of the more prominent AAA stations in the US, WRLT - Lightning 100.

Grace Potter & The Nocturnals is another band to add to this category. In the last two years, they went from being kind of granola band from Vermont who played a ton of jam-style fests to doing a national headline tour in mid-size clubs to opening for the Avetts in Nashville last October, to cutting a single with Kenny Chesney (to bolster Derris' assertion that mainstream/country fans dig this music) to playing playing two nights at the Ryman only a year later. This is mostly in part to their AAA radio play of ballad "Tiny Light" and follow-up Hot AC crossover hit "Paris (Ooh La La)".

A lot of interesting, well-articulated theories here that I'm not sure I buy at all.

I'm not sure what's special about all these bands you're deeming silent majority. I've heard of all of them but probably haven't heard a note of any but Mumford & Sons (which is limited to a song they played on the Grammies) and Ray LaMontague. You might say that's the point, but I haven't heard a note of Drake either or almost anyone on the pop charts, or most of the indie acts you folks follow for that matter either.

As far as the food trucks go, i think it's more of a supply driven phenomenon than a hipster demand driven one. Basically, its much cheaper to have a food truck than a restaurant and if the food is still good, there'll will be a demand for it.

But hipsters initially spread the word about them. They are definitely a trend. I see most of them burning out and the best run with best food sticking around, hopefully. They're mostly run by the creative class (yuppie hipsters, if I must). I'm guessing that last decade LA and NYC started the trend and Austin and Portland followed suit, then once yuppies, foodies and bloggers created demand in other metro areas, the truck owners followed suit.

Food trucks have been around LA for literally decades. They were mostly taco trucks. A few years back, restaurants got in a bit of a war with the taco trucks parked on their block arguing that they couldn't compete with these restaurants on wheels that had low overhead and no rent. They managed to enlist some allies in the gub'ment who set fines for them for parking in certain zones. I still have a "Free the Taco Trucks: Carne Asada is not a Crime" t-shirt from those days. Then the city council started to realize that people actually liked the taco trucks and resented them being run-off because they were a threat to restaurants. There was a ton of press surrounding it all which I think made a lot of line cooks who wanted to but couldn't afford to open their own brick and mortar restaurant realize that they was another way. A few pioneers like the Korean Kogi truck were widely successful and then lots of others naturally followed. It became a huge trend and then spread to other cities. While I'm sure lots of hipsters like the food, so do non-hipsters and the trucks are successful because they have low costs and good food not because they meet the hipster demand for diy, outsider food concepts.

The source of the Gen-X counter-culture doesn't make Fu's statement untrue. That being said, I don't know if the statement is really any kind of revelation at all. I would think that ANY present/future culture is less "counter" than the one before it. "It's been done" as they say. Or we are all desensitized. When I was in high school, mohawks, tats, and piercings in places other than your ear were "out there." Not so much nowadays.

I realize that.



and this

my thought is that at some point in the last decade, some tastemaker decided food trucks were cool so hipsters flocked, spread the word, and then other people caught on.

when we use the word "hipster" in regard to these food trucks, do we mean "people who like cheap and convenient food"? cause the food trucks that surround the plaza near my office are patronized by all ages and backgrounds.

And my thought is that your thought is wrong.

I think a lot of this disagreement comes down to LA vs Nashville. In LA, food trucks selling cheap grub have been around for decades. In a place like Nashville they are a recent development and they are more trendy than cheap food oriented.

this is true. You have concisely interpreted billyg and my observations made through our geographically myopic lenses. You win 2 korean beef tacos made by a tattooed hipster with a side of of nutella and peanut butter topped sweet potato fries.

maybe elsewhere, but not down here. a good percentage of the trucks here are just folks that enjoy cooking great food, and cannot afford a brick & mortar. word was spread by people seeing these trucks around town (the 3 counties), many of which are just working class, and even lower class people, not hipsters. some of these trucks have been popular for close to a decade. hipsters latched on later...years later.

Way to basically see all of this through your own perspective and have zero actual perception. Not having heard these ROCK bands is exactly the point. You wouldn't like Drake no matter what - and neither really would the people who are mostly the meat and potatoes of generation x - a generation that was 16-20 when when "grunge" was big, and
didn't really grow up listening to rap like the people who are a few years younger than the main era of Gen Xers or the bulk of Generation Y, who are people that rap was never a
revelation or a shock to, it was just always there.

And that's the market for these bands. People who don't like rap, and aren't smart enough or don't care enough to seek out new bands. They want to be fed, and don't care if the food is locally sourced fusion cuisine.
And while you haven't heard these bands or these indie bands, you've heard OF the indie bands. No one's friends are talking about this group of bands - yet somehow they're huge. Just like you don't know anyone who's going to see a Kevin James' movies, but they're all huge. Its because there is a silent majority who needs their tastes dictated to them, never veers off the mainstream, and even if they heard and liked a New York Dolls song lets say, wouldn't follow them down the rabbit hole like the people here.

Same with food trucks. Of course they've always been there. But the taco trucks of 10'years ago were actual mexicans selling tacos to actual mexicans. Then white people who were adventurous about food realized they could get better tacos from those trucks - and that the food was certainly better than any goddamn hot dog cart. And it spread from there - but it has spread like wildfire because of the phenomenon that Fu articulated.

Food truck now means, for a majority of people who would know what it means, a cheap, fast, and adventurous alternative to what the silent majority eats. Oh, y'all eat at Taco Bell or Chic Fil A or even Ruby Tuesday at lunch? We eating a bulgogi taco, or we going to hit that lobster truck who you have to follow on Twitter to know it's location.

And we don't have any food trucks in Alabama. We have Gar-B-Cue and Meat and 3s. We don't have enough hipsters for Banh Mi tacos - whether served from a truck or not.

I think that "hipster" is being used here a bit too widely.

Also the parameters of what defines Generation X are being applied too narrowly. The core of Gen X are in their late 30's-mid 40's; we are the tail end.

That's what I was getting at - I'm not Generation X. But I'm not exactly Generaation Y either.

And I'll clarify my above post - we don't have enough people interested who are young enough with enough money to be a part of the food truck thing really here - and we also don't have enough people who eat anything other than BBQ, meat and threes, or anything that isn't somehow marketed as "Southern" here for any kind of food movement.

To wit: we have a Hyundai plant and a sizable Korean community, but I know no white people who have even tried Korean food, much less like it - or would understand the concept of putting bulgogi in a taco.

And there are people in the GOM (and well, lots of other cities) that have never and will never eat sushi because it's raw and exotic. Most people like the status quo. There are exceptions to the Southerners only eating Southern food rule: my eldest niece (age 13) who is into food culture (wants to be a private chef when she grows up) wanted only one thing for her birthday: to go to Atlanta to eat good Thai food. Hopefully her generation, with the prevalent food culture (Food Network is as mainstream as you get), will continue to be adventurous eaters, but hopefully won't be so pretentious about food. This same adolescent girl only knows the music that is fed to her. I selfishly hope in her teens she'll discover that I like "good" music and I'll be able to make her a shit load of mixes and introduce her to how the left side of the dial lives.

so, as per the music being discussed, it's basically whatever is in spin/rolling stone.

Paste?

probably that too.

For the purpose of conciseness, I'm lobbying oney'all who can work Photoshop and Illustrator to throw together a Ven diagram for hipsters, silent majority rock and food truck patronage.

Agreed, which is why I noted my age. However, most of my Austin people are late 30's to turning 40.

I admit I'm not wearing a lab coat, it was just a thought that flashed across my brain the other day.

Yeah, Stu just basically dropped that Food Network is MTV, but there is no modern equivalent of MTV (which played 90% shite, 10% 120 Mins/Headbanger's Ball/Yo Raps)

I really don't know what generation I am in. Is there anything in between Xers and Baby Boomers?

Also, does Rolling Stone or Spin matter anymore? I;m not trying to be difficult about them but I've just not seen a copy much less read a copy of either in years. I'm curious if other people still read those.

you guys should try to open up for another dimension. I'm not really convinced of some of your closed theories about the contemporary lifestyle.
food is one thing, music is another, even though there might be some coincidental links between the customers of indie music and exotic food.

here in berlin's central districts you get a lot of exotic food, mainly Asian fusion stuff in - what you would call - hipsterfriendly designed restaurants. the reasons for that are quite simple: in these districts the majority of its habitants are the better educated, younger and in terms of their origin more diverse people. art scene, tourists, start up's and these things. these people tend to travel quite a lot and are open for more 'new' and exotic things than the 'average joe', which you can find here as well, of course.
my theory in terms of music is that most of these in some way more open people tend to get more and more conservative by the years. in their mid-twenties they do party and when they stay here, they settle down and have a family, children. most of them where never really on the explorer side of music so they just want to listen to positive stuff, nothing offensive and nothing generally new. they just want some melodies and musicians that could be some of them. not too crazy, but at least a bit arty.
and, and this is a new dimension, they are connected to America through the Internet and are automatically interested in new stuff out of your country, just because we don't have cities like new York or LA.
it's all not really complex I guess. Berlin is sort of relaxed altogether, the most hipster-looking people are tourists from other European countries. maybe because they think of Berlin as THE hip city in Europe.
not sure if my point is clear...

It's totally Paste music.

I mean I've never really paid too much attention to Paste, but from what I can gather this is exactly what they traffic in.

Also lets just get a moratorium on the hipster right now please. I mean I know it'll never happen, but it's just beyond meaningless at this point. It's downright contradictory and confusing. People who follow trends aren't hipsters. Their the masses. They're just about everybody who's actually paying attention and has access to whatever the current trend is.

And sure it makes sense that something like food trucks would be popular with actual hipsters (young, typically college-age, fashion-conscious people) because they're relatively cheap and represent a sort of kitschy junk-culture thing. Even better if the food they serve is quirky and novel (a la Korean tacos). But honestly, I think interesting and novel food appeals to everybody who isn't some whitebread closed-minded asshole. And how can anybody really get annoyed with the food truck fad around here anyway? It's such a small-scale and easy-to-ignore thing. You really have to way more out of your way be part of it than not to.

And is the whole locally-sourced fusion food thing supposed to be a hipster phenomenon, too? Or a former hipster phenomenon? I'm getting confused by where this thread is going/has gone. Anyway, if that's what was being said or implied, it's totally ridiculous.