Social Loafing and the Insidious Damage Inflicted on Society by Those Who Grow Ironic Moustaches

Introduction:

In her article entitled “How to Live Without Irony" in The Opinion Pages of The New York Times, Christy Wampole addresses the growing epidemic of detached irony among the generational group known as Millennials. She describes the many shortcomings of the overvaluation of the ironic wit of hipsters –particularly the lack of social and cultural identity brought about by habitual indecisiveness. Wampole argues, that hipsters are a manifestation of the Millennials by and large, that because Millenials resort to using irony as a defense mechanism implemented to avoid the vulnerability that accompanies frankness, they undermine themselves by avoiding confrontation and potential embarrassment. They identify with the absence of identification. This reluctance to produce original thought is where my critical essay takes roots. I will extend Wampole’s ascertations about Millennials to the social psychological concept of social loafing.

Main Body:

Part of what characterizes active participation in modern American society is an individual’s expression of personal agency. There are times, such as when engaging in a debate with a person of opposing values, when life demands a person to be frank and decisive, to express what one feels in spite of the possibility of being embarrassed by advocating the side of the argument that loses. Wampole argues that Millenials, on the other hand, avoid this necessary risk. They make a lifestyle of detached irony. What is problematic about existing in a perpetual state of ironic comments and the valuation of the absurd over that which is representative of one’s actual interests, is that it requires the individual to convey nothing genuine about themselves; rather, it encourages one to become social loafers by merely adopting the culture of others, while masquerading as being inventive, in order to avoid the accountability for one’s actions that would normally accompany an expression of serious and sincere thought.

Wampole describes hipsters as an offshoot of the Millennial generation –the most extreme case of the ordinary member of this generational group (1). She professes that this epidemic of irony is a “provisional answer to the problems of too much comfort, too much history, and too many choices” (Wampole 1) It is feasible that increased accessibility to digital stimuli, combined with lack of face-to-face communication and hyper-exposure to out-group cultural resources, has led to the deindividuation of the Millenials. If it is a normal standard of human existence to achieve a degree of personal identity through that with which the individual associates himself or herself, then these hipster Millennials, caught up in the sensationalized alter-egos that they have adopted, have relegated themselves to the sidelines by proving to be reluctant to commit to the objects and attitudes with which they adorn frivolously.

Arguably, hipsters are the incarnation of the rebel with no cause. It can be said that they have no distinct culture, and that they instead borrow from elsewhere. This habitual social borrowing, when not reciprocated via the contribution of unique cultural output, is a one-way street. This amounts to a black hole through which the historical idiosyncrasies and creativity of other groups is compressed into effectively nothing by the destructive force of these trifling hipsters. This is roughly equivalent to non-Mexican persons dressing as a giant taco wearing a sombrero for Halloween, as it involves the reduction of of other cultures for the sake of a person’s amusement.  

The prototypical hipster’s aloof and ironic semblance of an actual standpoint is for them means of social conveyance intended to communicate the individual’s value to other members of their group. It is precisely this bizarre attempt at cultivating social attachments through their own personal detachment that epitomizes their lackluster participation in society. The is a disconnection in these Millennials from the person as observer and the person as agent that makes this behavior so problematic. They simply acknowledge that events, such as great historical cultures, have existed, without being directly effected by them aside from the experiences of their own choosing. It is because they have not suffered or endured hardship that these hipsters are able to coyly dabble in relics of civilization that others have already payed for.  Wampole asserts that "for the relatively well educated and financially secure, irony functions as a kind of credit card you never have to pay back. In other words, the hipster can frivolously invest in sham social capital without ever paying back one sincere dime. He doesn’t own anything he possesses" (1).

Hipsters are reluctant to express themselves honestly and candidly, because they are afraid of being wrong. Instead of approaching culture and the world from the vantage of self-asserting critical thinkers, they behave like “walking citations…[who try] to negotiate the age-old problem of individuality not with concepts, but with material things,” or social cop-outs, in the case of many (Wamploe 1).

Hipster Millennials perceive their behavior as if it is radical or unprecedented, although they are actually lazy, and are freeloading off of the hard work and brilliance of other cultures. Perhaps they are violating the social convention of taking oneself seriously, but, probably to their chagrin, this plays a hand in rendering them slaves to idleness and complacency. By refusing to choose a stance and defend it, they are allowing themselves to be dragged across the floor on the coattails of ideas that others advented, while being suffocated in a dust cloud of vague banality. From their coattail perch, the world rolls past them in two dimensions like the rotating backdrop images used to film scenes which take place inside of vehicles in Hollywood back in the 1920’s (The irony of this reference is not lost on me). They are not actually engaging with or understanding the manifold flags that they wave. Instead, from behind a barrier of detachment that is induced by existing within the relative safety of non-identification and inaction, they treat the cultures of places and times far removed from themselves as novelties or extravagances, as cocktail dresses to be worn once to a party and then returned at a later date at their convenience with the price tags still intact. It is in this regard that Millennial hipsters socially loaf, subsisting on the accomplishments of others.

  

Works cited:

Wampole, Christy. "How to Live Without Irony." The New York Times 7 Nov. 2012, opinion ed. Web. 27 Oct. 2015. <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/how-to-live-without-irony/?_r=0>.