Surry Hills Hipster
“Sorry Uncle Jim, I was just trying to give you a cuddle”, my young nephew apologised last weekend.
I was on the couch half-watching television and had my glasses on my chest.
My young nephew jumped up on my to give me a cuddle, and that’s when we both realised the frames on my glasses had snapped. Not badly, but enough to warrant a sticky-tape job until I was able to go back to my optometrist to see if there was anything that could be done. Thankfully, the sticky-tape was an almost perfect “colour-match” for the grey hair just above my ears.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much that could be done, as they were made from titanium (not able to be welded) and were no longer stocked. It’s three years since I got my glasses, and therefore also three years since I had my eyes tested.
With that in mind, I decided I’d have an eye-test, and also get some new frames. I’ve got a two-for-one deal which means my old lenses have been put into new frames, and I’ve got a set of new frames with the updated prescription lenses. Thankfully, my health insurance was able to make a significant contribution towards the cost. Hopefully they’ll be ready later this week.
I swear, if I had boofy hair, a beard, skinny chinos, and was 20 years younger I would be such a “Surry Hills hipster”.
May I direct your attention to the following graph, which plots the volume of Google searches for the word ‘hipster’* on the y-axis against the independent variable, time, on the x-axis.
As you can no doubt see, there is strong evidence against the common preconception that Melbourne is the hipster capital of Australia.
Could it be that there are in fact more hipsters in Sydney than in Melbourne?
Is this simply a consequence of Sydney’s higher overall population?
Could it be that Melburnian hipsters are more ‘self-aware’ than Sydney hipsters, and that this dampens their curiosity to search for their own subculture?
Why is Adelaide so high on the list?
Note that it is reasonable to use volume of searches for the word ‘hipster’ as an approximate measure of relative hipster population. The only people who would Google ‘hipster’ are hipsters themselves.
Website hipsterrunoff.com also provides strong supporting evidence:
I find Melbourne meets the hipster stereotype more in the centre of the city. It’s very artsy and what not while the CBD of Sydney is more, well, just that, the Central Business District. It’s the bustling centre of work. But taking the entire city of Sydney and Melbourne as a whole well, Sydney has a larger suburban area, is more spread out, and has a diversity of different environments as you go from suburb to suburb. Sydney has “hipster” areas like Surry Hills but another area like Sutherland Shire is more beach culture. Newtown is more food centred. Auburn is more about cultural diversity.
Yes, it’s absolutely true Melbourne seems far more centralised. The centre of the city seems much busier on a Saturday night, for example. In Sydney, everything is much more de-centralised. I once heard someone describe the difference between the two cities in these terms: Melbourne has an identity, Sydney has a series of identities. Both great cities, though obviously my favourite is the one I’ve chosen to make my home.