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"I have a friend, K who started a Socialist Party group in our city. At first it was just a small group of like-minded individuals working in the community to help make better conditions for workers (they helped people get legal help if they'd been wrongfully terminated, etc.), protesting certain local government actions, running for office, and they had a community garden in a lower income area. After a while the hipsters heard about the group, and since it's 'cool' to be a socialist, they started showing up. Attendance at the group has quadrupled, but the actual work of the group is way way down. Everyone wants shirts and stickers, and beer nights. No one wants to work in the garden. No one wants to show up to city council meetings to discuss ways to improve the city. No one wants to run for office. No one wants to go into the 'bad' part of town to look for people who need social justice. Its just a social club. So, K is quitting the group he started, and chartered, because he feels he can find a better place to spend his time. I've seen a similar pattern happen to groups all over the city. The original GLBT group quit helping kids who'd been kicked out by their parents for coming out; now they have parties and parades. There's a new group (made up of the old group's original members) who does the hard work now. And on and on. It isn't an age divide either. So, among my group of friends there is a lot of disdain for hipsters, not for what they wear (we look quite similar) but for the shallowness of what they do. They are hanger's on, they are posers. And they displace and destroy the hard work of people who are genuinely interested in doing something. [It's] frustrating." -- miss elizabeth, comment at Pandagon (I have not yet found the Pandagon post this was posted as a comment to); quoted earlier by realinterrobang