Hip in the Boonies

Before the invention of the Internet, it would have been nearly impossible to be hip in rural America. Anyone that held any potential for the hip lifestyle would have sought it out. You don't wait for hip to come to you. No, sir. You would reach out and grab hip unmentionables.

Hollywood has made millions of dollars reusing and recycling the same story idea over and over again. A young person feels alienated and smothered in their small town. The fall in love with the romanticized idea of the city and set out to follow their dreams. Maybe the big city suits them or maybe they fall flat on their face and decide all they need was back where they started. Either way something is lost and something is gained by this journey. One could argue that this romanticized idea is actually the search for hip. No matter how the search ended, there was a certain level of enlightenment that was achieved.

Leland hit directly on my point when he said, "As a form of enlightenment, hip flourishes during periods of technological or economic change." Our culture is currently experiencing one of these periods. Our economy, for lack of a better word, sucks. The younger generations, like generations before, are looking for their own way to deal with hardships. It is time for the young to reinvent themselves. However, they may not even need to leave the house to accomplish this.  In which case, can enlightenment even take place if you do not physically immerse yourself in the rich culture that is hip?

You do not need embark on a long, tiresome journey to enlightenment in search of big city dreams.  You simply need to plug in and instantly you are where you need to be. We live in an age where reinventing yourself means you change the look of your avatar. The Internet is encroaching on big city territory. All you have to do is Google "hip new styles", for instance, and you can get those things shipped right to your house, no matter where you live. The Internet is making a whore out of hip.

I believe, however, hip is a state of mind, not the latest fashions at Urban Outfitters. So you may be able to pretend that you are hip, but hip has a conjoined twin, enlightenment. You can't have one without the other. So here lies our problem.  In low populated areas you are less likely to meet a kindred spirit to bounce ideas off of in your pursuit for enlightenment. The urban areas hold all kinds of treasures and would introduce you to things and ideas that you would never have thought possible.

I would say that if you have access to knowledge and an outlet for you to make your voice heard, you would be able to obtain a certain kind of hipness. But without a hip posse to back you up, would you really be hip or just a forward thinker? In this day and age, no matter where you are on a map urbanization had a role in your upbringing. Even if it was just having been forced to read literature, which was born of urbanization in a way. The Internet is also a form of urbanization that you can't seem to avoid no matter where you are from.