No, really.

Nishad suggested that it would be interesting to hear how you all would define "hip" and that it might be more complicated than defining "cool". I think he's right and would very much like to hear some different perspectives on such an important word. What do you think? How do you define hip? How is it different from cool?

Comments

[Nishad]

I did some digging and came up with a few:

Cooler than cool. From the urban dictionary
Fashionably current. From Wikipedia.
I have heard a lot of people in South India use Hep as a version of Hip, "You are looking Hep". Wikipedia has some details of this one as well.
There's a story in Slate on the origin of hip, available through the Wikipedia link.
Like what we were saying hip and cool seem to be interrelated in more ways.

[Camiel]

Cool is an opinion, while hip is likelier to be a statement by the fashion authorities. You could say flashy sweatsuits are cool, but they're not hip. At least not until Madonna starts wearing them.

It feels like the word hip is often used in a subtle ironic way. "It's hip" then means "Not that I care too much, but it's in fashion this season."

[martin colle]

nishad, you're too fast/good - i think hip is just a bit cooler too. a (more) knowing "cool".

having spent a month looking into cool for a tv programme (how we started the quesiton on russell's blog actually), i found very few people comfortable with the word. hip has an older feel to it, so some people use it (i think) to show a knowing irony in the possibility of anything being "cool"...whilst at the same time trying to say the thing they are referring to is cool!

if that makes sense...?

[Jeffre Jackson]

I think that's exactly right, Martin. Hip is older and more "knowing" than cool. I don't think it's coincidental that hip also means "aware" (Are you hip to that?) Today, "cool" is a word that young people blurt out ten times a minute. It's been devalued and juvenilized. "Hip" is doled out more thoughtfully by people who have (or affect) more experience.

But what does hip know that cool doesn't? I think it's a broader judgement than just about the possibility of cool. I think that hip implies an insight into the illusory nature of mainstream culture, including (maybe especially) those things we're told are cool.

[Richard Buchanan]

Hip reinforces what cool explores.

[X&~X]

I can't explain why, but "hip" strikes me as being a time-sensitive judgment, while "cool" feels like an intrinsic quality. I also feel that the observer needs to see something as "cool" to call it "cool" (unlike "hip," which can be attributed to something by someone who doesn't even like that thing).

Do these two intuitions contradict one another?

P.S. I believe "hep" comes from 1930's American jazz culture (though I also heard it used in India [Mamallapuram], which was interesting).

[Jeffre Jackson]

I don't see any contradiction in your idea of hip. Here in Holland people use the English word "trendy" to decribe what you're attributing to "hip". Oddly (to my American ears) it's very often a positive assessment.

Can cool be an intrinsic quality if it's also a subjective judgement? Maybe it depends on whether by "intrinsic" you're emphasizing primarily the "true at all times" aspect or the "true from all perspectives" aspect of the word.