Hipster Upset Academic Paper Used His Picture to Argue All Hipsters Look Alike

[Viper 12219]

then finds out it's a picture of some other hipster.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/06/hipsters_all_look_the_same_fact/

Hipster whines at tech mag for using his pic to imply hipsters look the same, discovers pic was of an entirely different hipster

YEAH! SCIENCE

By Richard Currie 6 Mar 2019 at 13:26

Normally a headline like "The hipster effect: Why anti-conformists always end up looking the same" would elicit much rolling of eyes here at Vulture Towers.

However, it becomes more intriguing when one learns that the hypothesis described in the article was tested by a series of hilarious post-publication events that then further bolstered the paper's findings.

At the end of February, MIT Technology Review emitted a pithy rundownof a 34-page research paper from maths-modelling boffins at Brandeis University in the US; the paper essentially posited that in a bid to make that all-important "countercultural statement", hipsters can end up looking alike. For groovy models of how random acts by hipsters "undergo a phase transition into a synchronized state" – along with some knotty network equations – see here [PDF].

Dratted hipster UX designers stole my corporate app

READ MORE

Accompanying the article was an edited stock image of a generic millennial chap in plaid shirt and standard-issue beanie, or "trendy winter attire", as Getty put it.

The MIT journal's editor-in-chief, Gideon Lichfield, took to Twitter to tell a "cautionary tale" about what followed the article going live:

"We promptly got a furious email from a man who said he was the guy in the photo that ran with the story. He accused us of slandering him, presumably by implying he was a hipster, and of using the pic without his permission. (He wasn't too complimentary about the story, either.)"

Oh crap, is "generic millennial chap" libel? The Register can't afford thathitting the courts.

Lichfield continued:

He said the licence stipulated that if the image was used "in connection with a subject that would be unflattering or unduly controversial to a reasonable person (for example, sexually transmitted diseases)", it had to be made clear that the person was a model.

Lichfield pointed out that he didn't think calling someone a hipster was "unflattering or unduly controversial" but contacted Getty to be safe.

The stock photo giant checked the model release and lo! The guy in the image wasn't even the same dude who was complaining. "He'd misidentified himself," Lichfield said.

"All of which just proves the story we ran: hipsters look so much alike that they can’t even tell themselves apart from each other."

Boom. Thirty-four pages of theory proven in a brief round of email tennis. Your move, hipsters. ®

 

2

 

[Armybrat 41388]

25 years ago I told my hippie son he looked like all the rest of the hippies in Austin, down to the shoulder length hair, beard, Birkenstocks, tie-dyed shirt, and VW camper bus with stars hand painted in it. Still does, minus the VW.

He just laughs, as do I. He's good man and great father.

Edited March 17, 2019 by Armybrat

[millhouse 2732]

25 years ago was 1994. Surely you mean great-great-grandson

[DoobieWah 1535]

Oh he calls errybody "son".

And get off his lawn!

[RDCanecutter 26871]

5 hours ago, Armybrat said:

He just laughs, as do I. He's good man and great father.

He'd be a great man if he still had the VW Bus.

When I judge him, I am also judging myself. We both have been weighed and found short of the Kingdom of Wolfsburg.