Hipster Kitty

About

Hipster Kitty (a.k.a Hipster Cat) is an image macro series featuring a fashion-conscious kitten wearing a lavender hoodie and a pair of thick-framed glasses, derived from a painting called “Allison” by artist Craig Wheat.^[1] The image macros are typically paired with tongue-in-cheek sayings to poke fun at the self-righteous lifestyles of vintage-loving, cheap beer-sipping, Bukowski-quoting urban folks. To a certain extent, Hipster Kitty can be seen as a self-parody phenomenon.

Origin

The original acrylic painting was created and uploaded via Flickr by Portland-based artist Craig Wheat in early 2009. The earliest captioned instance was also posted via Brittnie’s Tumblr blog^[2] on August 24th, 2009; the image description read “well, it doesn’t matter who is better because Hipster Kitty will doubt EVERYONE’S indie cred.” Since its upload, this kitten macro has been re-blogged and liked hundreds of times in the microblogging network:

Craig Wheat expressed his approval and embracing of the meme that was inspired out of his artwork in another Tumblr post^[1] in June 2010:

Essentially the internet ate a piece of my art and turned it into a ever collaborating beast. here is the piece entitled “Allison” collage, acrylic ink, spray paint.

Spread

The square version of indie kitty macro and customizable template were made available via Memegenerator^[3] on November 22nd, 2009. Since its debut on Tumblr^[4], the Hipster Kitty series has spawned over 1,000 variations (as of March 2010) and stands at the demigod tier on Memegenerator. You can also check out the “F*ck Yeah, Hipster Kitty”^[5] single topic blog.

Notable Examples

Etymology of “Hip”

Hip is an American slang term vaguely meaning “fashionably current.” But since the term doesn’t refer to one specific quality (similar to “cool”), what is actually considered hip is ever-changing and therefore impossible to define. The early usage of terms like hipster and “hip cats” can be traced back to the popular jazz & swing era in the 1930s, when it was used to describe someone who was “in the know” about Bebop music and social scenes. While this macro series captures the essence of a self-confused cultural phenomenon, people on the internet have been cracking observational jokes and parodies about “hipsters” since the mid-2000s.

Search Interest

External References