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Old 09-22-2012, 01:22 PM   #1
New Art Rioter
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Default Hipsters United is no more

That's all folks!

Quote:
After today, we will no longer be updating the Hipsters United blog.

HipstersUnited.com will continue to exist as a portal archiving our old posts. New podcasts may be posted intermittently, and the HU Twitter account will remain a voice for the site, but Hipsters United will no longer be committed to coverage of Smashing Pumpkins ‘news’ on a continuous basis. The @PumpkinsNews Twitter account will accordingly be deleted, as will our Facebook page.

At its inception, Hipsters United was not a news operation, and HipstersUnited.com has never branded itself as a “news” website. (The HU.com sidebar has always contained one or more links to “news and talk” from fan forums.) But along the way, HU gradually became a news outlet, became almost exclusively a news outlet. Opinion and analysis never disappeared from our work—all news outlets have underlying biases and frames through which their operators interpret and present the ‘news’—but they did fade from the foreground into the background.

This change from ‘blog’ to news outlet happened because, and as, HU’s original raison d’ętre resolved itself. We started HU in 2007, and our key motivation was to explore the question: Why is it now [meaning, then] so freaking uncool to be a Smashing Pumpkins fan? Slowly, we developed some obvious-seeming answers. Essentially, we think it was little more than a generational shift: Those about 10 years younger than the bulk of Pumpkins fans had a natural rebellious attitude against that culture, that time, those people. We now see it as flowing out of the contempt commonly held by twentysomethings in or just out of college—possessed of much free time to write for hip music-news sites—for thirtysomethings tied into lame jobs and long relationships. (And I personally do not think it merely coincidental that I, pushing back, was in graduate school and was possessed of some free time to muse about coolness on a music-oriented blog.) More recently, some of these youngster writers are being displaced by younger youngsters, to whom the cohort of Pumpkins fans—now pushing 40—seems less harried, a bit more suave (or, at least, grown-ass), and appealingly nonplussed by The Internet. Think here of the 20-year cycle that seems to hold in cultural nostalgia (1990s/1970s, 2000s/1980s, 2010s/1990s).

So we were figuring out why it was uncool to like the Pumpkins. But as this shift happened we didn’t simply write fewer posts. We had found ourselves with an audience! Like many bloggers, we learned that either you feed the beast or you lose it, and who wants to lose the audience? (Okay, wrong question.) We added a podcast, and more writers, and we started to inform readers about ‘news’ rather than to presume they had already seen it. We were serving a community, but not with the exact fare that brought them in the door; as Carroll Quigley would say, HU became less of an instrument and more of an institution.

And then, out there where the demographics shift, the Pumpkins became less uncool. It’s to the point where a snarktastic site such as Gothamist will publish something like this, where Billy Corgan’s interview-ist almost comes out and says: “I never would have conducted this interview in so respectful a manner three years ago.” When the music press is treating the Pumpkins reasonably thoroughly and fairly, the instrument or institution of HU has little cause to exist. So, in a move Quigley might applaud, we are doing away with the part of the institution that burns up a lot of resources. Going forward, you can just find news about the Pumpkins in the same way we always have: Click through the links that are now on the sidebar (especially the “press coverage” link to Google News search), and bookmark them or add them to a personal feed or whatever. You then can talk about that news on the SmashingPumpkins.com fan forum. Who needs HU, huh?

We’ve had fun doing the blog. We are amazed that it received over 40,000 comments in five years. We loved the back and forth with you, and with others (on your behalf, of course!), and we’ll keep that bit going on Twitter. We are still fans of the band, and I expect some of our writers will pursue other fan-oriented projects, e.g., on SPFC.org. We’ll be seeing you around the Pumpkins-obsessed corners of the Internet, probably until, you know, we’re dead. So don’t get too sentimental: Billy would not approve.

Yours, but not always,
HU

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 01:33 PM   #2
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How hard is it to repost press releases? Everyone takes themselves way too seriously now.

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 01:42 PM   #3
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How hard is it to repost press releases?
crestfallen.com

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 01:58 PM   #4
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crestfallen.com
/netphoria

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 02:06 PM   #5
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i kinda sorta liked that site. oh well

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 04:16 PM   #6
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I'm not getting why they felt they needed such a long explanation. It was a fan site for a band, not the impeachment of the President. Do they think people are crying themselves to sleep?

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 04:20 PM   #7
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The Hipsters United people always reminded me of that guy we all knew in college who wrote an 80 page gushy fanboy paper about Foghat with footnotes, then wondered why the Masters committee said it didn't constitute an academic thesis.

I mean, read that explanation. You're a bunch of fan boys who can't understand why SP isn't relevant 15+ years after their prime, not some group of intellectuals setiously peering into sociology like you'd want people to believe. The fact you can't see that makes you the dumbest people in the room, not the smartest, flowery language aside.

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 04:22 PM   #8
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del

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 04:24 PM   #9
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I liked it. But I like this place, so what do I know.

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 05:32 PM   #10
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so their reason for closing the blog is
?

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 05:34 PM   #11
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I mean if that post is genuine I think it's pretty coll. Some integrity in creating a blog with a purpose and cutting it off when it has served that purpose. Sad for fans of it though

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 06:10 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by EyesOfAJackal View Post
I mean if that post is genuine I think it's pretty coll. Some integrity in creating a blog with a purpose and cutting it off when it has served that purpose. Sad for fans of it though
WOW a fan blog with integrity.

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 06:12 PM   #13
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late, bro!

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 08:23 PM   #14
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Those guys were just a bunch of dumb narcissistic turds. And it appears that hasn't changed.

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 09:19 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Netphorian Gadabout View Post
The Hipsters United people always reminded me of that guy we all knew in college who wrote an 80 page gushy fanboy paper about Foghat with footnotes, then wondered why the Masters committee said it didn't constitute an academic thesis.
boy you went to a really shitty college i guess

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 09:24 PM   #16
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boy you went to a really shitty college i guess
Trots why do you always try to start stupid petty arguments in each thread. It gets old.

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 09:27 PM   #17
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that's not a petty argument, it's a one liner, warsaw you motherfuck

you've started the petty argument, you fuckin clown

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 09:58 PM   #18
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Warsaw?

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 10:01 PM   #19
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Originally Posted by Trotskilicious View Post
that's not a petty argument, it's a one liner, warsaw you motherfuck

you've started the petty argument, you fuckin clown
A poorly thought out since I clearly said in my imaginary scenario that the kid who wrote an essay about Foghat DIDN'T have it accepted as a Master's thesis.

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 10:51 PM   #20
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good riddance

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 10:52 PM   #21
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maybe if the whole website wasn't built on mindlessly defending corgan then they would have been forced to do actual writing and we wouldn't have this problem

 
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Old 09-22-2012, 11:49 PM   #22
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never really read it, don't really give a hoot. sure seems they take themselves seriously though

 
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Old 09-23-2012, 01:24 AM   #23
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My god that was bloated. They must have been talking about a different site altogether. Since when did HU actually serve any of those high-minded purposes they describe? And yeah, I guess it is more disturbing to think this person was actually a grad student. Of what, mathematics? Clearly if it was journalism or something we'd be in trouble.

 
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Old 09-23-2012, 02:08 AM   #24
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All herald Hipsters United, thine influence was heard 'round the world! It is quite astonishing that they had such a consistent standard of transcendent excellence that will shine on in the hearts of many intrepid bloggers that will no doubt emulate the veritable news agency's determined example of being about stuff. I say, SHINE ON HIPSTERS UNITED, and may tomorrow be a better day for all of us!

 
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Old 09-23-2012, 02:21 AM   #25
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Quote:
as Carroll Quigley would say
ok guy

 
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Old 09-23-2012, 02:25 AM   #26
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Indubitably in a move Quigley might applaud.

 
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Old 09-23-2012, 02:30 AM   #27
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what is this shit

 
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Old 09-23-2012, 02:30 AM   #28
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I liked it for the "They are gonna be on TV this week" posts and the "Jimmy will be making an appearance here" posts. I'd rather not know what's going on with the band then read the O-site and Monty's site.

 
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Old 09-23-2012, 02:32 AM   #29
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what is this shit
monte spurting in his pants

 
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Old 09-23-2012, 03:13 AM   #30
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i enjoyed reading the comments just about as much as i enjoy reading the comments here, i suppose. at least there weren't multiple i'm quitting threads haha.

 
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