Hipsters are a fascinating species. They dress like they are from the 1950s, listen to music from any era, but have a distinctly millennial attitude. And they have caught the attention of economists.
 
Possibly much to their chagrin, hipsters are now being understood as a regular homo-economicus.
 
For those who do not spend their weekends on Cuba Street, the term “hipster” may not be familiar. Urban Dictionary reliably informs that a hipster is “One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool.”
 
The point of contention amongst economists is over what exactly hipsters are signaling through their dress. Signaling is the transfer of information from one party with inside knowledge to a party without access to that knowledge.
 
After attending a concert in Brooklyn, Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman mused about the hipster aesthetic as a rejection of the mainstream workplace. Often heavily tattooed, pierced, and facial-haired, Krugman pondered “So where do all these people work? They can’t all be baristas.”
 
The hipster’s rejection of traditional professional attire and standards draws Krugman to the conclusion that hipsters are signaling their rejection of the 9-5 mainstream office job. Probably working in creative industries, social enterprises or tech start-ups, hipsters that reject the mainstream would almost certainly reject a mainstream job.
 
Vox.com editor Ezra Klein disagrees. He gives hipsters more credit, believing them to signal “a mastery of the workday bourgeois world by flouting conventional dress codes.” He uses the example of Silicon Valley, where hackers are of such skill that they can wear whatever they want. In the coding world, wearing a tie could even be a signal for incompetence.
 
As Klein points out, being a hipster is not cheap. Their beards may make them look homeless, their jumpers look like they were stolen from Grandpa, but you can guarantee their leather satchel is designer. It could well be that hipsters aren’t rejecting the mainstream office job – they are bending it to accommodate their handle-bar moustaches.
 
Klein’s argument is more convincing. While hipsters challenge office professional attire, they do not reject it completely. It is the difference between going to work with no tie, and showing up in a onesie.
 
Employers may even respond positively to the signal that with their appreciation of artisanal foods, and nostalgia for the old-fashioned lifestyle, hipsters are more likely to bring the office baking.