HYPEBEAST JAMES RYAN_s3717783
DESIGN TACTICS - NARRATIVE LIFESTYLE. HYPEBEAST SUBCULTURE.
Over the course of the semester I have introduced, studied, and immersed myself in the “Hypebeast� and streetwear culture. Whilst the word has been thrown around for a decade,
the “Hypebeast� has surged and developed to become a whole new dynamic subculture within society, and has become extremely popular within the last 3 years.
Google trends presents statistics that the term was first used around october 2005 and peaked in March 2018, worldwide. It was also found that the term is most frequent in countries being Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, and Canada respectively.
SINCE RECENT YEARS, THE
HYPEBEAST SUBCULTURE HAS
EXPLODED.
There are many views surrounding the Hypebeast subculture. It is often largely confused with the general streetwear culture, ‘vintage fanatics’ and ‘sneakerheads’. Through much research, my understanding of a Hypebeast is always changing. It looks as if to have evolved from other similar subcultures such as sneakerheads and the overall streetwear culture. It appears that a hypebeast is particularly interested in doing what’s in vogue in order to impress other people.
‘Hypebeasts’ are always buying the latest limited products of ‘hyped’ streetwear goods. The subculture is rather concerned with the consumption of materialistic goods which interestingly reflects its social class. Whilst being of middle to upper class, It’s argued that a hypebeast usually uses other people’s money, typically belonging to their parents yet seeming they have a cash flow of their own.
A BIAS The most popular on ‘Urban DEFINITIONdefinition Dictionary’, an open
website for new slang and words, was posted April 2006 that claims; “A HypeBeast is a kid that collect clothing, shoes, and accessories for the sole purpose of impressing others. Although the individual may not have a dime to their name they like to front like they are making far more than everybody else.”
DESIGNThe first experiment was a survey, creatEXPERIMENTed through Google Forms and posted on ONE :r/streetwear via Reddit. I posted the surSURVEYvey there due to the large amount of members (773,000) therefore I received a total of 886 overall survey responses. As expected, the majority of users who responded (148) were 18 years of age, 124 were 17, and 108 were 19 years of age. 94.7 percent of responses were male.
Participants were first asked to define a Hypebeast. Sorting through the many responses found that the term “Hypebeast” carried negative connotations with it. Responses aligned with each other, suggesting that a Hypebeast would purchase trending items because of the “social status and recognition that comes with it” and “because of the hype generated by them (item) and not because of the actual design or if they actually like the product.” To analyse why the survey participant buys certain fashion purchases, they were given the question of “What are your main motives for your fashion purchases?”
The participants were able to check multiple answers. It was found that most people buy their fashion items for the visual style. Item quality and comfort were also important to the participants. Surprisingly, only 34.9 percent of people answered that they buy due to the branding and label of the items and only 20.8 percent buy for social validation, ultimately contradicting the Urban Dictionary definition and many views of the motives of a Hypebeast.
Majority of participants answered that they would spend $51-100 and $101-200 a month for clothing and accessories on average. The main location of purchases were in-store (63%) and online forums (14%). Many participants used the ‘other’ option to add places such as Grailed, Taobao, thrift stores, End Clothing, Supreme and Kith. Similarly, when asked “Where do you take fashion inspiration from?”, 74% said they take inspiration from online forums and 70% said celebrities/social media personalities. The conducted survey definitely fortifies the impact that globalisation has had on the fashion industry through forms of online purchasing, and celebrity and social media personalities influences.
In creating this survey, I looked at analysing how committed participants were to identifying as a Hypebeast and how similarly they aligned to core values and beliefs of the subculture. Through past research and knowledge, I had established that people within the subculture abhor fake or replica ‘hyped’ clothing or accessories. Responses from the survey confirm this idea, as 39.7% believe they would never buy fake or replica items.
When providing any further comments regarding their decision for this answer, many participants believed they were “lame”, “wack”, or “corny”. Other responses include: - “If u wear fakes end yourself peasant” - “It’s pretty sad too see that there are so many fakes in the market right now. Not only do the people that buy fakes not support the actual designers, they also take away some of the “wow-factor”. An example is the yeezy 350’s, so many people have them now, but so many of them are fakes, and it’s at a point where when I see yeezys, I think they’re fake.” Some participants appear to support purchasing them but many people despise those who buy fake items to then pretend they are real.
QU EUE ING
When asked how long participants would be willing to queue in a line for an item, most would not queue, while a large number of people would queue from 1 hour to 2-5 hours. Others said it would depend on the resell value of the item.
Furthermore, 46.5% of participants answered that they would strictly not use a ‘bot’ or script for quicker online purchases of items, aligning with the subcultures beliefs. This experiment appears to confirm that a Hypebeast will aim to acquire materialistic goods to impress others or perhaps fit in to a group. Research by Richins and Dawson, 1992, found that materialism and its possession-defined ‘success’ creates competitiveness and aggressive behaviour. Further research by Saunders, 2008 suggests “...the importance of ‘Social Recognition’ to these persons supports the notion that materialism is based largely on the process of social comparison (Saunders & Munro, 2001). Such a notion is supported by research on materialists outside of Australia, who show a preference for publicly consumed prod-
ucts (Richins, 1994).”
DESIGN The second design EXPERIMENTexperiment conducted involved creating 2: TEE-SHIRTa concept of a T-shirt. The participant, Josh, CONCEPT claims to be apart of
the Hypebeast subculture. The participant was given the task to ‘design a t-shirt which would be a
collaboration of three of your favourite brands.’ The participant’s design features large logos of well-known, ‘hyped’ streetwear brands, iconic symbols and shapes used by the brands, slogans, and the American and Japanese flags. Josh claimed to have drawn the flags because “country flags on streetwear clothing look cool. I used these flags because they are common in streetwear items and standout. My favourite artists are American. The Japanese flag is just aesthetic.”
Through this experiment, it appears that consumers are heavily interested in other cultures. Globalisation has played a huge part in expanding the Hypebeast subculture within society as consumers can purchase from international stores, view products on social media influencers, and be influenced by their favourite music artists and celebrities. The participant enjoys Hip-Hop and rap music including Migos and Kendrick Lamar thus follows current fashion trends of these artists. Shareen Pathak believes social media took the subculture into the mainstream as while globalisation has assisted it, social media has “also allowed for streetwear to become oversaturated, no longer the underground culture it once was.” She believes that it has essentially removed the “nicheness that characterized sneaker culture [and ultimately hypebeast and streetwear culture] is gone.”
The experiment appears to confirm the idea that a Hypebeast is infatuated with materialistic, bright, gleaming, eye-candy and aesthetically pleasing goods.
Josh’s design lets the brands be known and stand out. The teeshirt draws attention to the eye through a chaos of branding. To look further into this, I interviewed a Hypebeast (Josh, 19)
DESIGNQuestion 1: Do you classify yourself as EXPERIMENTa Hypebeast and if 3:so; how committed would you say INTERVIEWyou are to the sub-
culture? “Yes, I’d say I’m a lowkey Hypebeast as much as I wouldn’t want to admit that. I probably don’t like to say I am because people don’t really like the word Hypebeast. It’s sort of try-hard. I own multiple pairs of Adidas NMDs, champion hoodies, yeezys and hyped up clothes but I don’t have any Supreme or Bape. I would line up for several hours for an item but depending on the brand. If it was something really good that I could resell for good profit, then I would line up longer. Doubt I would camp overnight though. I think the subculture is slowly dying down. It blew up after Kanye West released his Life of Pablo album and his yeezy 350 boost a while ago. Now people just buy expensive streetwear style clothing made by luxury brands such as Burberry or Gucci.”
What are your influences and why do you purchase your items? “I usually take inspiration from my favourite music artists such as Migos, Kendrick, Kanye, etc. Sometimes social media personalities or celebs such as shia labeouf or Mitch Orval. Most of the time I just look at what’s trending on Instagram or find a nice style on fashion blogs. ‘Outfit Grid’ has daily outfit posts which can give some inspiration
for new trends.� The participant certifies the huge impact that the music industry has had on the streetwear and hypebeast subculture. Every-day people are inspired to dress and look like their favourite music artists. This is very prominent with the Hip-hop and rap genre. The industry seems to have pushed the subculture into the mainstream as well.
CONSUM
MPTION”
Music artists began dressing in clothing that was once considered trashy or casual, including joggers, sweats, oversized tee-shirts, jumpers and baggy shorts. Brands began collaborating with artists and now have a symbiotic relation with each other as both sides are promoted via their fashion trends. Music artists, specifically rappers and hip hop artists, show success and wealth through fashion by flaunting high-end designer brands and labels via music videos, lyrics and dress sense. Luxury and streetwear fashion brands use music figures as designers or collaborators and take fragments of hip-hop culture style, ultimately blurring the line between the fashion industry and hip-hop/rap culture. The fashion industry’s appropriation of urban culture suggests the adaptation of hip-hop/ rap-inspired streetwear into the mainstream market, defying cultural barriers by transforming characteristics of the hip-hop subculture into accessible trends originally transformed by celebrities.
In 2014, Kanye West shook the fashion industry by launching his fashion line. His style featured baggy, street inspired clothes with a new style of runner for which he collaborated with Adidas. During his performance at London’s Wireless festival, he announced, “Cause you know damn well there aren’t no black guys or celebrities making no Louis Vuitton nothing.” Kanye West’s influence over the years has seen a huge growth in the fashion industry and just recently, Virgil Abloh, Off-White f o u n d e r, was appointed artistic director at Louis Vuitton. Rachel Lifter, a fashion studies lecturer at Parsons art and design school in New York, says it provokes questions. “As a design practice, streetwear – in inverted commas – takes its cues from hip-hop style,” she says.
With a huge surge in the last few years, the Hypebeast subculture, more or less a branch of the streetwear culture, has developed internationally and has carried controversial connotations along with it. Challenging society in forms of hyperconsumption and creating monumental changes within the fash-
ion industry, the hypebeast trend appears to already be slowing down. It is apparent that a Hypebeast will dress to impress or for their own sake of comfort and style, and their commitment is ultimately determined by how true they stay to the subculture’s core values and beliefs.
REFERENCES Digiday. (2016). How social media took streetwear into the mainstream - Digiday. [online] Available at: https://digiday.com/marketing/social-media-transformed-streetwear/ [Accessed 25 Sep. 2018]. Saunders, Shaun A; Allen, Michael W and Pozzebon, Kay. An Exploratory Look at the Relationship between Materialistic Values and Goals and Type a Behaviour [online]. Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, Vol. 2, No. 2, Dec 2008: 47-52. Availability: <https://searchinformit-com-au.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=600087193364620;res=IELHEA> ISSN: 1834-4909. [cited 27 Sep 18]. Richins, Marsha L. “Special Possessions and the Expression of Material Values.” Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 21, no. 3, 1994, pp. 522–533. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2489690. Cochrane, L. (2017). How streetwear restyled the world – from hip-hop to Supreme and Palace. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian. com/fashion/2017/mar/29/how-streetwear-styledthe-world-from-hip-hop-to-supreme-and-palace [Accessed 27 Sep. 2018]. Levinas, Talia, “Rap and Fashion” (2014). Undergraduate Research Posters. Poster 111. https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/111
JAMES RYAN _DESIGN TACTICS