How do hipster and alternative styles relate to each other?

We once watched a young man at a bus stop. His sleeves were tattooed with alchemical symbols: the green lion, the ouroboros, a mercury caduceus. He wore a wool cap, a band t-shirt faded to gray, and boots resoled three times. Was he hipster or alternative? The question itself is a kind of taxonomy. Hipster and alternative styles are two branches of the same countercultural trunk, distinguished by their relationship to mainstream culture, the sincerity of their rejection, and the way they borrow from occult symbolism. Alternative style emerged from the punk and goth subcultures of the 1970s and 1980s as a deliberate opposition to commercial fashion. Hipster style, a later outgrowth beginning in the 1990s, borrows from alternative aesthetics but often with irony and a self-aware distance.

Meta: Explore the relationship between hipster and alternative styles through occult symbolism, subcultural history, and authenticity. Discover how these aesthetics diverge and converge in the esoteric underground.

Where Do These Styles Come From? A History of Two Subcultures

The roots of both styles lie in the same soil: the post-war disillusionment that gave rise to youth countercultures. The beatniks of the 1950s, the hippies of the 1960s, and the punks of the 1970s each built a visual language of rebellion. But the two paths split in the 1980s.

Alternative style as we know it crystallized around the punk and goth scenes. When the Sex Pistols played their last show in 1978, the aesthetic they had forged — ripped clothing, safety pins, leather jackets, band patches — was already being absorbed into a broader underground. The goth subculture, which emerged in 1979 at London’s Batcave club, added a darker palette: black velvet, lace, silver jewelry, and a deliberate theatricality that drew on Victorian mourning wear and occult imagery. Bands like Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and The Cure gave this look a soundtrack. The symbols they wore — pentagrams, ankhs, inverted crosses, Egyptian eyes, were not mere decoration. They signaled a rejection of mainstream religion and an embrace of the forbidden, the hidden, the occult.

Hipster style began later, in the early 1990s, in neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the Mission District, San Francisco. It grew out of the indie rock scene and the DIY ethos of the 1980s punk underground, but with a crucial difference. Where punk style was confrontational and sincere, hipster style was ironic and self-aware. The uniform of the early hipster, thrifted flannel shirts, vintage band t-shirts, thick-rimmed glasses, trucker caps, was a deliberate appropriation of working-class and rural Americana. The irony was the point. You wore a flannel shirt because you were not a lumberjack, and everyone knew it.

By the 2000s, the two styles had begun to interbreed. The gentrification of goth aesthetics, what some called “nu-goth” or “normcore goth,” brought pentagram necklaces, black denim, and platform boots into hipster wardrobes. Meanwhile, alternative culture absorbed the hipster’s love of vintage and the thrift-store hunt. The boundaries blurred, but the original differences in intention never disappeared. For a broader look at how these visual languages connect, see our aesthetics hub.

What Do These Styles Mean? Symbolism and Subcultural Identity

Both alternative and hipster styles function as a kind of visual language. Every garment, every accessory, every tattoo carries meaning. For the alternative subculture, the meaning tends to be direct and sincere. Black clothing is not an aesthetic choice; it is a statement about death, the night, the moon, the forbidden. The pentagram worn as a necklace is a declaration of witchcraft or at least sympathy with it. The band t-shirt is a badge of loyalty, a way of saying, “I belong to this tribe.”

Hipster style operates on a different register. The same pentagram necklace might be worn not because the wearer practices witchcraft, but because the pentagram is an interesting shape, a historical artifact, a piece of visual culture that can be recontextualized. The hipster relationship to occult symbols is often curatorial: they collect them as fragments of a lost world, curiosities to be displayed with a knowing wink. The irony does not mean the symbols are meaningless. It means the meaning is suspended, held at a distance, available for the wearer to adopt or discard as they choose.

Why do both styles borrow occult symbols?

The two styles share a common ancestor in the occult revival of the 1960s and 1970s. The same period that produced the goth subculture also produced the New Age movement, the modern witchcraft revival, and the popularization of tarot and astrology. Both alternative and hipster style draw on this well. The difference is in how they draw. The alternative wearer drinks from the well. The hipster wearer photographs the well and posts it on Instagram.

How Are These Styles Worn? Practices and Rituals

Both styles treat the body as a canvas of allegiance. The hipster wardrobe — thrifted blazers, work boots, deliberate mismatches — performs an authenticity that rejects mass production. The alternative wardrobe — black clothing, jewelry, band insignia — performs an allegiance to a subculture with its own codes. In both cases, dressing is a ritual of belonging: the outfit says who you are before you speak.

What is the difference in how each style is practiced?

We see these styles not as static costumes but as practices. Dressing in a particular subcultural style is a ritual act, a way of marking oneself as inside or outside a group. The practices differ between the two.

In alternative culture, the act of dressing is often a preparation for a specific event: a goth night at a club, a punk show, a Renaissance Faire, a ritual gathering. The style is worn as armor. It signals to others in the subculture that you are safe, that you understand the codes. The process of acquiring the right clothes, the search for the perfect black lace dress, the vintage band t-shirt, the silver ring with a moon phase, is a form of devotion. There is no irony in it. The ritual is real.

In hipster culture, the act of dressing is more often a performance of individuality. The thrift-store hunt is a game. The goal is to find something that no one else has, to assemble a look that is unique but also recognizable as “cool.” The hipster’s relationship to vintage is curatorial: they are not wearing a 1970s flannel shirt because they identify with the 1970s, but because the shirt is a found object, a piece of history that can be recontextualized. The ritual is one of curation, not initiation.

Both styles use tattoos as a form of permanent dress. The alternative tattooist tends to favor traditional occult and gothic imagery: skulls, snakes, stars, moons, alchemical symbols. The hipster tattooist favors the same imagery but often with a layer of irony: a weeping willow that looks like a Victorian illustration, a snake eating its own tail in a style that mimics a 1950s flash. The difference is in the intention, not the design.

How Do They Compare? A Closer Look at the Divide

The divide is one of direction. The hipster aesthetic looks outward to a curated past — vintage objects, forgotten subcultures, ironic revival — while the alternative aesthetic looks inward to a permanent identity of outsiderhood. Hipster style is quotation; alternative style is confession. One signals taste, the other signals conviction, and the garments each community chooses are the visible signature of that difference.

Where do hipster and alternative styles overlap?

The two styles overlap in many ways. Both reject mainstream fashion. Both draw on the same historical well of occult and countercultural imagery. Both value authenticity, though they define it differently. The differences are subtle but real.

• Relationship to the mainstream: Alternative culture is oppositional. It defines itself against the mainstream. Hipster culture is more ambivalent. It can embrace the mainstream ironically, or reject it, or do both at the same time.
• Irony: Alternative style is sincere. What you see is what you get. Hipster style is ironic. The meaning is often hidden behind a layer of self-awareness.
• Occult borrowing: Alternative culture uses occult symbols as signifiers of actual belief or practice. Hipster culture uses them as aesthetic objects, decorative elements, or historical references.
• Music: Alternative style is usually tied to a specific music scene: goth, punk, industrial, metal. Hipster style is more eclectic, drawing on indie rock, folk, electronic, and world music.
• Origin: Alternative style emerged in the 1970s from punk and goth. Hipster style emerged in the 1990s from the indie rock and DIY scenes.

For readers interested in the specific symbols both groups borrow, the subculture glossary provides definitions and histories of the pentagram, the ouroboros, and other common motifs.

What Do People Get Wrong? Common Misconceptions

The most persistent error is assuming the two styles are interchangeable — both are often reduced to a vague ‘hipster’ label. In fact their symbolic programs are nearly opposite: one celebrates ironic detachment from subcultures, the other claims sincere membership in them. Another misconception is that these styles are superficial; both encode genuine values about authenticity, community, and the meaning of dress.

Common misconceptions about hipster and alternative style

The most persistent misconception is that hipster and alternative styles are the same thing. They are not. They share a common ancestor and borrow from each other, but their core intentions are different. The alternative wearer is usually sincere. The hipster wearer is usually ironic. This is not a judgment. It is a distinction.

Another misconception is that hipster style is just a fashion trend, a passing consumerist fad. In fact, hipster style has its own history, its own codes, its own rituals. It is a subculture, even if it is a subculture that denies being a subculture. The hipster’s rejection of labels is itself a label.

A third misconception is that alternative style is dead, that it has been absorbed into the mainstream and lost its meaning. This is false. Alternative culture continues to evolve. The goth subculture is alive, the punk scene is alive, the metal scene is alive. They have simply adapted to the internet age.

FAQ

Is hipster a subculture? Yes, but it is a subculture that defines itself by its refusal to be categorized. Hipster style has its own history, codes, and rituals, even if they are often ironic or self-aware.

What is the difference between hipster and alternative style? The core difference is sincerity. Alternative style is usually sincere in its opposition to mainstream culture. Hipster style is often ironic, using vintage and occult symbols as curiosities rather than declarations of identity.

Why do both styles use occult symbols? Both draw on the same occult revival of the 1960s and 1970s, which fed into goth, New Age, and countercultural fashions. Alternative culture uses these symbols as signifiers of belief. Hipster culture uses them as aesthetic objects. For a focused look at this historical period, read our guide to alternative fashion and the occult.

Can you be both hipster and alternative? Yes. The boundaries are fluid. Many people move between the two styles depending on context, and the two have influenced each other for decades. The distinction is one of intention, not of wardrobe.

The bus stop is no longer there. The young man with the alchemical tattoos has moved on. But the symbols he carried remain. They are part of a larger record, one that we keep in this library. If you want to understand the history of these symbols and the subcultures that wear them, we have guides for that. Start with our aesthetics hub, then explore the subculture glossary for the meanings behind the signs. The record is not complete, but it is honest.