Trying to define the term “hipster” is difficult for me to do. Yet, I know one when I spot one. Whether it be the obscure band t- shirt, the black choker every hipster has – something I am guilty of, or the way they carry themselves, hipsters seem to stand out just as much as their glasses.

As a self proclaimed hipster, I fully embrace the term. As soon as you throw the word out, using it as a way to describe someone, people suddenly become defensive, as if you just insulted their mother. For some reason people perceive being a hipster as a bad thing. But in reality, the term “hipster” is nothing but a label.

Labels can be a good thing. They can help us distinguish salt from sugar, or shampoo from conditioner, but what they can’t do is correctly describe the essence of a person.

Everybody uses labels. I would be a hypocrite if I said I didn’t, and there’s nothing wrong with that. People are always judging, always criticizing, always trying to make sense of the things that are going on around them. It’s impossible not to label things and them into categorizes. It’s the natural thing to do.

Labeling people is not the problem. The problem comes from people who are not willing to change their views on what they perceive the label should be, and what the person is actually like.

Go ahead and pre-judge people all you want, but you have to give them the chance to prove you wrong. The worst that can happen is you can be right, and they lived up to their label, or you can be wrong, and end up with an eye opening experience.

It was said by my personal friends. “Labels just create a barrier for people to actually get to know each other,” she said. “We have to remember not to base a stereotype look with a stereotypical personality.

I couldn’t agree more.