Dictionary

hipster effect en · NOUN

Meanings

1. The tendency for nonconformists to look and act similarly to one another.
   • The "hipster effect," as explained by Brandeis University researchers, goes like this: Those in an anti-conformist population still conform to themselves. […] Case in point, as Lichfield detailed on Twitter last week: Almost as soon as the "hipster effect" article was published, a man furiously emailed the magazine claiming a photo of him was slanderously used alongside it without his permission. He was, it turned out, mistaken. 2019 March 11, Josh Hafner, “All hipsters look alike? Man claims article's 'hipster' photo is him, only to be mistaken”, in USA Today, archived from the original on 27 Feb 2024:
   • The researchers posit that something they call the “hipster effect” asserts itself in human populations no matter how individualistic we imagine ourselves to be, because it’s individuality itself that sparks conformity. 2014 December 2, David DiSalvo, “Are You Vulnerable to the Hipster Effect?”, in Psychology Today, archived from the original on 30 Aug 2025:
   • And his conclusion is that in a vast range of scenarios, the hipster population always undergoes a kind of phase transition in which members become synchronized with each other in opposing the mainstream. In other words, the hipster effect is the inevitable outcome of the behavior of large numbers of people. 2019 February 28, “The hipster effect: Why anti-conformists always end up looking the same”, in MIT Technology Review, archived from the original on 04 Apr 2025: