In a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a Harvard University team found that when your friends start liking the same indie bands as you, you’re more likely to stop liking those bands.
Researchers examined 200 college students’ Facebook pages over a four-year period and discovered that students who shared similar tastes in music bonded, instead of those students passing on tastes to each other. So while two hip dudes might strike up a conversation after noticing each other’s well-worn Fleet Foxes t-shirt, it’s much rarer that they’d actually adopt each other’s tastes.
Kevin Lewis, lead study researcher and a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Harvard, explains the science of why you’re a hipster: “The meaning of an indie/alternative taste rests not just in the taste itself—but also in being the only one among one’s friendship circle that expresses it,” he says. “If I like The Decemberists, and suddenly my friends start liking them too, suddenly I’m no longer socially distinctive. So this taste loses much of its appeal and I will run off in search of some new band to express my ‘hip’ identity.”
- The Science of Why You’re a Hipster
I would have gladly accepted half the money spent on this study and just written an essay about my college friends.
