Kevin Lewis, a researcher from Harvard, explains: “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 claims. “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.”
So, the only thing I gather from Lewis’s research is that he’s not a hipster. I mean, the Decemberists? That is so pre-iPod.
