Question
Why are most hipsters so skinny?
Answer
This seems to be a surprisingly rich question for logical analysis. Most people are being whimsical or begging the question. The three logically sound answers are (if I may summarize)
Jack Lion Heart: people are confusing prototypical hipsters with all hipsters. There are fat hipsters who are not recognized as such.
Joey Shurtleff: thin kids self-select into hipsterdom because it is an easier culture for them to join, compared to mainstream culture.
User-13743967034596023228: they become thin once they become hipsters (generalizing from "some hipsters do cocaine").
Each hypothesis has some merit, and each is incomplete. Let's complete the answers before evaluating.
Jack's answer requires completion with an "original hipster" hypothesis. If hipsterdom as a set of cultural traits and inclinations has no necessary correlation with thinness, then the fact that thin rather than fat hipsters became the prototype suggests that there should be some "original hipster" who invited a significant amount of identification from impressionable young teens at the birth of hipster culture. I don't know enough about the culture to propose one, but I suspect there are many candidates. Prima facie, the argument works. I know many thin hipsters, but I can see that I also know a few fat hipsters who I don't immediately associate with hipsterdom, but on second thought belong in the culture, at least at the periphery. Any over-abundance of thin hipsters could probably be explained away by simple choice of teen idols in one's own image. This would require arguing that hipsterdom requires no unique talents. Just a choice of where to apply generic talents.
Joey's answer is compelling, but requires a lot more evidence to show that thinness (in fact, a specific kind of reed-thin physique) somehow correlates, causes or is friendlier to typically hipster pursuits, the requisite refinement of taste, and so forth. Lack of a jock physique and the resultant aversion to mainstream culture is a negative definition. There are many ways to be "alternate" just as there are many ways to not have the mainstream male look (you could also be short and tubby, or obese, or even just non-white, since both mainstream and hipster culture are predominantly white). So you need a positive explanation to further show why specifically thin non-mainstream types are likely to develop hipster ways of non-mainstream being.
Christopher's answer is the least compelling. All the factors I can think of taken together (incidence of cocaine use, bike-riding, Lisa Borodkin suggestion of a connection with walking a lot...) don't seem like they'd be enough. Also, the typical hipsters I know are not just thin; they have a specific physique and body type. It differs for instance, from a certain kind of compact and wiry thinness that is also common in big cities and correlates with high energy, very fast talking and a very conventionally mainstream style of dressing.
So I am inclined to think that there is an element of nature (some natural inclination towards hipsterdom-friendly talents that correlates with a specific thin phenotype) channeled and amplified by the "pull" of an original hipster and the "push" away from the mainstream in a specific direction, creating a push-pull effect. There would be no nurture in the sense of becoming thin while becoming hipster. The "thin hipsters are more visible" implication of Jack's argument would not be strictly true: fat hipsters would truly be genetically rare, the same way short basketball players are genetically rare.
So the interesting question is: what constitutes the hipster genome?
Since an original-hipster hypothesis and the self-selection pattern are very contingent and phenomenological, we need to step back and look at other typical things hipster-body-type people seem to end up doing, and looking for commonalities.
An example I can think of is a certain kind of typical redneck look (think Cletus of the Simpsons) and so forth. What do they all have in common that can explain (among other things) the nature of hipster culture in our particular time and place in history?
Cletus types are known for various interesting talents: home brew, an amazing memory for, and knowledge of, local genealogy (including knowledge of local vendettas and obscure conflicts). There is also a refined understanding of guns, a capacity for self-organizing into militias, radical individualism with respect to the state, that is also strangely collectivist/tribal. There is a preference for living in neighborhoods others consider somewhat dangerous...
Not sure where I am going with this, but I think this is probable cause for taking some saliva samples and looking for genetic traits common across both hipsters and Cletus types. I am sure there are other similar groups elsewhere.
Jack Lion Heart: people are confusing prototypical hipsters with all hipsters. There are fat hipsters who are not recognized as such.
Joey Shurtleff: thin kids self-select into hipsterdom because it is an easier culture for them to join, compared to mainstream culture.
User-13743967034596023228: they become thin once they become hipsters (generalizing from "some hipsters do cocaine").
Each hypothesis has some merit, and each is incomplete. Let's complete the answers before evaluating.
Jack's answer requires completion with an "original hipster" hypothesis. If hipsterdom as a set of cultural traits and inclinations has no necessary correlation with thinness, then the fact that thin rather than fat hipsters became the prototype suggests that there should be some "original hipster" who invited a significant amount of identification from impressionable young teens at the birth of hipster culture. I don't know enough about the culture to propose one, but I suspect there are many candidates. Prima facie, the argument works. I know many thin hipsters, but I can see that I also know a few fat hipsters who I don't immediately associate with hipsterdom, but on second thought belong in the culture, at least at the periphery. Any over-abundance of thin hipsters could probably be explained away by simple choice of teen idols in one's own image. This would require arguing that hipsterdom requires no unique talents. Just a choice of where to apply generic talents.
Joey's answer is compelling, but requires a lot more evidence to show that thinness (in fact, a specific kind of reed-thin physique) somehow correlates, causes or is friendlier to typically hipster pursuits, the requisite refinement of taste, and so forth. Lack of a jock physique and the resultant aversion to mainstream culture is a negative definition. There are many ways to be "alternate" just as there are many ways to not have the mainstream male look (you could also be short and tubby, or obese, or even just non-white, since both mainstream and hipster culture are predominantly white). So you need a positive explanation to further show why specifically thin non-mainstream types are likely to develop hipster ways of non-mainstream being.
Christopher's answer is the least compelling. All the factors I can think of taken together (incidence of cocaine use, bike-riding, Lisa Borodkin suggestion of a connection with walking a lot...) don't seem like they'd be enough. Also, the typical hipsters I know are not just thin; they have a specific physique and body type. It differs for instance, from a certain kind of compact and wiry thinness that is also common in big cities and correlates with high energy, very fast talking and a very conventionally mainstream style of dressing.
So I am inclined to think that there is an element of nature (some natural inclination towards hipsterdom-friendly talents that correlates with a specific thin phenotype) channeled and amplified by the "pull" of an original hipster and the "push" away from the mainstream in a specific direction, creating a push-pull effect. There would be no nurture in the sense of becoming thin while becoming hipster. The "thin hipsters are more visible" implication of Jack's argument would not be strictly true: fat hipsters would truly be genetically rare, the same way short basketball players are genetically rare.
So the interesting question is: what constitutes the hipster genome?
Since an original-hipster hypothesis and the self-selection pattern are very contingent and phenomenological, we need to step back and look at other typical things hipster-body-type people seem to end up doing, and looking for commonalities.
An example I can think of is a certain kind of typical redneck look (think Cletus of the Simpsons) and so forth. What do they all have in common that can explain (among other things) the nature of hipster culture in our particular time and place in history?
Not sure where I am going with this, but I think this is probable cause for taking some saliva samples and looking for genetic traits common across both hipsters and Cletus types. I am sure there are other similar groups elsewhere.