By Eli Rimer and Andrea Genovese
A hypebeast is not an official noun yet since it was only really coined after 2010. Nonetheless, the term is widely used in colloquial language and mainstream media. In this article I will discuss the many idiosyncrasies of a hypebeast.
Firstly, what is a hypebeast: a hypebeast is someone that is metrosexual for streetwear or hype brands such as Supreme, Palace and OFF-WHITE. These brands are wanted by the hypebeasts because they are exclusive and hard to cop. In our consumerist society, wearing something that is exclusive gives you a social status because you beat the other hypebeasts to the punch. People wait for hours in a line just to ‘cop’ a piece of clothing in a shop that is open for 24h because of a special ‘drop’. However, hype is not limited to clothing. Rare shoes have the highest value among hypebeasts. This is because big labels such as NIKE and Adidas have a variety of models that need only to be customized by someone famous to become rare. In addition, a person would normally be willing to spend more money on shoes than on clothes because one can wear shoes everyday.
Another aspect of hypebeastiality is the “resell” market. Note that resell is not resale because it is a new term coined by hypebeasts. To resell something is to sell it online with a massive increase in price. For example, a NIKE shoe that retailed 180$ and was designed by Sean Wotherspoon (an IG celebrity) is being resold at 96,100$ (that’s 533x retail). This market is only made possible by the exclusiveness of the brand and how grailed the product is. What’s so incredible is that without the resell market, the hype brands would not exist. These hype brands derive their ‘exclusiveness’ from the fact that people try to buy them for a shot at making a huge profit off of them. It is a virtuous cycle for the brands and a vicious cycle for the hypebeasts’ wallets.
In conclusion, a for all of his desire to be unique, a hypebeast is nothing more than a lemming. In their consumerist world, an item is only hype if the hypebeast community dictates it as hype. Therefore, however much street-style a hypebeast thinks he has, he is only spending surge amounts on something everyone else wears. The best part is, that these icons of style are actually chicken shit to step out of the box and try something as crazy as wearing an unbranded, white, t-shirt.
