Audience Research

UK tribes

According the research that I conducted on UK tribes, 'hipsters' are a social group which would be drawn to my magazine as they are apparently 'epitomised by vice magazine', which my magazine draws inspiration from. Due to similarity between the fashion implemented by my magazine and magazines like i-D, this also means that there are similarities in our magazines audiences.

"Like the 60s Mods and Rockers and the 70s Punks, Hipsters are as ubiquitous as Chavs in their role defining UK youth culture in the 2000s...

Epitomised by Vice magazine, rampant trend-chasing and getting absolutely wasted, Hipsters are increasingly the most detested Tribe in the UK. Most likely to be used as a term of derision, Hipster is associated with lacking substance, arrogance, being unoriginal – and more often than not, with being a white middle-class uni student. Calling someone a Hipster may now be a mockery, but whichever way you cut it, the ‘Hipster look’ has definitely come to dominate the high street.

The Hipster look draws from punk rock and the 90s with a splatting of bygone subcultures for inspiration. From Soviet prison culture to Grunge, the Beatniks or ‘white trash’ chic – these disparate influences mean the Hipsters have driven millennial youth fashion trends more than any other Tribe. From skinny jeans to the vintage/retro revolution, acid bright colours to animal prints, Aztec print and dip-dye hair – Urban Outfitters brings off-the-shelf Hipster living to the Trendies. Hipsters popularised fixie bikes, grandma specs, made Lomography and Holga cameras a regular on teen Christmas lists – Red Stripe became the summer drink of choice, Ketamine the drug, and minimal tech the sound.

With so much influence, what’s our problem with these kids? Christian Lorentzen writes that Hipsters ‘fetishize the authentic and regurgitate it with a winking inauthenticity’ and this arrogance and try-hard nature really gets up the back of a generation proud of ‘keeping it real’. Hipsters’ break-neck turnover through fads (and huge spending power to support it) mean they are seen as lacking substance in real meaning by older Tribes, while younger teens recreate their super cool look and lifestyle in Claire’s Accessories. Is it fair for Hipsters to get such a bashing, while the close-by Trendies get by without a scratch?"

YOU GOV

The audience for my media product based on audience research would be hipsters and young alts aged from 18 - 25. According to audience research conducted on YouGov UK, the type of person typically interested in alt artists such as FKA twigs and King Krule are male aged 18 - 24, live in London and are interested in art, culture and fashion. For this reason my magazine fits this target audience perfectly as my magazine adopts a graphological and fashion style that’s popular amongst that scene. I also previously stated in my research and planning that I wished for my magazine to be published in London and Tokyo primarily, so this works well seeing as my target audience primarily live in London.