Shoot the hipster

Ok, so... This is my first attempt to get to grips with a project I'm working on about indie publishing (in Melbourne, mostly). I might cover some other stuff about the project in a future post but right now I'm trying to work out just exactly *what* to say that hasn't already been said before. So, anyway, my brain works like a little bower bird collecting bits and pieces from anywhere and everywhere, so forgive me for beginning where I'm about to: with a murder.

For the longest time I've been meaning to read Richard Price's Lush Life. I've just started. I get to page 77 and make what seems like a significant discovery about our 'vic' [this is detective fiction. go with it] - he's "gonna start up some online literary magazine, raise money for a documentary, we're all gonna collaborate on a screenplay; la-la, la-la, the usual bullshit." Price paints a portrait of the guy who caught the bullet and he chooses this particular piece of info to tell us what kinda guy he is. And know what kinda guy he is? An insufferable upstart - a online literary mag type-of-guy. An insufferable hipster. Shoot him. Quick.
It struck me that this guy, Ike, is pretty much cast in the Eggers mold. And shouldn't come as any suprise to learn that the guy suspected of shooting poor old Ike is a washed up dude in his forties. Jaded. Over it. Disappointed. Jealous. This seemed to me to be a pretty neat metaphorical summation of the way indie publishing is currently examined. Indies are seen as full of energy but somehow naive. Yet to have their hopes dashed. Or else, a fascinating curiosity. An underground 'scene' that seem to matter mostly to themselves. That like the sound of their own voices. That like playing at things - diletante style. A lit mag here, a screen play there, "the usual bullshit." Of course, this is not to say that sometimes the coverage of indie press doesn't celebrate this energy and enthusiasm. But it seems like we need a little something *more*. And, let's just assume for a minute that these indie types are insufferably hip and display an unwarrented self assurance... well, so what? Doing stuff is hardly a crime, nor is it some cute little hobby. More than a century a go most writers did their work on the side. They were lawyers, doctors, what-you-will. They came home and wrote stories because they felt like it was something they wanted to do. Some were politically motivated. Others just felt they had it in them. Now, publishing/books/literature are all part of a "lifestyle" (writers, publishers, editors are all professionals; readers are still hobbyists, but most particularly are *consumers*) and so talking about people who want to work publishing stuff on the side also inevitably involves talking about a 'scene.' So, how to get beyond discussions of a scene in the indie culture without ignoring the obvious culture that does spring up around these kinds of projects?