2023-04-25 15:14:30
AAs the so-called hipster began to age over the past decade, it seemed briefly that an emerging generation was lacking a collective style. A pandemic, multiple lockdowns, and a Chinese app later, it seems she’s found an aesthetic that turns the internet’s curse of “all at once, always available” into a blessing.
This aesthetic is loud, annoying, artificial and wants to be noticed – and optically mimics a music genre that was established just before the pandemic: “hyperpop”. The term originated from a playlist created by Spotify in 2019. Well-known hits from various artists and genres could be heard on it – namely those that match the short videos on Tiktok with their high-pitched sound or fast tempo.
Hyper-fast beats, catchy sounds
For Tiktok users, hyper-fast beats and condensed, shrill pop songs are the basis for their popular dance videos and comedy clips. From a wild mixture of electronic music styles (such as eurodance, happy hardcore, trance, gabber, punk and, of course, pop), so-called “sounds” are created, which regularly go viral because of their catchiness and even make it into the charts.
Only recently, eleven years after its release, Lady Gaga’s song “Bloody Mary” became a popular hit again. Fans of the Netflix series “Wednesday” had added a compressed, over-the-top version of the song to a choreography of the protagonist Wednesday Addams and danced to it in fan videos.
The singer QT showed how this principle can be orchestrated online back in 2014. In a music video, she makes no secret of the fact that her song “Hey QT” was intended to advertise an energy drink of the same name. Her artificial voice was high pitched and sounded squeaky, the song quickly caught on on social media.
The joke: neither the singer nor the energy drink were real. QT was an avatar developed by a diverse group of London producers, the PC Music collective. The project was intended to confront unsuspecting recipients with their thoughtless consumer behavior on the Internet. QT’s catchy song fueled the popularity of that particular sound, which is ubiquitous on Tiktok today.
Model Bella Hadid at a Givenchy fashion show.
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Image: AFP
Hyperpop in fashion?
The followers of this style, they are called “hyperpoppers” at this point, move – like the hipsters – somewhere between nostalgia and renewal through self-reference. Unlike hipsters, however, they are never ironic.
Rather, the courage to be tasteless is the greatest asset for the hyperpopper: skin-tight sportswear combined with glittering, often heavy silver jewelry with spikes; moth-riddled rope combined with outrageously expensive sunglasses, sneakers and handbags; elegant evening wear in muted colors, broken up by flashing neon elements. Hyper-realistic forms are sought that do not translate into conventional notions of gender or beauty.
The comparison with common beauty norms shows what constitutes “hyperpop” in fashion: The American model sisters Gigi and Bella Hadid symbolize this. When it comes to success, they take little. The older one, Gigi, is known for her blonde hair and a natural “American Beauty” look – but outside of fashion, nobody seems to care about her.
Meanwhile, the younger Bella, who uses plastic surgery to mimic artificial beauty and dresses in a grunge look while bearing a striking resemblance to ’90s supermodel Carla Bruni, is being stylized as an icon by Gen Z and the art world.
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