Gaping Void website.]
I was always much less impressed with 'hip' than with 'cool'. 'Cool', it seems to me, is a truly individual expression of..... panache, élan, savoir faire, unflappability, insouciance (damn, why are the best words for this all French?)..... the emanation of a unique stylishness. Whereas 'hip' seems to be more about embodying a kind of style that is externally determined; and the pursuit of such an effect can often seem rather too self-conscious and effortful, the antithesis of true cool. The Fonz, I felt, was more hip than cool (though he could be pretty cool on occasions, too).
My favourite line on hipness came in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy (possibly in the original radio series only; that was my initial medium of consumption, and remains the version I recall most vividly), said by Zaphod (or was it Ford Prefect?) of someone who failed to impress him: "He's so unhip, it's a wonder his bums don't fall off."
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