Getai Ethnica : Beware of the Hipster Agenda !

I tried to let my hair down yesterday after a round of giving tuition to my girls, so I let my friend suggest that I go Chinatown to an event known as Getai Ethnica at this carpark. I normally find such events boring, as I am more interested in ideas, money, lifehacking and current affairs but the prospect of $10 for 4 live bands and beer is irresistible to me so I decided to go have a look.

The crowd was very cozy, these guys would definitely fall under the category of hipsters. The bands are local and unheard of and they play their own brand of music which is not mainstream at all ( But you guys should check out Hubba Bubba, their sings are self-written but fairly radio-friendly).

The highlight of the evening was that I was very surprised to find 3 of my classmates at the event to which I remarked to my friend that isn't it ironic that I have more friends than him there.

Anyway, the point I want to make is that I think Getai Ethnica is dangerous to frugal people.

My expenses turned out as follows :

a) Entrance fee : $10
b) Eating the stuff hipsters eat like Soft-shelled crab mantou burger : $25
c) They don't have my favourite gin and 7-up but they have this hipster equivalent called #88 which tastes exactly like Gin and 7-Up but more deck at a ridiculous $15

The total damage for my short episode was $50 !

But in their defence, if I did not go home, I would have watched a hipster movie called Moonlight in Malaya and heard four local bands live.

Anyway, in spite of the $50 spent, I think I enjoyed myself overall. Getai Ethnica answers a lot of questions which suits and businessmen struggle with, which is how to market to millenials. There is a certain subversive appeal in the guerilla marketing and the use of carparks with great views in an ethnic area in Singapore. I still think it's a sad waste that the carpark was not sublet to more stalls which sell hipster goods. I certainly would have paid $3 for handful of kacang puteh to accompany the movie.

On an unrelated note, I would like to talk about music. This week's The Economist talked about the efforts of data scientists to work on various songs and using this statistical approach know as principal component analysis, scientists narrowed down three major revolutions in music :

a) The first is during the time of the Beatles is the 60s which heralded the arrival of rock and roll.
b) The second if New Wave in the 1980s. This explains why people still get Rick rolled.
c) The last is in 1991 when hip-hop was unleashed.

I was trying to understand why there is apparently no generation between my classmates and myself. I kinda like Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Daft Punk even more than Phil Collins, which my generation loves, but I just can't hack the Teresa Teng and Abba crap which my parents love.

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that, based on statistical analysis, music has not really changed since 1991. There is little difference between the K-POP hits by Son Dambi and Lee Hyori and the music I liked when I was an undergrad.