Russia’s Bizarre “Save the Hipsters” Campaign

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It figures: Just as the word “hipster” is falling out of favor (or, at the very least, becoming utterly meaningless) in US cities, it’s all over Russia. Design Taxi brings to our attention “Save the Hipsters,” a campaign launched by the website It’s My City to protect “representatives of the dominant subculture” from thuggish Chavs in Ekaterinburg. As far as we can tell from the English-language video below, the project mostly involved displaying confusing pro-hipster banners during a military parade but somehow led to a 75% drop in the city’s street fights — not to mention attracting a lot of media attention that drove traffic to It’s My City. Unfortunately, we don’t know quite enough about Russian pop culture to determine whether “Save the Hipsters” is a run-of-the-mill publicity stunt, an ironic publicity stunt, a legitimate attempt to solve what is apparently a big problem over there, or some combination of those things. Give us your best guess in the comments.