I went to another Celebrate Brooklyn concert in Prospect Park last night, and had a very good time — although the usual close-up seating where you can really see the performers was given over to a throng of standing dancers, and while I may be a wannabe hipster I’m not going that far. But anyway, music aside, one thing I enjoy about these events is crowd-watching, which varies a lot by performer. Lucius was a real all-ages, all-subcultures crowd, ranging from enthusiastic teenagers to fairly sedate but equally enthusiastic senior citizens. Sylvan Esso was very hipster — which is fine; de gustibus non whatever.

I did, however, find myself wondering a bit about the economics. I’m perfectly OK with topknots and tattoos, but obviously a lot of employers won’t be. So where do all these people work? They can’t all be baristas …

But that, surely, is part of the point. Probably not an original observation, but surely one main goal of personal styling is to make it clear that the person so styled is not, in fact, part of the workaday bourgeois world, that he or she doesn’t work at a 9-5 office job during the week and put on trendy attire for the weekend. It has to be a cultural version of Veblen’s conspicuous consumption, where the point is not to display your wealth but instead to display your indie cred.

Again, I’m fine with it — and the scene is producing a lot of music I really like, so it’s all good. But sometimes I just can’t turn off my inner econonerd.