You know that hipster aesthetic, with that very specific font, minimalist design and particular ‘vibe’ you keep seeing all over Cape Town? It’s really not as “indie” or cool as you think it is.

Go to cities like Mumbai, São Paulo, Seoul, Paris, London, Kuala Lumpur, Lagos, New York – anywhere really – and you’ll see exactly the same thing.

Which means that despite your second-hand copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (which you’re always halfway through) and your overpriced thrift finds, you, dear hipsters, are not a counter-culture, you are the mainstream.

Here’s Quartz with the deets:

Distinctive design elements—Edison bulbs, reclaimed wood, potted plants, exposed brick—are popping up in coffee shops everywhere. It isn’t just the design of these spaces that are becoming increasingly uniform. The expectation of enjoying beautiful, artfully-decorated, high quality coffee has spread to places as far-flung as Auckland, New Zealand and Atyrau, Kazakhstan.

Where did this look originate? It’s been loosely traced back to Brooklyn in New York.

Here’s video proof of the fact that coffee shops have adopted a global commercial aesthetic:

That reminds me – coffee time, and maybe a bagel, too.

[source:quartz]