Drive down 300 South at any moment and you'll find fedora-wearing coffee-sippers smoking ciggies and discussing existentialism outside Nobrow Coffe & Tea. Pedal past the right overpass on certain evenings and you might stumble upon a tall-bike jousting tournament; a hundred plaid-clad peeps present to cheer a pair of freak-bike cyclists. Duck into Urban Lounge nearly every night and you'll meet a sea of experimental-music supporters likely to buy you a beer and tell you how they saw this band "last time I was in Portland."

If the term "hipster" is defined by these sort things, Salt Lake is becoming rapidly more so. Local music, hangouts and styles that were once accessible only to those who paid their dues in the underground scene are now seeping steadily into the mainstream, coming to define the very lifestyle of people living in downtown SLC.

SLUG magazine editor-in-chief Angela Brown says technology -- social media, in particular -- has dramatically increased the mainstreamer's ability to access and be exposed to Salt Lake's underground scene.

"Content is so instantaneous now that everyone has access to it," Brown says. "It's not like in the '80s and '90s when you had to seek it out, do your homework and put in a lot of effort. Now, you can literally find out what's happening in the scene with the click of a mouse."

And it's not just underground music and events that have become readily accessible to mainstreamers. Urban Outfitters and American Apparel have done all the dirty work for shoppers seeking that DIY look, closeting all the hipster styles into one location and peddling it to the masses. And buying local through venues like the farmers market -- once the activity of undergrounders taking a stand -- now serves as the only acceptable way to buy groceries without getting a reprimand or an eyeroll from fellow downtowners. Utah's 2 a.m. bar closure law compels clubgoers to funnel into their only after-hours option: Local coffee shops. Yep, the very place where hipster culture is arguably the most concentrated.

So we know that now, underground culture has been infiltrated by the mainstream, and being a hipster is virtually synonymous with downtown life. But what exactly is a hipster?

"People think that when they're called a 'hipster,' it's people saying they're trendy or average," says Tom Bennett, whose job Djing Indie Disco Fridays at W Lounge (the club that also hosts Scenester Siege Wednesdays) exposes him to the nucleus of Salt Lake's hipster crowd. "But they're confusing the meaning."

Bennett, who's also a musician in local band Sex on the Run, interprets Salt Lake's hipster culture through the philosophies of Jack Kerouac and other wordsmiths of the '50s credited with spreading counter-culture across America.

"Kerouac and other writers of the Beat Generation described hipsters as wise, 'beatific' people who have spirituality founded through experience rather than dogma," says Bennett.

Applying the term to present-day Salt Lake comes easy when looking at events such as Fashion and Gallery Stroll. These events, which display creative works by local designers and artists, flaunt an underground flavor, yet see great success from waves of locals who come to connect with culture. They're personifying Kerouac's belief of higher learning through experience. Bennett says he's noticed the same cultural appetite in the W Lounge crowds.

"The W attracts people who are into local music and art," he says. "For the most part, the people who come in are interested in evolved thinking, so when they're not dancing till they're sweaty, chances are they're having great conversation."

That's not to say everyone with 00 ear gauges and a fixed-gear bike ranks hipster culture above simply looking the part.

"Personally, I feel that hipsters can be more fad-oriented than in it for life, or in it for a reason: To make a difference," Brown says. "A hipster doesn't necessarily contribute to the scene, but partakes of the scene."

Cue the 20-somethings holding tall cans of PBR or Tecate like an accessory, stopping only to stroke their ironic facial hair with a forefinger that might also feature a mustache -- a tattooed version that feigns a real one with apt placement. Cue the multi-colored, sheared-to-shreds haircuts that cost as much as a pair of bulge-clefting jeans from JMR. Cue the personification, obsession and exploitation of retro-pop culture. Cue hipster for the sake of being hipster.

But every scene has its posers, and in Bennett's opinion, Salt Lake's fares better than those of other cities.

"Salt Lake's hipsters seem to be a lot more open and intelligent and a lot more friendly to people who aren't [hipsters]," he says. "In my experience, if you went to a hipster bar in New York or L.A., everyone would be dressed in all Urban Outfitters with no one talking each other. In Salt Lake, people are in ripped pants because they've actually been out doing something. It's a little dirtier, but people are more likely to talk to you here, and have something interesting to say."

As more and more mainstreamers become hipsters, and as Salt Lake's hipsters continue to seek out the culture within our city, the connotation of "hipster" will continue to fade from negative to ultimately, null. Unless, that is, a new hipster look and lifestyle is born that ignites another counter-culture. But until business casual or modest Mormon becomes the next craze to clad Club Edge and Twilite patrons, the term 'hipster' will start to collect dust.

God Forbid it ever becomes vintage. Hipsters would eat that shit up.