  The hipster paradox in Electronic Dance Music is the phenomenon that
commercial success is collectively considered illegitimate while serious and
aspiring professional musicians strive for it. We study this behavioral dilemma
using digital traces of performing live and releasing music as they are stored
in the \textit{Resident Advisor}, \textit{Juno Download}, and \textit{Discogs}
databases from 2001-2018. We construct network snapshots following a formal
sociological approach based on bipartite networks, and we use network positions
to explain success in regression models of artistic careers. We find evidence
for a structural trade-off among success and autonomy. Musicians in EDM embed
into exclusive performance-based communities for autonomy but, in earlier
career stages, seek the mainstream for commercial success. Our approach
highlights how Computational Social Science can benefit from a close connection
of data analysis and theory.
