The, The Hippies, And The Hipsters

The early 1960’s to mid 1970s was the start of the counterculture of youth culture. During the 1960’s, there were revolutions including a sexual revolution, a cultural/ racial revolution, a rights revolution, and student revolutions. In addition to revolutions, there also a focus on the transition to adulthood, popularity, consumption, anxiety, and the media. However the movie, American Graffiti, which was set in the 1962 (1960s)–before the peak of 1960’s counterculture–and released in 1973 (1970’s) displays an environment more focused on the anxiety of transitioning to adulthood, dating, and consumerism--music and cars. American Graffiti compared to the set and release dates share similarities with the counterculture, but are depicted in

The 1960’s presented Hippies with the chance to express their beliefs and attitudes in a number of diverse

The hippie movements of the sixties were driven by a plethora of factors. There were many new technologies that were being introduced in this period, a war against Communism around the globe, internal struggles against several types of injustices, a growing drug culture, and several other important developments. To say the least, it was a volatile period in American history and many sub-cultures were actively seeking to carve out new paths that were starkly different than the traditional norms. These generations who rejected traditional culture helped carve out a new trajectory for the United States and the movements influences can still be felt to this day.

The members of this movement obtained the nickname, hippies, which were greatly inspired by the beat movement back in the 1950’s.

The 1960s Hippie movement was a major point in the American history. In the 1960s a certain class of young people associated their lifestyles with the ideas of freedom, peace, and love. Hippies acted against white upper middle class lifestyle because they thought it was based on the wrong ideology. Hippies were against consumerism and American suburban life of the late 1950s and early 1960s was embodied in itself the idea of consumerism. Hippies, on the other hand, felt better about communal life with equal distribution of social goods. Traditional “bigger share” and consumerist greed as concepts of American society were despised by Hippies.

The people that would become associated with the new teenage counter-culture movement were known as the hippies. The movement began in the mid-sixties in the United States. The hippies often believed in peace and pleasure. They even ushered in a new music genre of psychedelic rock. The Grateful Dead as well as the Beatles was famous artists coming from the movement and genre. The hippies created their own communities where they criticized the mainstream society and middle class. One thing they revolutionized was sex. The sexual revolution moved from traditional ways of behaving to more promiscuous activities and pleasures. The norms of American sexual culture would change greatly. Hippies were promoters of free love in the sexual revolution. They taught that the power of sex and love should be a part of everyday teenage life. In some colleges, they started to make dorms coed; in which the males and females could come together freely. “A

The Hippie Counter Culture began in 1960. The hippie era was influenced more by personal happiness in which books, music, and fashion followed as result of their personification of a blissful society. Hippies did not care what others thought of them and their motto was “if it feels good, do it”. Hippies were seeking a utopian society. They participated in street theater and listened to psychedelic rock. As part of their culture they embraced more open sexual encounters amongst each other in their community and believed in use of psychedelic drugs which consisted of marijuana and LSD. The fashion choice that hippies dressed in was due to set them apart from the mainstream society. They choose to buy their clothing from thrift shops and flea markets (Haddock, 2011). Clothing choices are described as “brightly colored, ragged clothes, tie-dyed t-shirts, beads, sandals (or barefoot), and jewelry” (Haddock, 2011, para 7). Hippies also referred

The Hippie Movement changed the politics and the culture in America in the 1960s. When the nineteen fifties turned into the nineteen sixties, not much had changed, people were still extremely patriotic, the society of America seemed to work together, and the youth of America did not have much to worry about, except for how fast their car went or what kind of outfit they should wear to the Prom. After 1963, things started to slowly change in how America viewed its politics, culture, and social beliefs, and the group that was in charge of this change seemed to be the youth of America. The Civil Rights Movement, President Kennedy’s death, new music, the birth control pill, the growing illegal drug market, and

ating of fiberglass. The waters were packed and the terms to listen for were "hang ten" or "hangin’ loose." There were also the Beatniks. In their depressed outfits and sunglasses they recited poetry and brought back more of a philosophical look at things. They went and ran underground music stores in which they could purchase un filtered music. Music that society said rotted their brains. They used their intellect rather than their physical appearance or coordination. These people served as a spring board for the hippies in the mid sixties.

Counter-culture progressed in the early 20th century and represented the lifestyle of the young, who opposed dominant values and behaviors in their society. The young would create protest movements to oppose the culture of the modern American society. Throughout Professor Corey’s lectures I learned various types of counter cultural dating back to the era of the moderns, the beats, SDS, Port Huron statement, and from the novel “What Maggie Knew”. Each of these counter-cultural subjects was tempered by an opposing value that triggered to start a counter culture era of new dominance, in the way they see the world. The Moderns era consist of intellectuals and youths in the 1920s.

During the summer of 1969, Woodstock Music Festival led many people to overcome prejudice. People who came to the festival were peaceful, stress-free, interesting music-lovers that are known by many as “hippies”. Volume number twenty six of Popular Music explains by saying, “The ‘hippies’ many of the residents feared, turned out, in many cases, to be kind, polite, willing to pitch in and help in whatever way they could. Many residents were able to overcome their prejudices about the long-haired, ragged, and ‘peculiarly dressed’ individuals they had heard so much about, but had rarely seen.”(Behr) People of this time had their eyes

The “hippies” of the 1960s had many effects on the American society. The visual appearance and lifestyle of the hippies were in sharp contrast to the conservative nature of the older generation, which defined them as a counterculture. The hippie lifestyle was based on free love, rock music, shared property, and drug experimentation. They introduced a new perspective on drugs, freedom of expression, appearance, music, attitudes toward work, and held a much more liberal political view than mainstream society.

Beatniks played a crucial role in the formation of counterculture movement of the 1960s. The hippies, also called freaks, were extension of the Beats in that “they rejected bureaucratically structured workplaces and mass consumer culture, mainstream values of society, competition and materialism of American Culture” . The counterculture of the 1960s was born at the time when the world has been formally divided into "communists" and "democrats". The Cold War, the threat of nuclear weapons, the fight against "red tide of communism" in the United States and the beginning of the Vietnam War greatly influenced the political mood of the American youth.

To understand the sixties counterculture, we must understand the important role of Bob Dylan. His lyrics fueled the rebellious youth in America. Songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times are A-Changin” made him favorable to anti-war demonstrators and supporters of the Civil Rights movement. He was commonly hailed as the spokesman for his generation. Dylan used lyrics to allow the youth to find their own form of counter-culture. The youth generation began to see the effects racism, war, etc. effect the society in America. To combat this, the youth created their own form of counter-culture to promote a peaceful change within society. Some of their actions include forming anti-war protests that opposed America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and supporting African Americans/women get the rights they deserve through the Civil Rights Movement. Bob Dylan’s music appealed to the young generation because he openly expresses his disapproval of the establishment in order to influenced his audience to move in a direction for change. Counterculture youth rejected cultural norms of the previous generation and their values and lifestyles opposed the mainstream culture present in the 1950’s. The folk music revival of the early 1960s, as well as the counter-culture movement played an important role in advocating change. Bob Dylan wrote songs that influenced the Civil Rights Movement, New Left Movement, and Anti-War Movement.

The subcultures “Beatniks” and “Hipsters” have proven to media and society that they have an urge for individualism. This is not something that has gone unnoticed by anyone, especially in the 1950’s with the beatniks. As a rise in each of their cultures, they have both experienced harsh criticism, attacking their style and how they approach life. There are many different views on how beatniks and hipsters lived/live their lives. Today, it is easy to tell the differences and similarities between beatniks and hipsters, because there are many of them.