There is a certain amount of debate about how the word “hippie” came about, and who coined the term. But hey, who owns a word anyway?
While working as a journalist in San Francisco, I was consistently told that long-time San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen had first penned the title in the mid-60s for a group of long-haired, happy-go-lucky teens and twentysomethings who had begun to hang out the Victorian houses in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Allegedly, the word was a deviation from “hipster,” a term which has seen a new life lately, but was originally was assigned to the Beat Generation cool kids, poets, and wanderers—a group that had its roots in New York City’s Greenwich Village, but also a strong foothold in the Italian neighborhood of North Beach in San Francisco.
There certainly is some familiarity between the Beats and the hippies, like a little brother who is a bit more lighthearted and carefree, but the same DNA of tossing off the constraints about whatever is mainstream, and adopting new forms of music and dress (until, of course, Banana Republic, a San Francisco-based company itself, co-opts the look).
[Read about one Bendite’s experiences growing up in an urban hippie commune here.]
The irony about hippies is that their counter-culture attitudes glom together in a similar mindset, one that often is as uniform as the “squares” and normals they are rejecting. Yet, over the decades, hippies have changed and evolved, adopting new music tastes (from the Dead to Phish to bluegrass), emphasizing one element of the original hippies (dirtiness for the wookies, leaving a small footprint for the metrohippies) over another, and branching off into sub-genres and classifications. It can be hard to keep track, as they spring up new cultures faster than bacteria in a petri dish. Here’s a starter course:
This article appears in Jul 8-16, 2015.
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Ho hum. More mainstream media poking fun at hippies. Pretty boring stuff to those of us who were there. What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding? Yes, I know, a song that came much later. But, still a good question.
Yeah man, I was there… back in the day. I’m something of an aging-hippie chick (on the younger side) who ended up in the Seattle suburbs (gasp… boring suburbia) to raise my baby hippies.
1. I’m not sure if you’re talking about now or “then”, but I think flower children don’t usually wear tie dye. They wear organic cotton and (the girls) wear flowing, flowery tops and dresses. It might be different in Bend, but the true giveaway is the flower garlands on their heads. (I think it’s more likely that you’d see a “wookie” in tie dye… tie die shows less dirt.)
2. None of the trustfund babies I knew came from Connecticut, but I have to laugh at the part about the “permanent record”.
And, even though I’ve just moved to the small town of Bend, I’m probably closest to a Metrohippie… sans chickens. Sounds like a good lifestyle.
If you have any questions about traditional (old-school) hippiedom, you can ask me or Mickey. I think Mickey sounds like he/she’s in the groove.
Tina Boomerina (Boomerinas.com)
This is only slightly less lazy and terrible than the Sheryl Crow is Bad at Dating story from last week. Impressive two-week run!
The term “hippie” quickly devolved into a perjorative term for the low-life druggie”posers” that followed the scene/lifestyle that spawned the word.
By the early 70’s I was already peeved at being referred to as a “hippie” as were most of my friends.
We called ourselves either “heads” or “longhairs” just to shake off the media’s and the puritan’s insulting use of the term “hippie” and to distinguish ourselves from the “all drugs and no brains” crowd.
Let there be no mistake, we smoked a lot of weed and took plenty of hallucinogens and swam naked … Be we were also focused on changing the world for the better.
Now you can visit one of the early hippie strongholds, Eugene, and find a lot of tie dyed stuff, plaid shirts and long hair. What you find damn little of are the sensitivities and sensibilities of the original lifestyle.
All show and no go.
Don’t even get me started on “millenials” …
Just another ignorant fool, writing articles. However, the feedback has reassured my confidence in humanity. No permanent damage done here!
Once again you went for the low hanging fruit with this article and revealed you know nothing about Phish. As a Phan that lives in Bend, it’s embarrassing that the source writes an article that, on the surface, appears to be welcoming. Instead, it is really insulting. As evidenced by this article, Perhaps TSW drug of choice is huffing gas.
You call this a welcome mat? Please educate yourself a little bit on the band you are supposed to be writing about instead of this boring cliché you call and article.