These links provide a great definition of the term Hippie.
Urban Dictionary
Wikipedia
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Woodstock
Woodstock was arguably the most popular Hippie function during the 1960s. The links below provide historical details about the first Woodstock Music and Art Fair that took place in August of 1969.
Woodstock
Summer of Love
Woodstock
Summer of Love
Hippie History Link
This link provides a great deal of information pertaining to the in-depth political reasons that gave rise to the Hippie Movement during the 1960s. While I did not go into the political background of the Hippie Movement within my essay, this website provides a great look into the American Society during the 1960s and sets up the Hippie Movement as being a reaction to the turmoil caused by the Vietnam War.
The 1960s
The 1960s
Hippie Clothing Links
The following links are a few websites I found while doing my research that pertain to Hippie Clothing. (Scroll over "Instructions on How to Dress Like a Hippie," "Where to Find Hippie Clothing," and "Hippie Shop" to visit each website)
1) This link is pretty funny in the sense that it gives you step by step instructions on how to look like a Hippie.
Instructions on How to Dress Like a Hippie
2) This link provides a sort of background behind Hippie Clothing with reference to significance, function, etc.
Where to Find Hippie Clothing
3) I had to add this link because it is an online website where you can buy Hippie Paraphernalia.
Hippie Shop
Have fun exploring the Hippie fashion trends!
1) This link is pretty funny in the sense that it gives you step by step instructions on how to look like a Hippie.
Instructions on How to Dress Like a Hippie
2) This link provides a sort of background behind Hippie Clothing with reference to significance, function, etc.
Where to Find Hippie Clothing
3) I had to add this link because it is an online website where you can buy Hippie Paraphernalia.
Hippie Shop
Have fun exploring the Hippie fashion trends!
Monday, 6 February 2012
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
A Closer Look into the Hippie Generation as it Relates to the Contemporary Hipster
The hippie generation began in the early
1960s but it was not until 1966 in Haight-Asbury, San Francisco that the hippie
movement became widely popular.[1]. Also referred to as the “love generation”,
hippies were one of several cultural movements that influenced the development
of the contemporary hipster.[2] Many people today are familiar with the hippie
generation by having watched TV series and movies such as, “That 70’s Show” and
“Austin Powers”, that depict hippies as free spirits concerned with peace, love
and freedom, a rendition that is, for the most part accurate. While John Robert Howard states there were
four types of hippies during the 1960s, this essay will focus only on “the
visionaries”, or activists, and “the plastic hippies”, or ‘posers’, as having
influenced the contemporary hipster generation.[3] It will be discussed that while the
contemporary hipster mimics the hippie generation of the 1960s in some respects
(such as being environmentally friendly), they also go against all that hippies
stood for in areas such as fashion, occupation and lifestyle.
The visionary hippies were the activists
of the late 1960s who adopted a lifestyle that suited the freedom they were promoting. In other words, they were the people who
chose to live in communities devoted to sharing what one had with others, promoting
the benefits of the natural environment, expressing love freely, dropping out
of school, living in poverty, and being dependent on ones’ self to provide the
necessities of life.[4] Their goal was to separate themselves from
the standard society by creating a separate community for a simple way of
living without the confines of money and commercialism. In contrast, the standard society of the
1960s consisted of anybody whose goal in life was to finish school and secure a
well paying occupation. Moreover, unlike
the visionary hippies, the people of standard society belonged to the middle
and upper classes and were fully engaged in the process of, and often benefited
from, commercialism as a means of living.
In other words, hippies were considered the subculture of the 1960s
because they longed to live a free life in harmony with nature, whereas, people
of standard society were considered mainstream because they chose to work and
make money as a means of living.
To contrast, “plastic” hippies were
mainly teenagers of middle and upper class families, who dressed in hippie paraphernalia
as a fashion trend and did not follow the hippie lifestyle and way of living.[5] Today, the plastic hippies of the 1960s would
have been referred to as posers or fakes because they wore clothing and items
that had been designated as hippie clothing in order to identify with a
cultural movement.[6] One of the ways in which visionary and
plastic hippies would have been distinguishable was by means of age and if they
attended school or held a job. Visionary
hippies consisted of young adults in their late teenage years and early twenties
who had left school and the workforce to pursue the hippie way of life in
communes. Whereas, plastic hippies
consisted of younger teenagers who remained in high school and under their
parents’ roof with the goal of furthering their education to obtain a reputable
occupation but who wanted to follow the fashion trends of the 1960s in order to
appear ‘cool’. Therefore, although
visionary and plastic hippies might not have been distinguishable by means of
fashion alone, often age and lifestyle served as the major indicator of
authenticity.
Having
identified two distinct types of hippies during the 1960s, it is arguable to
say that today there appear to be two types of contemporary hipsters that
correspond directly to both visionary and plastic hippies. The first type of contemporary hipster being
‘authentic’ hipsters who believe in buying products and supporting causes for
the environmentally friendly aspect behind them. The second type being ‘fake’ hipsters who seem only
to care about particular fashion trends as a means to make themselves stand
apart from the rest of modern day society.[7] While it is hard, and rather unfair, to label
someone as ‘fake’, it is also hard to determine, based on physical appearances
alone, why someone has chosen to wear the clothing they do, drink and eat the food they do, or buy the
products that they do.[8] Therefore, the question then becomes why
would someone want to dress a particular way simply to identify with a
distinguishable subculture? Although there
is no definite answer, given that people do particular things based on personal
choice and for different reasons, one answer could be because they would rather
be noticed for being different than go unnoticed for following suit.
With this in mind, similarities can be
made between the visionaries of the 1960s and the authentic hipsters of today’s
society in the sense that they dressed, acted and were a part of the causes
they were because of what they believed in and what they felt was right. Whereas, the plastic hippie and ‘fake’
hipsters share a similarity of following a fashion trend possibly for the sake
of being ‘hip’ and looking ‘cool’ but also to belong as part of a subculture
that stands out. However, although there
are similarities between hippies and contemporary hipsters, what sets these two
subcultures apart is the way in which they established their identities. While hippies protested and set up communes
as a way to make themselves known, contemporary hipsters now have the luxury of
using social media as a way to establish their ‘likes’, personal opinions and
lifestyle choices.
In closing, although distinctions
and similarities can be made between authentic and fake hippies and
contemporary hipsters, it is clear that the visionary hippies promoted a
society not based on money and commercialism, but a society where people should
be free to do as they please without being ridiculed. In addition, visionary hippies also made it
their goal to promote environmental awareness and encouraged living in harmony
with nature. Similarly, although
contemporary hipsters may not be as political and outright as the hippies of
the 1960s were, they carried on the original belief in harmony with nature,
protecting one’s environment, and creating an equality amongst people (through
promoting such causes as the fair trade industry) within today’s society.
Works Cited
Ghost,
Tuna. “In Defence of the Hipster.” August 2011.
Howard,
John Robert. “The Flowering of the Hippie Movement.” Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science 382, Protest in the Sixties (March 1969):
43-55.
Works Referenced
But Not Cited in Essay
Chen,
Anna. “The Use-By Date on Hippies”. New
Internationalist, January/February (2011): 61.
Goldwater,
Barry. “What's Wrong with Hippies?”. Human Events, 27:33 (1967): 5.
Greif,
Mark. "The Hipster in the Mirror." The New York Times Book Review,
14 Nov. 2010: 27(L).
Haight,
Sarah. “Fields of Fashion”. WWD 198,
no. 29 (2009): 6-9.
[1] John Robert Howard, “The
Flowering of the Hippie Movement,” Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 382, Protest in the
Sixties (March 1969), 43-48.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid, 43-45.
[4] Ibid, 45-48.
[5] Ibid, 51.
[6] Ibid, 50-51.
[7] Tuna Ghost, “In Defence of the
Hipster,” August 2011.
[8] Ibid.
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