Joined: July 23 2016
Location: NYC
Status: Offline
Points: 383
Posted: October 05 2016 at 15:57
I don't have any problem with the term "hippie." I often use it to describe myself. I'll say, "I'm basically a hippie." It's a convenient way to explain (why I have) many of the dispositions that I do.
Joined: May 23 2013
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Points: 2839
Posted: October 06 2016 at 03:05
Thanks for the replies, folks - sorry !! I wasn't trying to light a fire, here. ;-)
One observation. I'm of course writing from a UK perspective. The US "Hippie" experience may differ. ;-)
If you pop over to the UK Hippy forum, and I strongly advise you not to, you'll see that the UK scene is somewhat different from the US scene. Over here, a number of subgroups sprung up - New Age Travellers, Crusties, etc. All are broadly the same, and tend to fall under the "hippy" banner. I expect most of the posters there are under thirty and wouldn't mind being labelled - generically - a "hippy".
Too right, at 51, I am too young to have experienced the original "hippie" movement of the sixties. Actually, I doubt there are many people who actually did. If you take, for example, Woodstock, the crowd is not solely composed of people who identify solely with hippie views - most were there for the drugs and music, or to dress up in the fashions of the day. It's a crowd of hangers on and wannabe's. Most will have gone back home to safe office jobs, conventional views and lifestyles after dipping their toes in the hippy water.
Why I don't like being called a hippie. Well. I just don't identify with many of the views, and I also find a lot of hippies so monolithic and set in their views that it's like having a conversation with a religious nut case. I'm sure that there are hippies out there who are more normal, less reactionary and more open to debate, but they seem, alas to be an exception.
I'll stick with being a freak, thanks. I did have a think about being a Trekker, but I've got too much middle age spread to be able to pull off a Starfleet tunic. Yes, I know William Shatner spent a career doing it. But. ;-)
Joined: July 23 2016
Location: NYC
Status: Offline
Points: 383
Posted: October 06 2016 at 09:24
Davesax1965 wrote:
Thanks for the replies, folks - sorry !! I wasn't trying to light a fire, here. ;-)
One observation. I'm of course writing from a UK perspective. The US "Hippie" experience may differ. ;-)
If you pop over to the UK Hippy forum, and I strongly advise you not to, you'll see that the UK scene is somewhat different from the US scene. Over here, a number of subgroups sprung up - New Age Travellers, Crusties, etc. All are broadly the same, and tend to fall under the "hippy" banner. I expect most of the posters there are under thirty and wouldn't mind being labelled - generically - a "hippy".
Too right, at 51, I am too young to have experienced the original "hippie" movement of the sixties. Actually, I doubt there are many people who actually did. If you take, for example, Woodstock, the crowd is not solely composed of people who identify solely with hippie views - most were there for the drugs and music, or to dress up in the fashions of the day. It's a crowd of hangers on and wannabe's. Most will have gone back home to safe office jobs, conventional views and lifestyles after dipping their toes in the hippy water.
Why I don't like being called a hippie. Well. I just don't identify with many of the views, and I also find a lot of hippies so monolithic and set in their views that it's like having a conversation with a religious nut case. I'm sure that there are hippies out there who are more normal, less reactionary and more open to debate, but they seem, alas to be an exception.
I'll stick with being a freak, thanks. I did have a think about being a Trekker, but I've got too much middle age spread to be able to pull off a Starfleet tunic. Yes, I know William Shatner spent a career doing it. But. ;-)
Well, I'm not very normal and I'm pretty set in my views . . . which isn't to say that I'm not easygoing typically, but nevertheless, I'm pretty set in my views.
I'm a bit too young to have experienced hippiedom fully in real time, too, although on the other hand, my first concert was Jimi Hendrix--but I was only 6 when I saw Hendrix.
Joined: May 12 2009
Location: Coolwood
Status: Offline
Points: 6484
Posted: October 09 2016 at 00:14
The "hippies" of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury scene in the 60s also referred to themselves as "freaks," disliking the term hippy so much some of them held a funeral for the hippy in 1968. Jimi Hendrix once sang that he just wanted to let his freak flag fly.
I have been called a hippy myself due to my long hair, casual demeanor, nonconformity, and liberal views. I have no problem with that (but then I do live in the U.S. and believe me, it also has many negative connotation here - it depends on who you are talking to). Oddly enough, many of my friends are very conservative. Any such term or designation can be treated as a compliment or as derogatory. Few of us totally fit into preconceived roles or stereotypes. More often than not, I use them as convenient designations. The trick is to see past preconceptions and to demonstrate that one is not merely a stereotype.
The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty"
Joined: June 26 2016
Location: Brazil
Status: Offline
Points: 89
Posted: October 11 2016 at 12:21
I was interested in hippies once. Thought they had some superior view of wisdom, fraternity, love, equality, etc (HAIR), but then I found out that most of it was about drug abuse (GRATEUFUL DEAD), and posing (CHARLES MASON). So hippie is this: posing and drugs, ERIC CARTMAN is right again, But I do like Hawkwind and Blind Melon.
Joined: January 18 2014
Location: Mar Vista, CA
Status: Offline
Points: 4812
Posted: October 11 2016 at 12:47
^Don't know anything about Charles "Mason" but do know about one Charles Manson who was no poser; he was the real deal when it came to directing a flock of supposed flower children towards murderous infamy, to say the least. He can still be found at Corcoran State Pen., Calif. for that reason.
"It just has none of the qualities of your work that I find interesting. Abandon [?] it." - Eno
Joined: June 26 2016
Location: Brazil
Status: Offline
Points: 89
Posted: October 11 2016 at 16:32
He was a murderer who posed as a hippie. And gathered many people who posed as hippies. And at woodstock many people were posing as hippies, all about posing
Joined: February 01 2011
Location: Michigan
Status: Offline
Points: 13390
Posted: October 11 2016 at 16:41
Devoncir wrote:
And at woodstock many people were posing as hippies, all about posing
So, please tell me, in the crowd of four hundred thousand gathered around the stage at Woodstock, which were the hippies and which were the poseurs? Were some of them yippies and not hippies or poseurs? There were yippies at Woodstock and there were hippies. I would suggest that after three days of mud and rain, hippies, yippies and poseurs were indistinguishable.
...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology...
Joined: February 04 2016
Location: Aust
Status: Offline
Points: 1802
Posted: October 11 2016 at 16:47
The Dark Elf wrote:
Devoncir wrote:
And at woodstock many people were posing as hippies, all about posing
So, please tell me, in the crowd of four hundred thousand gathered around the stage at Woodstock, which were the hippies and which were the poseurs? Were some of them yippies and not hippies or poseurs? There were yippies at Woodstock and there were hippies. I would suggest that after three days of mud and rain, hippies, yippies and poseurs were indistinguishable.
Yeah and which ones took the Brown Acid...................
But wasn't every one at Woodstock?
"Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes" and I need the knits, the double knits!
Joined: September 30 2006
Location: Pearland
Status: Offline
Points: 65848
Posted: October 11 2016 at 17:34
Rednight wrote:
^Don't know anything about Charles "Mason" but do know about one Charles Manson who was no poser; he was the real deal when it came to directing a flock of supposed flower children towards murderous infamy, to say the least. He can still be found at Corcoran State Pen., Calif. for that reason.
No doubt. I know people who remember him hanging out on Haight Street picking up followers.
"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
Joined: January 18 2014
Location: Mar Vista, CA
Status: Offline
Points: 4812
Posted: October 11 2016 at 18:59
Devoncir wrote:
He was a murderer who posed as a hippie.
Wrong again, Mandrake. It was the followers Manson sent to Cielo and Waverly drives who did the murderin'. No evidence has ever come forward that he murdered anyone.
"It just has none of the qualities of your work that I find interesting. Abandon [?] it." - Eno
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
This page was generated in 0.318 seconds.
Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.