I don't know about a lot of people here, but in my hairier days here in the UK, I automatically got called a "hippie" / "hippy". I dislike the term intensely. To me, hippies were not about sixties counterculture but a manufactured phenomenon who were just as trapped by convention and expectation as the society they were railing against. Supposedly. 

Becoming a "hippie" meant, in my opinion, taking on a selection of pre-chewed views without thought. Or, given most "hippies" I've met, choice. I am yet to meet a hippie who can put an argument forwards for GM crops, nuclear power or fracking. If you're a hippie, you have to believe in such stuff - or you ain't a hippie. Or you learn to come up with some idiotic guff to counter it, such as "Fracking causes cancer" or "eating meat makes you agressive". 

So I'll be a freak, please, if no one minds. Or even a "prog rocker", who used to be distinguishable in the 70's by their attire of army greatcoat and benny hat. 

Mung beans and levitating along ley lines ? I'll pass, thank you. 

This lot however, were hippie-freaks:

Probably not many hippies on this site due to timing. The things you mention which you portray hippies arguing against did not even exist in the heyday of hippies. No GM foods, no fracking. There were no set rules to being a hippie.

Can I pass on being a Trekker for now, please ? ;-)

Flight 123 is wrong. The rainbow tribe is alive and well.

Me too. I was quite different from the rest, so the "Hippie" term fell on me by default. However, I never really felt I was part of the "Hippie" crew though, nor of their ideas, specially the unreasonable goals they had. 

We were called "burn-outs" in the U.S. At least, that is what I vaguely recall.

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. ;-)

At a Renaissance Faire ... no doubt. Gilly loved those btw, and even said that dressing up was the best part!

 

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.

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?

Wrong is the wikipedia KHAAANNNN,  sorry, REEDNIGHTTT

.

Charles Milles Manson (born Charles Milles Maddox, November 12, 1934) ^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson#cite_note-bugliosi-2" rel="nofollow - [2] :136–7} is an American criminal who led what became known as the  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manson_Family" rel="nofollow - Manson Family , a quasi- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commune" rel="nofollow - commune  that arose in California in the late 1960s. Manson and his followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations over a period of five weeks in the summer of 1969. In 1971 he was found guilty of  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_%28crime%29" rel="nofollow - conspiracy  to commit the murders of seven people –  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tate_murders" rel="nofollow - most notably of the actress Sharon Tate  – all of which were carried out by members of the group at his instruction. He is currently serving nine concurrent life sentences at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Prison,_Corcoran" rel="nofollow - Corcoran State Prison  in  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corcoran,_California" rel="nofollow - Corcoran, California .

 

Likewise to be "Hip," a Beat word, was group herded into the dismissive term hippie; an all encompassing description to describe

many lifestyles, but usually used to evoke a group of poverty embracing individuals, often living communally with long hair, beards and bare feet.  Both groups tend to embrace a freeform, liberal attitude (but their are exceptions)

 

To be a Freak can connotate a wide variety of odd, mutant personalities.  Zappa said he was Freak, not a Hippie/Hippy.  His politics were conservative; he was a tough task master, with a perpetual chip on his shoulder, who looked odd with his long hair, facial hair and quirky clothing, art choices and musical direction.

The only thing "hippie" about him was his open marriage, free love lifestyle and a taste for the kink.  If we use the term "freak" it can be applied from the hippie ("The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers") to the dangerous (Manson and his outlaw tribe of killers) to the power hungry (a "Control Freak").  And since the '60s, hippie has deviated into yuppie or the pro/con label "hipster".

 

Dada, Nouvelle Vague, being Avant-Garde or an Iconoclast.  Take your pick.

 

Class over for today.  Don't forget to get those term papers done by Tuesday:  "What is the definition of the

word 'Dig' and where does 'Jive' come in?"  See you Monday and enjoy your weekend.