Where do Hippies come from?
We grew up in the Yuppie generation, young urban professionals with upwardly mobile shirt collars out there hustling, playing the stock market and screaming, “show me the money.” Our focus was material, we were taught to leverage “other people’s money” and greed was good, baby. But it all went down the tubes with the economy in the late 80s-early 90s. That’s why we needed Gulf War OG in 1991. Before the yuppies were born, there was a less polished group that came before them.
What is a Hippie?
A hippie is a member of a countercultural movement that emerged in the United States during the mid-1960s. Hippies were known for their rejection of traditional mainstream values and their adoption of alternative lifestyles, often characterized by unconventional clothing, long hair or beards, and a rejection of materialism and consumerism. The hippie movement was based on a philosophy of peace, love, and the rejection of societal norms around sexuality, drug use, and conventional forms of employment. [ChatGPT4]
Why is “hippie” spelled with “ie” instead of “y” at the end?
The spelling of "hippie" with an "ie" instead of a "y" was a way to differentiate the members of the hippie movement from the earlier "hipsters" of the 1950s, who were known for their love of jazz music and their adherence to their own counterculture.
Wait….I thought hipsters came from Portland…there was another hipster era right before the hippie period?
Yes, there was….we’ll talk about it at the end of the post.
The spelling of "hippie" with an "ie" may have been employed as a way to tie Eastern spiritual practices because “ie" endings are often seen in Sanskrit words.
When I asked Chat to answer this question it concluded its answer with this:
Overall, the spelling of "hippie" with an "ie" was likely a deliberate choice made by the
membersof the counterculture movement to create a unique identity and differentiate themselves from earlier generations of youth rebels. (emphasis mine, replace members with “spooks”)
Hippies Came from Tavistorks
We make the assumption that cultural movements are organic, spreading around the culture in much the same fashion as contagions. But we’ve all found out that even pandemics can be manufactured when and where they want them, so why would fads be any different?
Larry Tavistork
Larry Tavistork was born just after the end of WWII. He was a quirky bird and the Overbirds quickly saw his potential as a change agent. They educated Larry in all the ways the Overbirds have been infiltrating and even whole cloth fabricating movements throughout history.
Larry was amazed. He had no idea Overbirds were such powerful magicians and he wanted to join them. He signed on as an eager underling and his first assignment was right up his quirky bird alley.
Sex, Drugs & Rock-n-Roll
The Overbirds had charged Larry with derailing the real movement that was rising in the emerging boomer generation….the tides of young families leaving cities. Hippie culture didn’t begin with sex, drugs and rock-n-roll.
It began with “back to the land.”
Wait, wasn’t “back to the land” in the 70s…
Yes, that’s when it became better known and got press attention. But it began building in the early 1960s with urban decay, racial tensions, geopolitical threats of war and myriad other issues that sound eerily like today’s headlines. Young families were leaving cities and returning to a pastoral lifestyle. Tavistork was sent in to stem the flow.
Woodstork
Larry was the creative master mind behind many hippie trends. His own affinity for brightly colored tie dye was made manifest into an entire industry and he was a bit of a voyeur with an ear for eclectic sounds. Woodstork was his brain child and he considered it his Opus Magnus. This summer festival, along with the entire counter culture music industry, was his creation.
It’s brilliant really. Identify a trend you don’t like — young families are returning to natural human living — and pervert it.
His introduction of the sex, drugs & rock-n-roll frenzy eventually fucked itself out. That’s the problem with LSD use, it’s just not sustainable. All the “hard” went to the party in the 60s & 70s, leading to Limp Bizkit & Viagra in the 90s.
Limp Bizkit began staring at us from behind blue eyes in 1995.
Viagra was given to us by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals in 1998.
But all that acid did pave the way for his next attempt to keep the real “back to the land” movement from taking root.
The Age of Aquarius Rainbow Spookshow
Psychedelic soaked minds were easily sucked into the new mantra - Peace, Love and Rock-n-Roll (the sex part had to go because their sex drive was depleted by all the acid they dropped.) They also became the first generation of drug dependent customers-for-life of the pharmaceutical industry (you didn’t think LSD was made in a back alley did you?) The dawning of the Age of Aquarius was the beginning of the campaign for cradle-to-grave chemical addiction.
Will the Real Dirty Hippies Please Stand Up?
It’s impossible to pinpoint when the rebellion against the industrial revolutionized technocratic autobot that has completely transformed western civilization in less than a century began. Groups and individuals of every persuasion who have questioned and challenged the suppositions handed to us by self-appointed authorities are the real “dirty hippies”. We threaten everything Tavistork worked so hard to accomplish.
And about those Hipsters
Indie has an article coming out tomorrow that will explain.
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