Hippies /1960s

The hippie subculture was a youth revolution which originated in the United States, during the early 1960s spreading its tentacles around the world. The word hippie is derivative of Hipster.  Most of the propagators were white, middle class young people advocating love, peace and beauty in a time of political unrest. The characteristic adoption of counter cultural values, self creation of communities, patronisation of psychedelic rock music, attitude to embrace the sexual revolution, and the usage of drugs (cannabis, LSD) to explore alternative states of consciousness essentially constituted a hippie.

Hippie trends and values have had major effects on culture by influencing film, literature, music and the arts. The values of diverse cultural and religious adoption, propagated by hippies have travelled wide and far as an accepted norm. Their attitudes have posed many challenges to a conformist society.

A trademark characteristic of a hippie was their attitude to relieve themselves of societal regulations, free to choose their own way and thereby find the actual meaning of life. An expression of this attitude was observed in their body language, dress code and grooming style. These parameters helped to serve as universal visual reminders of their fight for individual rights.

The 1960s was a period of intense revolutionary campaigns, starting with the anti-war movement, the black power movement, civil rights movement, sexual revolution, student rights movement etc. In a way, many of these revolutions have set the code for current day campaigns to take on their particular course of action. Hippies shot to popularity due to their adoption of a controversial lifestyle, like communes which are essentially group living. Their advocated a simpler way of life, promoting the concept of non-consumerism and little or no personal responsibility to the society.

The major event that put hippies on the map was the Golden GatePark which was also called the Trips Festival. The Trips festival was a weeklong celebration to emphasise on the LSD experience. Besides this major festival, many others took place at Golden GatePark, the popular ones being free live music concerts by The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Anti-War campaigns.

Another park called the BeunaVistaPark is known for the hippie occupation of it during the night and socialization in it during the day.

LSD was the prevalent drug in hippie population, as in the way they saw it, LSD put a person in real touch with the surroundings. This was not authentic, as sometimes LSDs were complained to be bad, resulting in a bad trip for a hippie to venture on. In hippie language, when someone took bad LSD, freak out is exactly what they would do and sometimes never came back too.

A doctor observed this particular drug intake pattern of the hippies, and compared it to the western concept of yoga. He was a Dr.Timothy Leary, a Harvard professor. LSD was a faster option to reach the religious objective of getting high, by expanding consciousness to find ecstasy and revelation within the self.