#125

regional neckbeards

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#126

Does a lot of that just cross over into furry territory?

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#127

Why does the most massive hippy parent not simply eat the other smaller hippy parents?

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#128

I think it might well have been on DiS that someone pointed out that the way history is written is that in 1967 everyone was just sitting in a field getting stoned and having a good time when actually, it was a small number of middle class students who had the connections for the drugs and the financial freedom to not work who were doing that. Most people were just getting on with their life of doing average, normal things. Then eventually the look got moved in to mainstream culture, thus the flares as mentioned.

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#129

Same with punk, innit?

#130

Juggalos

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#131

Absaloutely not

#132

I think it might actually be juggalos

#133

Probably say the same for any “counter culture” movement since the 60s. It’s certainly arguable that the impact they had reached beyond the very small group of people that were involved originally though. Did they bring about any lasting change or would the world be largely the same place without them having existed? Dunno.

#134

El Hopaness New Romtic

1 Like
#135

i love that film

#136

There are some examples where you can say that yes, they massively did.
The Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales, for example, was founded by hippies on communal living principles, and drove a lot of development of solar panels and wind turbines. It was considered ludicrous by the mainstream energy sector at the time, but many of the people went on to establish very successful renewable energy businesses and had a massive influence on the development of the sector.
Or you could look at festivals as an outgrowth of new-age travellers, that’s a massive part of our culture and economy now that has grown out of the counterculture.
There’s others but I got a meeting in 30 seconds :frowning:

5 Likes
#137

Also @anon9806217 . I think even the example of punk, which very definitely at the time only truly affected those directly involved, has had a massive impact on culture that’s been resonant ever since. Firstly in terms of the obvious, in the music and the fashion, but also the fact that it established an understandable identity that added to existing counterculture for future generations of similarly disenfranchised people (mainly young people) to latch onto. Yeah, everything gets co-opted by capital and distanced from its original form and spirit, but when you’re young and idealistic and need a tribe it’s valuable to be able to look back and see where that kinship might come from. Punk ideology took DIY values and turned them from the make-do-and-mend of the 40s and postwar period into something that gave you agency if you lacked privilege. I think that’s still relevant today.

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#138

Yeah - entirely agree. Think it’s pretty easy to write off all of these sorts of movements as rich kids on holiday, but I don’t think it’s fair or accurate. Punk was borne out of the counterculture movement of the 60s and just using those two a examples (and there are plenty more) they have had a fundamental impact on how at least some sections of society think or conduct their lives. It’s about much more than just flash in the pan fashions

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#139

You said what I said, big agree!

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#140

Typing at the same time! You said it much better than I did mate

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#141

My old man was a steel worker and most of the hippies they knew were caretakers etc, definitely not a middle class thing only.

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#142

I like how you put it too, and I think you highlighted something very important about the tendency for later generations to diminish movements as being ‘rich kids on holiday’, when actually, even if that’s true in some cases, the underlying ethos has a much broader effect. Those who became the leading lights of countercultural movements in the 20th century obviously benefitted from capital swinging in behind them and monetising what they did, but that spread the message further and enabled it to reach more people who may not have become stars, but who took it to heart.

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#143

Nah, they’re all sell outs maaaaaaan

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#144

Ideological purity is the enemy of progress! (The Sir Keir Starmer Story)