In the aisles of a Party City store in 2011, I carefully searched for the perfect Halloween costume, overwhelmed by countless options. Long after my parents were ready to leave, I finally selected a hippie costume, drawn to its bright colors and flowy fabrics. I proudly wore the costume to my class party and out on the town trick-or-treating. I told everyone that I was a hippie, despite not knowing what that meant beyond having a good style.
Turning pieces of history and culture into Halloween costumes is nothing new, with stores offering options ranging from harmless period wear to outright cultural appropriation. In recent years, it’s become easy to find similar hippie-inspired pieces outside of costume parties — in trendy clothing stores, on social media sites and in films and television. Beyond clothing, other components of hippie culture remain popular, from psychedelic rock to LSD and weed. In a time echoing the political turmoil of the 1960s, with the return in force of campus protests and divides with the major political parties, Generation Z has led a resurgence of hippie culture. But can this counterculture from half a century ago still be considered the same movement? Or were hippies left behind in the years after the Vietnam War, and is this something else entirely?
The hippie subculture was originally created by youths as a response to frustrations surrounding American culture, consumerism and involvement in the Vietnam War. Drawing inspiration from anti-war sentiment, Eastern spirituality and the work of eccentric Beatniks like Allen Ginsberg, youths across the country banded together to reject the mainstream and adopt alternative living. Like Beatniks, the subculture emphasized experimentation with art, music, sexuality and, of course, drugs. There was a levity to the movement, including a group called the “Merry Pranksters” who road-tripped across the United States in a psychedelic school bus, giving out LSD. Hippies embraced ridiculousness in the name of both enlightenment and enjoying life despite the increasingly pessimistic political climate. Love, peace, psychedelia and flower power became the pillars of hippie identity.
However, hippie culture was also inherently political, rooted in radical leftism and social liberalism. Peaceful anti-war protests inspired by hippie values erupted on college campuses across the United States and the counterculture at large clashed with the police, government and older generations. The University of Michigan campus hosted sit-ins, protests, marches, petitions and more as leftist students fought for change on issues ranging from university policy to civil rights. Students and faculty forged a place in history as the university became the first to host a teach-in about the Vietnam War, a concept that became popular among hippies. Similarly, universities across the country were the sites of demonstrations advocating for freedom, peace and equality. Although not all of the students involved may have identified as hippies, peaceful protest was deeply interwoven with hippie culture. Calls to “make love, not war” inspired a generation of students to advocate their beliefs through nonviolent means.
As Gen Z embraces humor and activism amidst growing political tensions, there are countless parallels between the youth of the 1960s and today. The increased popularity of 1960s counterculture fashion, art, music and more suggests that the hippie subculture has taken root in a new generation. However, this new wave of hippie culture has assimilated with the mainstream, with crystals, bohemian style, long hair and Fleetwood Mac becoming trendy across demographics. By separating hippie characteristics from their counterculture beginnings, they’ve become fundamentally different from the original movement. In becoming part of the larger culture, enjoying hippie fashion or music no longer goes hand in hand with activism or certain political beliefs. The optimism in the ability to create change that originally defined the subculture has deteriorated with time. But although it has been bastardized, pieces of the subculture continue to rise and fall in popularity; amid modern political tension, violence and uncertainty not unlike the 1960s, we turn to our past to understand and act upon the present. While the hippie movement is long gone, its influence remains fixated as a part of American popular culture.
Entering mainstream culture is what originally killed the hippie movement (some members even held a funeral). Frustrated hippies who joined the subculture to escape and protest mainstream values soon found it commercialized and appropriated by the general public. Popular musicians such as Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix brought psychedelia and hippie values to a larger audience while Woodstock solidified its growing popularity. Hippie-influenced fashions were gaining traction among young Baby Boomers, evidenced by looser clothing and long hair seen across popular culture (think The Beatles on the “Abbey Road” cover). The Altamont Free Concert was a final nail in the coffin for the hippie movement, a rock concert that erupted into chaotic violence leading to the death of four people. The pacifism that defined the early movement came into stark contrast with what the counterculture had become.
Hippie culture entered the mainstream and never left it. Whether you look back at photos from the ’70s or shop at Free People, the movement’s influence is everywhere. Punks soon emerged as the new counterculture of the late 1970s, rolling their eyes at their hippie predecessors and officially leaving the hippie movement behind in history. While I loved my hippie Halloween costume dearly, it’s no more a part of the movement than the other modern remnants of the subculture.
Daily Arts Writer Isabelle Perraut can be reached at iperraut@umich.edu.
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