122-453: Zef ( Afrikaans: [ˈzɛf] ) is a South African counter-culture movement. Kyle Hans Brockmann has compared zef counter-culture to many similar anarchic sub-cultures in the northern hemisphere . Yolandi Visser of Die Antwoord said, "It's associated with people who soup their cars up and rock gold and shit. Zef is, you're poor but you're fancy. You're poor but you're sexy, you've got style." The concept of "zef" originated in
244-623: A materialist interpretation of the American Dream . White, middle class youth—who made up the bulk of the counterculture in Western countries —had sufficient leisure time, thanks to widespread economic prosperity , to turn their attention to social issues . These social issues included support for civil rights , women's rights , and LGBT rights movements , and opposition to the Vietnam War . The counterculture also had access to
366-485: A "satirical blog" originally titled Zef Kinners briefly became a viral success in South Africa (and then faced legal claims) after it was started as a student school project, posting photos of people the blog considered to exemplify zef. The blog's creator commented, " Jack Parow and Die Antwoord are not zef. That's the safe version of zef. Zef has a dirty face." Authors Ross Truscott and Maria Brock have perceived
488-417: A better life or a new society. It does not look favorably on party politics or authoritarianism . Cultural development can also be affected by way of counterculture. Scholars such as Joanne Martin and Caren Siehl, deem counterculture and cultural development as "a balancing act, [that] some core values of a counterculture should present a direct challenge to the core values of a dominant culture". Therefore,
610-544: A disease, but as victims of ostracism and hatred. Most importantly, the disease became a rallying point for a previously complacent gay community. AIDS invigorated the community politically to fight not only for a medical response to the disease, but also for wider acceptance of homosexuality in mainstream America. During the early 1980s what was dubbed " New Music ", New wave , "New pop" popularized by MTV and associated with gender bending Second British Music Invasion stars such as Boy George and Annie Lennox became what
732-528: A disillusionment or disengagement with political figures and the government. Large protests were held in the country's most populated cities such as Sydney and Melbourne , one prominent march was held in Sydney in 1971 on George Street . The photographer Roger Scott , who captured the protest in front of the Queen Victoria Building , remarked: "I knew I could make a point with my camera. It
854-494: A low profile). Beyond style, there were changes in substance. The Beats tended to be essentially apolitical, but the hippies became actively engaged with the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. Among the emerging novelists of the 1960s and 1970s, a few were closely connected with Beat writers, most notably Ken Kesey ( One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ). Though they had no direct connection, other writers considered
976-454: A lower culture shows the influential connection between counterculture and the music produced. Although music may be considered base and counter culture, it may actually enjoy a lot of popularity which can be seen by the labelling of hip hop as a counterculture genre, despite it being one of the most commercially successful and high charting genres. Many of these artists though once being taboo, have been assimilated into culture and are no longer
1098-632: A media which was eager to present their concerns to a wider public. Demonstrations for social justice created far-reaching changes affecting many aspects of society. Hippies became the largest countercultural group in the United States. "The 60s were a leap in human consciousness . Mahatma Gandhi , Malcolm X , Martin Luther King , Che Guevara , Mother Teresa , they led a revolution of conscience. The Beatles , The Doors , Jimi Hendrix created revolution and evolution themes. The music
1220-405: A prevalent culture and a counterculture should coexist in an uneasy symbiosis, holding opposite positions on valuable issues that are essentially important to each of them. According to this theory, a counterculture can contribute a plethora of useful functions for the prevalent culture, such as "articulating the foundations between appropriate and inappropriate behavior and providing a safe haven for
1342-402: A sense to bridge generations. Philip Lamantia , Michael McClure , Philip Whalen , Ginsberg and Gary Snyder read on October 7, 1955, before 100 people (including Kerouac, up from Mexico City). Lamantia read poems of his late friend John Hoffman. At his first public reading, Ginsberg performed the just finished first part of Howl . It was a success and the evening led to many more readings by
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#17327905621661464-585: A source of moral panic since they do not cross overtly controversial topics or challenge staples of current culture. Instead of being a topic to fear, they have initiated subtle trends that other artists and sources of media may follow. Digital countercultures are online communities, and patterns of tech usage, that significantly deviate from mainstream culture. To understand the elements that shape digital countercultures, its best to start with Lingel's classifications of mainstream approaches to digital discourse: "[T]hat online activity relates to (dis)embodiment, that
1586-737: A vibrant queer nightlife. While utilizing social media platforms such as Facebook to post and record their cultural events, the drag community has noticed the large schism between its "queerer and more countercultural community of drag queens" and Facebook's claimed global community. This gap is further realized through Facebook's change in the policy from "real-name" to "authentic-name" in 2015 when hundreds of drag queens ' accounts were frozen and shut down because they had not registered with their legal names. Communities with "queerer culture" culture and "marginalized needs" continue to struggle to fulfill their social media needs while balancing their counterculture identity in today's social media landscape where
1708-610: A way that maintains some similarities from the Counterculture of the 1960s, but it is different as well. Photographer Steve Schapiro investigated and documented these contemporary hippie communities from 2012 to 2014. He traveled the country with his son, attending festival after festival. These findings were compiled in Schapiro's book Bliss: Transformational Festivals & the Neo Hippie. One of his most valued findings
1830-478: Is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society , sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores . A countercultural movement expresses the ethos and aspirations of a specific population during a well-defined era. When oppositional forces reach critical mass , countercultures can trigger dramatic cultural changes. Countercultures differ from subcultures . Prominent examples of countercultures in
1952-597: Is based on Gary Snyder. Kerouac was impressed with Snyder and they were close for several years. In the spring of 1955, they lived together in Snyder's cabin in Mill Valley, California . Most Beats were urbanites and they found Snyder almost exotic, with his rural background and wilderness experience, as well as his education in cultural anthropology and Oriental languages. Lawrence Ferlinghetti called him "the Thoreau of
2074-630: Is heavily influenced by the LGBT club scene. Starting in the late 1960s the counterculture movement spread quickly and pervasively from the US. Britain did not experience the intense social turmoil produced in America by the Vietnam War and racial tensions. Nevertheless, British youth readily identified with their American counterparts' desire to cast off the older generation's social mores. The new music
2196-520: Is meant to outright question the norms within cultures and even create change usually towards a more modern way of thought. More often than not, sources of these controversies can be found in art such as Marcel Duchamp whose piece Fountain was meant to be "a calculated attack on the most basic conventions of art" in 1917. Contentious artists like Banksy base most of their works off of mainstream media and culture to bring pieces that usually shock viewers into thinking about their piece in more detail and
2318-456: Is not brute savagery, but a healthy balance, a self-regulating system.". Snyder attributed wild to Buddhism and Daoism , the interests of some Beats. "Snyder's synthesis uses Buddhist thought to encourage American social activism, relying on both the concept of impermanence and the classically American imperative toward freedom." While many authors claim to be directly influenced by the Beats,
2440-493: Is often hyphenated as: Counter-Culture or Counter-culture. John Milton Yinger originated the term "contraculture" in his 1960 article in American Sociological Review . Yinger suggested the use of the term contraculture "wherever the normative system of a group contains, as a primary element, a theme of conflict with the values of the total society, where personality variables are directly involved in
2562-472: Is on online communication as placeless, asserting that the consequences of geographic distance are rendered null and void by the Internet. Lingel argues that this approach is technologically determinist in its assumption that the placelessness provided by access to technology can single-handedly remedy structural inequality . Moreover, Mark Graham states that the persistence of spatial metaphors in describing
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#17327905621662684-471: Is somewhat obsolete and a thing of the past for South Africans." In the same interview, Ninja describes that zef is a style of music and a style of subculture, comparing it to hip-hop in its role in society. In a featurette for Die Antwoord's role in the film Chappie , Ninja states that zef means "that you literally don't care what anyone else thinks of you; like, you represent yourself in your music, in how you dress, in how you think, how you speak." In 2013,
2806-543: Is that it gives the "tourist" a false impression that they understand the experiences and history of that identity, even if their Internet interactions are superficial. Moreover, it is especially harmful when used as a means to deceptively masquerade oneself to appeal to digital counterculture communities. However, especially for countercultures that are marginalized or demonized, experimentation can allow users to embrace an identity that they align with, but hide offline out of fear, and engage with that culture. The final approach
2928-565: Is usually considered to be common, but nowadays has credibility." The term also appears in Werner Herzog 's memoir Of Walking in Ice of 1978. The music group Die Antwoord self-identifies as "zef" in style. In a 2010 interview, Ninja of Die Antwoord responded to the controversy arising from his claim that zef represented South Africa. Critics suggested it might rather just represent (Afrikaans) white South Africa. He commented that "racism
3050-519: The American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from the official list of mental disorders . Although gay radicals used pressure to force the decision, Kaiser notes that this had been an issue of some debate for many years in the psychiatric community, and that one of the chief obstacles to normalizing homosexuality was that therapists were profiting from offering dubious, unproven "cures". The AIDS epidemic
3172-662: The Annenberg School for Communication , had conducted field research on examples of digital counterculture as part of her studies. In her book Digital Countercultures and the Struggle for Community , she focused on the Brooklyn Drag community and their battle for a Queerer Facebook to meet their specific needs of social media utilization. In the drag culture, there are many holiday and festivals such as Halloween, New Year's Eve, and Bushwig that they celebrate over
3294-729: The Harlem Renaissance ). There were also bars and bathhouses that catered to gay clientele and adopted warning procedures (similar to those used by Prohibition -era speakeasies ) to warn customers of police raids. But homosexuality was typically subsumed into bohemian culture, and was not a significant movement in itself. Eventually, a genuine gay culture began to take root, albeit very discreetly, with its own styles, attitudes and behaviors and industries began catering to this growing demographic group. For example, publishing houses cranked out pulp novels like The Velvet Underground that were targeted directly at gay people. By
3416-530: The Protestant Cemetery, Rome . Ginsberg mentions Shelley's poem Adonais at the beginning of his poem Kaddish , and cites it as a major influence on the composition of one of his most important poems. Michael McClure compared Ginsberg's Howl to Shelley's breakthrough poem Queen Mab . Ginsberg's main Romantic influence was William Blake , and studied him throughout his life. Blake
3538-699: The Vietnam War , and, less directly, the Cold War —with many young people fearing that America's nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union , coupled with its involvement in Vietnam, would lead to a nuclear holocaust . In the United States, widespread tensions developed in the 1960s in American society that tended to flow along generational lines regarding the Vietnam War , race relations , sexual mores , women's rights , traditional modes of authority, and
3660-528: The Western world include the Levellers (1645–1650), Bohemianism (1850–1910), the more fragmentary counterculture of the Beat Generation (1944–1964), and the globalized counterculture of the 1960s which consisted primarily of Hippies and Flower Children (ca. 1965–1975, peaking in 1967). Regarding this last group, when referring to themselves, counterculture will usually be capitalized and
3782-417: The binary , ethnic minorities, punk culture /fashion), their lived experiences build a subjectivity that carries over into their online interactions. As put by Shaka McGlotten : "[T]he fluidity and playfulness of cyberspace and the intimacies it was supposed to afford have been punctuated by corporeality." Arguments that the Internet is a platform for authenticity and experimentation highlight its role in
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3904-596: The counterculture of the 1960s , accompanied by a shift in terminology from " beatnik " to " hippie ". Many of the original Beats remained active participants, notably Allen Ginsberg, who became a fixture of the anti-war movement. Notably, however, Jack Kerouac broke with Ginsberg and criticized the 1960s politically radical protest movements as an excuse to be "spiteful". There were stylistic differences between beatniks and hippies—somber colors, dark sunglasses, and goatees gave way to colorful psychedelic clothing and long hair. The Beats were known for "playing it cool" (keeping
4026-407: The hippie and larger counterculture movements. Neal Cassady , as the driver for Ken Kesey 's bus Furthur , was the primary bridge between these two generations. Ginsberg's work also became an integral element of early 1960s hippie culture, in which he actively participated. The hippie culture was practiced primarily by older members of the following generation . Although Kerouac introduced
4148-657: The underground press . In the United States, this includes the work of Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton , and includes Mr. Natural ; Keep on Truckin' ; Fritz the Cat ; Fat Freddy's Cat ; Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers ; the album cover art for Cheap Thrills ; and in several countries contributions to International Times , The Village Voice , and Oz magazine . During the late 1960s and early 1970s, these comics and magazines were available for purchase in head shops along with items like beads, incense, cigarette papers, tie-dye clothing, Day-Glo posters, books, etc. During
4270-432: The "embrace of the vulgarity embodied by Zef" is in part an "outlet" for a post-apartheid "sense of shame". Other performers who have been identified as exponents of zef include Voëlvry leader Koos Kombuis , comic performers Corné and Twakkie ( Louw Venter and Rob van Vuuren ) of The Most Amazing Show , and the comedy group Zef Sketse, known for their 2006 TV series Kompleks . Counterculture A counterculture
4392-488: The "magic economy" of the 1960s gave way to the stagflation of the 1970s —the latter costing many in the middle-classes the luxury of being able to live outside conventional social institutions . The counterculture, however, continues to influence social movements , art, music, and society in general, and the post-1973 mainstream society has been in many ways a hybrid of the 1960s establishment and counterculture. The counterculture movement has been said to be rejuvenated in
4514-424: The "rise of zef culture" to be an expression of "Afrikaner self-parody" growing out of a sense of "national melancholia" in post-apartheid South Africa. They note similarities to earlier touchstones of South African culture such as the anti-apartheid Voëlvry Movement , the satirical magazine Bitterkomix , and the alternative rock band Fokofpolisiekar . Similarly, playwright/academic Anton Krueger has posited that
4636-549: The 1960s and 1970s as a derogatory term to refer to working class whites, including residents of caravan parks . It is a shortening of the name of the Ford Zephyr motorcar that was popular worldwide from the 1950s to the 1970s. In South Africa, these cars were often customized with enhanced engines, tires and wheels. Frikkie Lombard, editor of the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal , has explained zef as "something which
4758-639: The 1960s. Scholars differ in the characteristics and specificity they attribute to "counterculture". "Mainstream" culture is of course also difficult to define, and in some ways becomes identified and understood through contrast with counterculture. Counterculture might oppose mass culture (or "media culture"), or middle-class culture and values. Counterculture is sometimes conceptualized in terms of generational conflict and rejection of older or adult values. Counterculture may or may not be explicitly political. It typically involves criticism or rejection of currently powerful institutions, with accompanying hope for
4880-406: The 1970s—and continues today—is the lesbian land , landdyke movement, or womyn's land movement. Radical feminists inspired by the back-to-the-land initiative and migrated to rural areas to create communities that were often female-only and/or lesbian communes. "Free Spaces" are defined by Sociologist Francesca Polletta as "small-scale settings within a community or movement that are removed from
5002-584: The African-American community of the period and had developed out of the image "beat to his socks", but Kerouac appropriated the image and altered the meaning to include the connotations "upbeat", "beatific", and the musical association of being "on the beat", and "the Beat to keep" from the Beat Generation poem. The origins of the Beat Generation can be traced to Columbia University and
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5124-613: The Asian jungles. The " Ban the Bomb " protests centered around opposition to nuclear weaponry ; the campaign gave birth to what was to become the peace symbol of the 1960s. Although not exactly equivalent to the English definition, the term Контркультура ( Kontrkul'tura ) became common in Soviet Union ( Russian , Ukrainian underground and other) to define a 1990s cultural movement that promoted acting outside of cultural conventions:
5246-562: The Atlantic the 1950s " Beat Generation " had fused existentialist philosophy with jazz , poetry , literature , Eastern mysticism , and drugs —themes that were all sustained in the 1960s counterculture . In the United States, the counterculture of the 1960s became identified with the rejection of conventional social norms of the 1950s. Counterculture youth rejected the cultural standards of their parents, especially with respect to racial segregation and initial widespread support for
5368-609: The Beat Generation phenomenon itself has had an influence on American culture leading more broadly to the hippie movements of the 1960s. In 1982, Ginsberg published a summary of "the essential effects" of the Beat Generation: The term " beatnik " was coined by Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958, blending the name of the recent Russian satellite Sputnik and Beat Generation. This suggested that beatniks were (1) "far out of
5490-424: The Beat Generation, the presence of some black writers in this movement did contribute to the movement's progression. While many of the Beats briefly discussed issues of race and sexuality, they spoke from their perspectives—most being white. However, black people added a counterbalance to this; their work supplied readers with alternative views of occurrences in the world. Beats like the poet Robert "Bob" Kaufman and
5612-491: The Beat Generation." As documented in the conclusion of The Dharma Bums , Snyder moved to Japan in 1955, in large measure to intensively practice and study Zen Buddhism . He would spend most of the next 10 years there. Buddhism is one of the primary subjects of The Dharma Bums , and the book undoubtedly helped to popularize Buddhism in the West and remains one of Kerouac's most widely read books. The Beats also spent time in
5734-522: The Beat movement. The Beats were inspired by early American figures such as Henry David Thoreau , Ralph Waldo Emerson , Herman Melville and especially Walt Whitman , who is addressed as the subject of one of Ginsberg's most famous poems, " A Supermarket in California ". Edgar Allan Poe was occasionally acknowledged, and Ginsberg saw Emily Dickinson as having an influence on Beat poetry. The 1926 novel You Can't Win by outlaw author Jack Black
5856-515: The Beats to be a major influence, including Thomas Pynchon ( Gravity's Rainbow ) and Tom Robbins ( Even Cowgirls Get the Blues ). William S. Burroughs is considered a forefather of postmodern literature ; he also inspired the cyberpunk genre. One-time Beat writer LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka helped initiate the Black Arts movement. As there was a focus on live performance among
5978-419: The Beats were Guillaume Apollinaire , Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire . Gertrude Stein was the subject of a book-length study by Lew Welch . Admitted influences for Kerouac include Marcel Proust , Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe . Gary Snyder defined wild as "whose order has grown from within and is maintained by the force of consensus and custom rather than explicit legislation". "The wild
6100-410: The Beats, many Slam poets have claimed to be influenced by the Beats. Saul Williams , for example, cites Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and Bob Kaufman as major influences. The Postbeat Poets are direct descendants of the Beat Generation. Their association with or tutelage under Ginsberg at The Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and later at Brooklyn College stressed
6222-531: The Beats. Cultural critics have written about the transition of Beat culture in the Village into the Bohemian hippie culture of the 1960s. In 1960, a presidential election year, the Beats formed a political party, the "Beat Party," and held a mock nominating convention to announce a presidential candidate: the African-American street poet Big Brown , won a majority of votes on the first ballot but fell short of
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#17327905621666344-601: The Earth, and connection to nature is essential members of the Landdyke Movement's way of life. The watershed event in the American gay rights movement was the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City. Following this event, gays and lesbians began to adopt the militant protest tactics used by anti-war and black power radicals to confront anti-gay ideology. Another major turning point was the 1973 decision by
6466-626: The Family Stone and, in their early years, Chicago . New forms of musical presentation also played a key role in spreading the counterculture, with large outdoor rock festivals being the most noteworthy. The climactic live statement on this occurred from August 15–18, 1969, with the Woodstock Music Festival held in Bethel, New York —with 32 of rock 's and psychedelic rock 's most popular acts performing live outdoors during
6588-614: The Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks , concerning the murder. Beat Generation women who have been published include Edie Parker; Joyce Johnson ; Carolyn Cassady ; Hettie Jones ; Joanne Kyger ; Harriet Sohmers Zwerling ; Diane DiPrima ; Bonnie Bremser ; Lenore Kandel ; and Ruth Weiss , who also made films. Carolyn Cassady wrote her detailed account of life with her husband Neal Cassady which also included details about her affair with Jack Kerouac. She titled it Off
6710-420: The Internet is a platform for authenticity and experimentation, and that web-based interactions are placeless." The basis for online disembodiment is that, contrary to the corporeal nature of offline interactions, a user's physical being does not have any relevance to their online interactions. However, for users whose physical existence is marginalized or shaped by counterculture (ex: gender identities outside
6832-602: The Internet's societal impact creates "a dualistic offline/online worldview [that] can depoliticize and mask the very real and uneven power relationships between different groups of people." Subscribing to this perceived depoliticization prevents an understanding of digital countercultures. Socio-cultural, power hierarchies on the Internet shape the mainstream, and without these mainstreams as a point of comparison, there are no grounds to define digital counterculture. Marginalized communities often struggle to meet their needs on mainstream media . Jessa Lingel, an associate professor at
6954-490: The Jamaican middle class and is associated with the "bottom-end, low frequencies…basic lower frequencies and embodied resonances distinctly inferior to the higher notes" that appear in dancehall. According to Henriques, "base culture is bottom-up popular, street culture, generated by an urban underclass surviving almost entirely outside the formal economy". That the music is low frequency sonically and regarded as reflective of
7076-594: The Japanese concept of yūgen . Mr. and Mrs. Jones were associated with several Beats ( Jack Kerouac , Allen Ginsberg , and Gregory Corso ). That is, until the assassination of the Civil Rights leader, Malcolm X . During this time, LeRoi Jones branched off from the other Beat writers, including his wife, to find his identity among the African-American and Islamic communities. The change in his social setting along with awakening influenced his writing and brought about
7198-424: The Landdyke Movement are relationship with the land, liberation and transformation, living the politics, and bodily Freedoms. Most importantly, members of these communities seek to live outside of a patriarchal society that puts emphasis on "beauty ideals that discipline the female body, compulsive heterosexuality, competitiveness with other women, and dependence". Instead of adhering typical female gender roles ,
7320-461: The New York gay club scene of the early 1970s as a reaction to the stigmatization of gays and other outside groups such as blacks by the counterculture of that era. By later in the decade, disco was dominating the pop charts. The popular Village People and the critically acclaimed Sylvester had gay-themed lyrics and presentation. Another element of LGBT counter-culture that began in
7442-819: The Northern Pacific Northwest including Washington and Oregon. Kerouac wrote about sojourns to Washington's North Cascades in The Dharma Bums and On the Road . Reed College in Portland, Oregon was also a locale for some of the Beat poets. Gary Snyder studied anthropology there, Philip Whalen attended Reed, and Allen Ginsberg held multiple readings on the campus around 1955 and 1956. Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen were students in Reed's calligraphy class taught by Lloyd J. Reynolds . Burroughs
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#17327905621667564-439: The Road , and it was published in 1990. Poet Elise Cowen took her own life in 1963. Poet Anne Waldman was less influenced by the Beats than by Allen Ginsberg's later turn to Buddhism . Later, female poets emerged who claimed to be strongly influenced by the Beats, including Janine Pommy Vega in the 1960s, Patti Smith in the 1970s, and Hedwig Gorski in the 1980s. Although African Americans were not widely represented in
7686-653: The United States has been interpreted as lasting roughly from 1964 to 1972 —coincident with America's involvement in Vietnam—and reached its peak in August 1969 at the Woodstock Festival, New York, characterized in part by the film Easy Rider (1969). Unconventional or psychedelic dress ; political activism; public protests; campus uprisings; pacifist then loud, defiant music; recreational drugs ; communitarian experiments , and sexual liberation were hallmarks of
7808-455: The accident and left incriminating notebooks behind. He was given the option to plead insanity to avoid a jail term and was committed for 90 days to Bellevue Hospital , where he met Carl Solomon . Solomon was arguably more eccentric than psychotic. A fan of Antonin Artaud , he indulged in self-consciously "crazy" behavior, like throwing potato salad at a college lecturer on Dadaism . Solomon
7930-550: The artist Wally Hedrick to sit in the window dressed in full beard, turtleneck, and sandals, creating improvisational drawings and paintings. By 1958 tourists who came to San Francisco could take bus tours to view the North Beach Beat scene, prophetically anticipating similar tours of the Haight-Ashbury district ten years later. A variety of other small businesses also sprang up exploiting (and/or satirizing)
8052-415: The beatniks, or at least found the parodies humorous (Ginsberg, for example, appreciated the parody in the comic strip Pogo ) others criticized the beatniks as inauthentic poseurs . Jack Kerouac feared that the spiritual aspect of his message had been lost and that many were using the Beat Generation as an excuse to be senselessly wild. During the 1960s, aspects of the Beat movement metamorphosed into
8174-482: The counterculture included interest in astrology , the term " Age of Aquarius " and knowing people's astrological signs of the Zodiac . This led Theodore Roszak to state "A [ sic ] eclectic taste for mystic , occult , and magical phenomena has been a marked characteristic of our post-war youth culture since the days of the beatniks ." In the United States, even actor Charlton Heston contributed to
8296-500: The country's traditional moral order . Authorities banned the psychedelic drug LSD , restricted political gatherings, and tried to enforce bans on what they considered obscenity in books, music, theater, and other media. The counterculture has been argued to have diminished in the early 1970s, and some have attributed two reasons for this. First, it has been suggested that the most popular of its political goals— civil rights , civil liberties , gender equality , environmentalism , and
8418-518: The country, the Southern Hemisphere and the rest of the world. Bands such as The Master's Apprentices, The Pink Finks and Normie Rowe & The Playboys, along with Sydney's The Easybeats , Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and The Missing Links began to emerge in the 1960s. One of Australia's most noted literary voices of the counter-culture movement was Frank Moorhouse , whose collection of short stories, Futility and Other Animals ,
8540-496: The creation or enhancement of identities. This approach asserts that norms of non-virtual social life restrict users' ability to express themselves fully in person, but online interactions eliminate these barriers and allow them to identify in new ways. One means by which this exploration takes place is online "identity tourism," which allows users to appropriate an identity without any of the offline, corporeal risks associated with that identity. A critique of this form of experimentation
8662-525: The development and maintenance of the group's values, and wherever its norms can be understood only by reference to the relationships of the group to a surrounding dominant culture." Some scholars have attributed the counterculture to Theodore Roszak , author of The Making of a Counter Culture . It became prominent in the news media amid the social revolution that swept the Americas , Western Europe , Japan , Australia , and New Zealand during
8784-426: The development of innovative ideas". During the late 1960s, hippies became the largest and most visible countercultural group in the United States. According to Sheila Whiteley, "recent developments in sociological theory complicate and problematize theories developed in the 1960s, with digital technology, for example, providing an impetus for new understandings of counterculture". Andy Bennett writes that "despite
8906-501: The development of many of his most notable works, like Somebody Blew Up America , in which he reflected on the attacks of 9/11 and America's reaction to this incident about other occurrences in America. One of the key beliefs and practices of the Beat Generation was free love and sexual liberation, which strayed from the Christian ideals of American culture at the time. Some Beat writers were openly gay or bisexual, including two of
9028-473: The direct control of dominant groups, are voluntarily participated in, and generate the cultural challenge that precedes or accompanies political mobilization. Women came together in Free Spaces like music festivals, activist groups and collectives to share ideas with like-minded people and to explore the idea of the lesbian land movement. The movement is closely tied to eco-feminism . The four tenets of
9150-515: The early 1960s, openly gay political organizations such as the Mattachine Society were formally protesting abusive treatment toward gay people, challenging the entrenched idea that homosexuality was an aberrant condition, and calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality. Despite very limited sympathy, American society began at least to acknowledge the existence of a sizable population of gays. Disco music in large part rose out of
9272-408: The emotions they felt toward jazz. They used their pieces to discuss feelings, people, and objects they associate with jazz music, as well as life experiences that reminded them of this style of music. Kaufman's pieces listed above "were intended to be freely improvisational when read with Jazz accompaniment" (Charters 327). He and other writers found inspiration in this genre and allowed it to help fuel
9394-624: The end of 1954 and began writing Howl . Lawrence Ferlinghetti , of the new City Lights Bookstore , started to publish the City Lights Pocket Poets Series in 1955. Kenneth Rexroth 's apartment became a Friday night literary salon (Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos Williams , an old friend of Rexroth, had given him an introductory letter). When asked by Wally Hedrick To organize the Six Gallery reading , Ginsberg wanted Rexroth to serve as master of ceremonies, in
9516-467: The end of the Vietnam War —were "accomplished" (to at least some degree); and also that its most popular social attributes—particularly a " live and let live " mentality in personal lifestyles (including, but not limited to the " sexual revolution ")—were co-opted by mainstream society. Second, a decline of idealism and hedonism occurred as many notable counterculture figures died, the rest settled into mainstream society and started their own families, and
9638-552: The entire generation of that era was derived from a rock festival: the 'Woodstock Generation'." Songs, movies, TV shows, and other entertainment media with socially-conscious themes—some allegorical, some literal—became very numerous and popular in the 1960s. Counterculture-specific sentiments expressed in song lyrics and popular sayings of the period included things such as "do your own thing", " turn on, tune in, drop out ", "whatever turns you on", " eight miles high ", " sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll ", and " light my fire ". Spiritually,
9760-564: The eventual nomination. The Associated Press reported, "Big Brown's lead startled the convention. Big, as the husky African American is called by his friends, wasn't the favorite son of any delegation, but he had one tactic that earned him votes. In a chatterbox convention, only once did he speak at length, and that was to read his poetry." Ginsberg had visited Neal and Carolyn Cassady in San Jose, California in 1954 and moved to San Francisco in August. He fell in love with Peter Orlovsky at
9882-442: The exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism , explicit portrayals of the human condition , experimentation with psychedelic drugs , and sexual liberation and exploration. Allen Ginsberg 's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs ' Naked Lunch (1959), and Jack Kerouac 's On the Road (1957) are among the best-known examples of Beat literature. Both Howl and Naked Lunch were
10004-519: The focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States. The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists , who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity. The core group of Beat Generation authors— Herbert Huncke , Ginsberg, Burroughs, Lucien Carr , and Kerouac—met in 1944 in and around the Columbia University campus in New York City. Later, in
10126-501: The former, the deaths of such iconic figures as Brian Jones , Jimi Hendrix , Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin , the nihilistic mayhem at Altamont , and the shadowy figure of Charles Manson cast a darker light on its underlying agenda, one that reminds us that 'pathological issues [are] still very much at large in today's world". The counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s generated its own unique brand of notable literature, including comics and cartoons, and sometimes referred to as
10248-476: The internet is largely monopolized by several big technology firms. Gay liberation (considered a precursor of various modern LGBT social movements ) was known for its links to the counterculture of the time (e.g. groups like the Radical Faeries ), and for the gay liberationists' intent to transform or abolish fundamental institutions of society such as gender and the nuclear family ; in general,
10370-560: The late 1960s and early 1970s, some of these shops selling hippie items also became cafés where hippies could hang out, chat, smoke cannabis , read books, etc., e.g. Gandalf's Garden in the King's Road , London, which also published a magazine of the same name. Another such hippie/anarchist bookshop was Mushroom Books, tucked away in the Lace Market area of Nottingham . Some genres tend to challenge societies with their content that
10492-531: The mainstream of society" and (2) "possibly pro-Communist." Caen's term stuck and became the popular label associated with a new stereotype—the man with a goatee and beret reciting nonsensical poetry and playing bongo drums while free-spirited women wearing black leotards dance. An early example of the "beatnik stereotype" occurred in Vesuvio's (a bar in North Beach , San Francisco) which employed
10614-493: The meeting of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Carr, Hal Chase and others. Kerouac attended Columbia on a football scholarship. Though the beats are usually regarded as anti-academic, many of their ideas were formed in response to professors like Lionel Trilling and Mark Van Doren . Classmates Carr and Ginsberg discussed the need for a "New Vision" (a term borrowed from W. B. Yeats ), to counteract what they perceived as their teachers' conservative, formalistic literary ideals. Ginsberg
10736-567: The mid-1950s, the central figures, except Burroughs and Carr, ended up together in San Francisco, where they met and became friends of figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance . In the 1950s, a Beatnik subculture formed around the literary movement, although this was often viewed critically by major authors of the Beat movement. In the 1960s, elements of the expanding Beat movement were incorporated into
10858-676: The most prominent (Ginsberg and Burroughs ). However, the first novel does show Cassady as frankly promiscuous. Kerouac's novels feature an interracial love affair ( The Subterraneans ), and group sex ( The Dharma Bums ). The relationships among men in Kerouac's novels are predominately homosocial . The original members of the Beat Generation used several different drugs, including alcohol, marijuana , benzedrine , morphine , and later psychedelic drugs such as peyote , Ayahuasca , and LSD . They often approached drugs experimentally, initially being unfamiliar with their effects. Their drug use
10980-479: The movement, with the statement "Don't trust anyone over thirty" (a saying coined in 1965 by activist Jack Weinberg ) in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes ; the same year, actress and social activist Jane Fonda starred in the sexually-themed Barbarella . Both actors opposed the Vietnam War during its duration, and Fonda would eventually become controversially active in the peace movement . The counterculture in
11102-551: The new craze. In 1959, Fred McDarrah started a "Rent-a-Beatnik" service in New York, taking out ads in The Village Voice and sending Ted Joans and friends out on calls to read poetry. "Beatniks" appeared in many cartoons, movies, and TV shows of the time, perhaps the most famous being the character Maynard G. Krebs in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959–1963). While some of the original Beats embraced
11224-403: The now locally famous Six Gallery poets. It was also a marker of the beginning of the Beat movement since the 1956 publication of Howl ( City Lights Pocket Poets , no. 4), and its obscenity trial in 1957 brought it to nationwide attention. The Six Gallery reading informs the second chapter of Kerouac's 1958 novel The Dharma Bums , whose chief protagonist is "Japhy Ryder", a character who
11346-469: The phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948 to characterize a perceived underground, anti-conformist youth movement in New York, fellow poet Herbert Huncke is credited with first using the word "beat". The name arose in a conversation with writer John Clellon Holmes . Kerouac allows that it was Huncke, a street hustler, who originally used the phrase "beat", in an earlier discussion with him. The adjective "beat" could colloquially mean "tired" or "beaten down" within
11468-567: The politics were radical, anti-racist , and anti-capitalist in nature. In order to achieve such liberation, consciousness raising and direct action were employed. At the outset of the 20th century, homosexual acts were punishable offenses in these countries. The prevailing public attitude was that homosexuality was a moral failing that should be punished, as exemplified by Oscar Wilde 's 1895 trial and imprisonment for "gross indecency". But even then, there were dissenting views. Sigmund Freud publicly expressed his opinion that homosexuality
11590-466: The quality of existing works led to parody, such as how the Russian anecdotal joke tradition turned the setting of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy into a grotesque world of sexual excess. Another well-known example is black humor (mostly in the form of short poems) that dealt exclusively with funny deaths and/or other mishaps of small, innocent children. Beat Generation The Beat Generation
11712-403: The sixties counterculture—most of whose members were young, White, and middle class . In the United States, the movement divided the population. To some Americans, these attributes reflected American ideals of free speech , social equality , world peace , and the pursuit of happiness ; to others, they reflected a self-indulgent, pointlessly rebellious, unpatriotic, and destructive assault on
11834-458: The sometimes rainy weekend to an audience of half a million people. ( Michael Lang stated 400,000 attended, half of which did not have a ticket.) It is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history—with Rolling Stone calling it one of the 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll . According to Bill Mankin, "It seems fitting… that one of the most enduring labels for
11956-548: The status quo and those not. Since many minority groups are already considered countercultural, the music they create and produce may reflect their sociopolitical realities and their musical culture may be adopted as a social expression of their counterculture. This is reflected in dancehall with the concept of base frequencies and base culture in Julian Henriques 's "Sonic diaspora", where he expounds that "base denotes crude, debased, unrefined, vulgar, and even animal" for
12078-493: The themes behind them. A great example can be found in Dismaland , the biggest project of " anarchism " to be organised and exhibited which showcases multiple works such as an "iconic Disney princess's horse-drawn pumpkin carriage, [appearing] to re-enact the death of Princess Diana ". Counterculture is very much evident in music particularly on the basis of the separation of genres into those considered acceptable and within
12200-447: The theoretical arguments that can be raised against the sociological value of counterculture as a meaningful term for categorising social action, like subculture , the term lives on as a concept in social and cultural theory … [to] become part of a received, mediated memory". However, "this involved not simply the utopian but also the dystopian and that while festivals such as those held at Monterey and Woodstock might appear to embrace
12322-595: The use of explicit language; graphical descriptions of sex, violence and illicit activities; and uncopyrighted use of "safe" characters involved in such activities. During the early 1970s, the Soviet government rigidly promoted optimism in Russian culture. Divorce and alcohol abuse were viewed as taboo by the media. However, Russian society grew weary of the gap between real life and the creative world, and underground culture became "forbidden fruit". General satisfaction with
12444-466: The weapon. Carr turned himself in the following morning and later pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Kerouac was charged as an accessory, and Burroughs as a material witness, but neither were prosecuted. Kerouac wrote about this incident twice in his works: once in his first novel, The Town and the City , and again in one of his last, Vanity of Duluoz . He wrote a collaboration novel with Burroughs, And
12566-462: The women of Landdyke communities value "self-sufficiency, bodily strength, autonomy from men and patriarchal systems, and the development of lesbian-centered community". Members of the Landdyke movement enjoy bodily freedoms that have been deemed unacceptable in the modern Western world—such as the freedom to expose their breasts, or to go without any clothing at all. An awareness of their impact on
12688-619: The writer LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) provide through their work distinctly Black perspectives on the movement. Kaufman wrote about a number of his experiences with the racist institutions of the time. Following his time in the military, he had trouble with police officers and the criminal justice system. Like many of the Beats, Kaufman was also a fan of jazz and incorporated it into his work to describe relationships with others. LeRoi Jones ( Amiri Baraka ) married Beat writer, Hettie Cohen, who became Hettie Jones , in 1958. Together with Diane di Prima , they worked to develop Yūgen magazine, named for
12810-427: Was "assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development". According to Charles Kaiser's The Gay Metropolis , there were already semi-public gay-themed gatherings by the mid-1930s in the United States (such as the annual drag balls held during
12932-507: Was a big part of the scene in the Village, as was Burroughs, who lived at 69 Bedford Street. Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and other poets frequented many bars in the area, including the San Remo Cafe at 93 MacDougal Street on the northwest corner of Bleecker, Chumley's , and Minetta Tavern . Jackson Pollock , Willem de Kooning , Franz Kline , and other abstract expressionists were also frequent visitors of and collaborators with
13054-400: Was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generationers in the 1950s , better known as Beatniks . The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest,
13176-610: Was a powerful weapon. Rock music, which had first been introduced from the US in the 1950s, became a key instrument in the social uprisings of the young generation and Britain soon became a groundswell of musical talent thanks to groups like the Beatles , Rolling Stones , the Who , Pink Floyd , and more in coming years. The antiwar movement in Britain closely collaborated with their American counterparts, supporting peasant insurgents in
13298-481: Was arrested in 1949. The police attempted to stop Jack Melody (a.k.a. "little Jack") while he was driving a car in Queens with Priscella Arminger (alias, Vickie Russell or "Detroit Redhead") and Allen Ginsberg in the back seat. The car was filled with stolen items Little Jack planned to fence. Jack Melody crashed while trying to flee, rolled the car and the three of them escaped on foot. Allen Ginsberg lost his glasses in
13420-408: Was broadly inspired by intellectual interest, and many Beat writers thought that their drug experiences enhanced creativity, insight, or productivity. The use of drugs was a key influence on many of the social events of the time that were personal to the Beat generation. Gregory Corso considered English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley a hero, and he was buried at the foot of Shelley's grave in
13542-419: Was cited as having a strong influence on Burroughs. In many ways, Surrealism was still considered a vital movement in the 1950s. Carl Solomon introduced the work of French author Antonin Artaud to Ginsberg, and the poetry of André Breton had direct influence on Ginsberg's poem Kaddish . Rexroth, Ferlinghetti, John Ashbery and Ron Padgett translated French poetry. Second-generation Beat Ted Joans
13664-546: Was described by Newsweek at the time as an alternate mainstream to the traditional masculine/heterosexual rock music in the United States. In 2003, the United States Supreme Court officially declared all sodomy laws unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas . Bill Osgerby argues that: the counterculture's various strands developed from earlier artistic and political movements. On both sides of
13786-428: Was exciting. The old conservative world was ending and a new Australia was beginning. The demonstration was almost silent. The atmosphere was electric. The protesters were committed to making their presence felt … It was clear they wanted to show the government that they were mighty unhappy". Political upheaval made its way into art in the country: film, music and literature were shaped by the ongoing changes both within
13908-566: Was first published in Sydney 1969. Its "discontinuous narrative" was said to reflect the "ambience of the counter-culture". Helen Garner 's Monkey Grip (1977), released eight years later, is considered a classic example of the contemporary Australian novel, and captured the thriving countercultural movement in Melbourne's inner-city in the mid 1970s, specifically open relationships and recreational drug use. Years later, Garner revealed it
14030-570: Was given shock treatments at Bellevue; this became one of the main themes of Ginsberg's "Howl", which was dedicated to Solomon. Solomon later became the publishing contact who agreed to publish Burroughs' first novel, Junkie , in 1953. Beat writers and artists flocked to Greenwich Village in New York City in the late 1950s because of low rent and the "small town" element of the scene. Folksongs, readings and discussions often took place in Washington Square Park . Allen Ginsberg
14152-773: Was initially an unexpected blow to the movement, especially in North America. There was speculation that the disease would permanently drive gay life underground. Ironically, the tables were turned. Many of the early victims of the disease had been openly gay only within the confines of insular "gay ghettos" such as New York City's Greenwich Village and San Francisco's Castro ; they remained closeted in their professional lives and to their families. Many heterosexuals who thought they did not know any gay people were confronted by friends and loved ones dying of "the gay plague" (which soon began to infect heterosexual people also). LGBT communities were increasingly seen not only as victims of
14274-635: Was introduced to the group by David Kammerer . Carr had befriended Ginsberg and introduced him to Kammerer and Burroughs. Carr also knew Kerouac's girlfriend Edie Parker , through whom Burroughs met Kerouac in 1944. On August 13, 1944, Carr killed Kammerer with a Boy Scout knife in Riverside Park in what he claimed later was self-defense. He dumped the body in the Hudson River , later seeking advice from Burroughs, who suggested he turn himself in. He then went to Kerouac, who helped him dispose of
14396-697: Was like Dalí , with many colors and revolutionary ways. The youth of today must go there to find themselves." — Carlos Santana Rejection of mainstream culture was best embodied in the new genres of psychedelic rock music, pop art , and new explorations in spirituality . Musicians who exemplified this era in the United Kingdom and United States included The Beatles , John Lennon , Neil Young , Bob Dylan , The Grateful Dead , Jefferson Airplane , Jimi Hendrix , The Doors , Frank Zappa , The Rolling Stones , Velvet Underground , Janis Joplin , The Who , Joni Mitchell , The Kinks , Sly and
14518-591: Was named "the only Afro-American Surrealist" by Breton. Philip Lamantia introduced Surrealist poetry to the original Beats. The poetry of Gregory Corso and Bob Kaufman shows the influence of Surrealist poetry with its dream-like images and its random juxtaposition of dissociated images, and this influence can also be seen in more subtle ways in Ginsberg's poetry. As the legend goes, when meeting French Surrealist Marcel Duchamp , Ginsberg kissed his shoe and Corso cut off his tie. Other influential French poets for
14640-478: Was strongly autobiographical and based on her own diaries. Additionally, from the 1960s, surf culture took rise in Australia given the abundance of beaches in the country, and this was reflected in art, from bands such as The Atlantics and novels like Puberty Blues as well as the film of the same name . As delineations of gender and sexuality have been dismantled, counter-culture in contemporary Melbourne
14762-468: Was that these "Neo Hippies" experience and encourage such a spiritual commitment to the community. Australia's countercultural trend followed the one burgeoning in the US, and to a lesser extent than the one in Great Britain. Political scandals in the country, such as the disappearance of Harold Holt , and the 1975 constitutional crisis , as well as Australia's involvement in Vietnam War , led to
14884-456: Was the subject of Ginsberg's self-defining auditory hallucination and revelation in 1948. Romantic poet John Keats was also cited as an influence. Writers of the Beat Generation were heavily influenced by jazz artists like Billie Holiday and the stories told through Jazz music. Writers like Jack Kerouac ( On the Road ), Bob Kaufman ("Round About Midnight," "Jazz Chick," and "O-Jazz-O"), and Frank O'Hara ("The Day Lady Died") incorporated
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