What it means to be an American hippie.

What does it mean to be an American hippie? My friends and peers call students on campus "hippies" sometimes, yet I haven't pinpointed what it means to be a hippie in the United States. I feel as though we Andover students use the terminology to cover anyone who cares about the Earth or who feels slightly different about the college process. These are the two applications of the word that I hear most often. The original hippies were the teenage Civil Rights fighters in the 1960s. The hippie culture that extends from those original hippies seems to have changed. The media's portrayal of hippies is especially interesting as they so often have to over-exaggerate the different characteristics in order to portray the hippie message. That's the thing with being a hippie, so many people embody part of the spirit. There are people on campus who care about the environment and who didn't get caught up in the college madness, instead choosing to go to a state school or a "random" school somewhere in the middle of nowhere, who don't get called hippies. The people who get called hippies are the ones that look as if they care about the environment or tell their friends to recycle or look/act like "slackers." It seems some of this typecasting has come from the media's portrayal of hippies, which has permeated many popular teenage-oriented television shows. A lot of people don't use "hippie," as a derogatory term. It's often used on campus as a loving way of acknowledging a person's crunchiness or differences, but I'm still interested in studying why we are so eager to typecast people as hippies and where the stereotypes come from.

Above is a video featuring Che, the half-nudist, guitar-playing hippie who was in the last season of The O.C (he's the one wearing the red, green, and yellow striped hat). Che is eager to save the world, knowledgeable on some issues, and often clueless, but he's completely lovable. Interestingly, most hippies on modern television shows are completely nice. They are always kind and welcoming and never do they show their angry or mean sides. Che's garb is especially important, as it sets him far apart from the preppy and artsy kids that surround him on the O.C.

The new show 90210 has also worked to capitalize on hippie stereotypes. They've developed a character named Richard who acts and looks a lot like Che, but whose picture is apparently non-existent in Google Images. Richard is a really nice guy who one of the main characters on the show, Naomi, uses in order to try to get into college. He never yells at her even though she stomps on his heart in her thousand dollar high heels, and he graciously accepts that she has moved on to his jock roommate within minutes of ending things with him. Ivy (below) is another "hippie," on 90210. She dresses in floaty cotton/linen clothes, an has a mother who dates rock stars, dresses in floor length cloth dresses, and smokes weed constantly. Ivy doesn't "style" her hair like the other girls on the show, she surfs and hangs out on the beach. She isn't a great student, but is super "chill."

Without using stereotypes it could be hard for the creators of television shows such as these to capture the attention of teens and give them characters that they can relate to. The hippie stereotypes shown on television bother me excessively because a key part of the hippie lifestyle is missing from these portrayals. The hippies of the sixties seemed to have actually affected change. They were dirty because they were protesting wrongdoings by our country's people and government, not because they didn't want to shower or hated soap. They weren't a bunch of high school kids whose only mission is to surf and sit around and not care about school. Sure, I bet there were a bunch of people in 60s who capitalized on the acceptance of such practices as not bathing and skipping out on work and school without fighting for a cause or doing much of anything, but in general the real hippies changed the way our lives are lived today. Without protesters many Civil Rights bills would have gone ignored. Teens who flooded to Woodstock opened doors for the independence we teenagers experience today. They literally ran away from home for a music festival, and defied the standard that teens stay in the house until college or marriage and generally don't stray from the home. The real hippies of these times seem so much more noble than the versions of hippies on television and the people we describe with hippie terminology. My friends call me their hippie friend because I try to recycle and take short showers, yet compared to the teens of the sixties I am the most spoiled, preppy, "unchill," and least capable of changing the world, person on the planet. Here I am griping about a time period filled with people I neither experienced nor knew, but it bothers me to see a term that used to describe young activists being thrown around so generously, coupled with stereotypes that are often inaccurate.

A final little tidbit about the "ways to be a hippie," courtesy of Youtube.