The Beat Generation and the Modern Hipster

An Essay by Arielle Martin

The search for identity and the fight for freedom from the mainstream defined the 1950’s Beat generation and travelled from that era and landed itself in the centre of the hipster ideology, manifesting itself in today’s American youth. The movement began in 1948 with a group of friends, a small social circle of post World War II writers and poets, clad in black with thick, dark rimmed glasses, and a defiant position against mainstream American society. It took one man to put a name to their doctrine, their new way of life after the war, and suddenly a movement was born. Jack Kerouac deemed himself, and his friends, the Beat Generation.[1] For Kerouac and his friends at Columbia University in New York, where it began, the term ‘beat’ was riddled with contradiction. It represented social marginalization, yet it was a blessing. It defined a group of ‘beaten down’ people, yet it represented enthusiasm and an idealized means of being.[2] It labeled a generation coming out of a war and The Great Depression, who liberated themselves sexually and spiritually[3]. The meaning of the word ‘beat’ may be obscure, but to those involved it evoked a true clarity. It represented individual rawness and weariness of “being undramatically pushed up against the wall of oneself.”[4] Kerouac and his friends became the inspiration, and the creators, of a movement that would sweep mid 20^th century America, through literature that opposed censorship, formalities, and took risks[5].  It became a rejection of middle-class values, a rejection of the purposelessness that American modern society had become after the war, and the realization that they could forge their own path. Through the writings and documentations primarily by Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, a cultural and literary legacy was left behind.[6]

The Beats, or Beatniks, represented undeniable individuality and spontaneity. Jack Kerouac and his Beatniks opposed the ideas of conformity and collectivity, having been born into the collective conditions of a depression and raised amidst the collectivity of a global war. Seemingly lost in a new world of consumerism and submission to materialistic values, this postwar generation of the 1950’s stood in opposition to the culture that tried to consume them. However, beneath their anti-conformity, their informal literary style, and beyond their conscious opposition, is a pursuit; a pursuit of new values, a quest for identity and placement in a world of disorientation, and a search for ecstasy in the dreary world that Jack Kerouac, his peers and friends, and the post-war writers and poets in New York City, were raised into.[7] The typical World War II veteran came home after the war, got married, and blindly bought into the mainstream American dream. The Beats did not. Since they saw themselves as having nothing to loose, the Beats sought a kind of freedom that could not be bought. It was a freedom that Kerouac and Cassady found on America’s highways as they travelled them aimlessly throughout the 1950’s. They hunted new territories and fought for a new kind of lifestyle. To the conformists of American culture, the Beats were a wild and threatening group of individuals, yet amongst it all, they were inspiring.[8]

The Beat generation became an inspiration to later generations of youth throughout the second half of the 20^th century in America. Today, another group of people, a modern Beatnik has arisen– the hipster. In an undeniable search for ‘cool’, the hipster’s today possess the same anti-conformist, anti-consumer ideals of the aging Beatniks. They are a counter-culture possessing a state of mind that values independent thinking and an appreciation for creativity. They are the pioneers of new trends in fashion and music, and the leaders of rejection and rebellion towards the mainstream consumers. For the Beatniks and the contemporary hipster, life was unsteady and unpredictable. According to George Cotkin, “the Beat or Hipster was open to experimentation and lived, or sought to live, for the intrinsic fullness of each moment”.[9] However, the hipsters today are similarly defined by a contradiction the way the definitions of ‘beat’ were. The hipster, in his or her quest for resistance to mainstream, actually ends up conforming to the doctrine of an ever-growing materialistic subculture, which ends up forming its own society on the edges of the mainstream.

The Beatniks were a group of creative geniuses. The written word became a tool for them to define themselves as free and independent, such as Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’, a documentation of his road trips through America with Neal Cassady. Today, one- liner twitter updates and short form statuses on our social media portals has replaced the value of the written word. Western society condenses and accelerates the human interaction. The experience of the Beatniks was about close friends coming together to utilize literature and poetry to express their new, spontaneous way of life. Today, modern hipsters operate in a cyber space as opposed to the physical social space of the past. The modern hipster and the Beatniks of the 1950’s may praise the same principles regarding identity and separation from the mainstream, but their tools for spreading their values have drastically changed. The hipster’s today have the power of the Internet. However, this in fact may end up challenging them instead of helping. As the Internet praises connectivity and worldwide accessibility, the subculture of hipsterism is now becoming mainstream due to the masses that can participate. The Beats were a smaller, identifiable group of individuals with a clear motive. Today, the hipster philosophy has the ability to span much greater territory, and dips dangerously into the mainstream culture they try to avoid.

The Beatniks, social media, and hipsterism are all reminiscent of the concept of identity. Their means may overlap, but they also stand in contrast. The value and use of the written word may be compromised by today’s youth, something that was praised during the reign of the Beat generation. Regardless, the Beat legacy lives on, as it survives in its modern adaptation—the hipster.

Works Cited

Cotkin, George. "The Photographer in the Beat-Hipster Idiom: Robert Frank's The Americans." American Studies (Mid-America American Studies Association) 26 (1985): 19-33.

Holmes, John C. "This Is The Beat Generation." New York Times Magazine. November 16, 1952. http://faculty.mansfield.edu/julrich/holmes.htm (accessed January 25, 2012).

Kerouac, Jack. Beat Generation. Oneworld Classics Ltd. Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005.

Matterson, Stephen. Mid-1950's-1960's Beat Generation. Educational Broadcasting Corporation. New York, March 2007.

Newhouse, Thomas. The Beat Generation and the Popular Novel in the United States, 1945-1970 . Jefferson: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2000.

Parkins, Keith. Beat Generation. 2005. http://www.heureka.clara.net/art/beat-generation.htm (accessed January 23, 2012).

---

[1] Keith Parkins, Beat Generation, 2005, http://www.heureka.clara.net/art/beat-generation.htm (accessed January 23, 2012).

[2]  Stephen Matterson, Mid-1950's-1960's Beat Generation, Educational Broadcasting Corporation (New York, March 2007).

[3]  Thomas Newhouse, The Beat Generation and the Popular Novel in the United States, 1945-1970 (Jefferson: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2000).

[4]  John C. Holmes, "This Is The Beat Generation," New York Times Magazine, November 16, 1952, http://faculty.mansfield.edu/julrich/holmes.htm (accessed January 25, 2012).

[5]  Thomas Newhouse, The Beat Generation and the Popular Novel in the United States, 1945-1970 (Jefferson: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2000).

[6] Keith Parkins, Beat Generation, 2005, http://www.heureka.clara.net/art/beat-generation.htm (accessed January 23, 2012).

[7]  John C. Holmes, "This Is The Beat Generation," New York Times Magazine, November 16, 1952, http://faculty.mansfield.edu/julrich/holmes.htm (accessed January 25, 2012).

[8] Jack Kerouac, Beat Generation, Oneworld Classics Ltd (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005).

[9] George Cotkin, "The Photographer in the Beat-Hipster Idiom: Robert Frank's The Americans," American Studies (Mid-America American Studies Association) 26 (1985): 19-33.