Beatniks: A Step Out of Society

[@iket.9930]

My mother (who was nearly 40 years old in the mid-50's) was enthralled by the Beats, much to dismay of my father. I will give the Beats credit for being educated and intelligent, something the later hippies most definitely weren't. I grew up around 1950's Jazz musicians and the Beats kept them working.

[@DieWacht]

The Hippies were the kids seeing their older siblings/their environment grow up and being influenced by what they saw. You can't blame them. Beatnicks were intellectuals "recruited" their like-minded people at the universities and there was a deeper sense in beatnick culture. The hippies were a mass movement, every highschool dropout became a hippie. They just wanted to surf the wave. Indeed it was a wonderful tine for them and it surely felt right being part of it, at the beginning. The difference is, the beatnicks were rather product of selection. Hippie could be everyone, they were Beatnicks with less intellectual influence and with lots more drugs. Just young people who wanted to try out the alternative ways of living, but both movements founded on a similar base, the protest culture. I hope you can understand what I mean, english isn't my native tongue.

[@jebsmith323]

I'm adding this to my Creative Writing high school course. Good job!

[@leadbellymidnightangel]

@Cheryl McBryde allen ginsberg, jack kerouac, william burroughs, neal cassady, anything surrounding them and their writing

[@leadbellymidnightangel]

Cheryl McBryde and some influences on their poetry are mainly from jazz culture and Jack Kerouac and them were really big on Charlie Parker. Jack wrote his poetry to sound like jazz at a lot of times, one of his renowned poem books (Mexico City blues) shows it well. A poet who influenced them much that came long before them writing jazz like poetry they say was Rimbaud

[@lastrada52]

Too bad you did that since this is so inaccurate it's embarrassing. Read my comment above about some of the errors. They didn't even mention Neal Cassady. Left a lot of facts out. Used a fictitious Hollywood movie as an example. Read about the Beats on your own & forget these homemade documentaries.

[@lauriebarboza6112]

Thank you!! The best coverage on this subject, as well as compilation. I had to sift through tons of chipmunk and robot narration, along with horrible visual quality to find this. Perfect for adding to my son's history studies! Once again, THANK YOU!

[@timothyearly7727]

Beatniks were so cool. They were before Hippies and drugs. Mostly coffee, wine, dark clothing, slacking and non materialistic. Very cool! We need more Beatniks today.

[@leadbellymidnightangel]

as welll as a lot of alcohol and Benzedrine

[@rev.jimjonesandthekool-aid4488]

They smoked pot and took acid.

[@MikeGreenwood51]

Before drugs? LOL.

[@ralfgroh2719]

Beatniks evolved into hippies and there was plenty of drugs(just saying).

[@thirdpigeon2676]

They’re around they just wear different clothes 😏

[@maureencora1]

Beatniks Were Like, Cool & Logical. You Dig? (smile)

[@timothyearly7727]

Imagine an America that 95% of the men were veterans. Heavily indoctrinated with military regiment. Many of them experienced the bloodbath of battle and remembered the names of fellow soldiers that died. These were tough men. They won that war with guts and muscle. The Beatniks were younger and were saying they did not want to live such hard lives. Who would.

[@donniedotzler7387]

I never considered WWII was a win for any nation or people. Worst of all it solidified the US government as terrorists disguised as angels. Tragic.

[@yourmother2739]

The founders of the original Beat generation were veterans of WW!! who were horrified by the bombing of Japan.

[@RockNRollSurf]

Funny and ironic how the first song sounds like Rock and Roll but with bongos instead of guitars

[@jagobouffler6206]

It’s crazy to think how to Beat Generation were the Big Bang of culture, every subculture and culture defining moment from then on was a ripple effect with beat culture the cause. Also it’s cool thinking about how the soldiers were away, fighting for freedom, and when returned, enforced their idea of freedom and idealistic society upon their youth. A youth who had their own hopes and ideas of what this freedom would be. This resulting in the rebellion, the youth turning to idolise the Beat Generation and ultimately become beatniks

[@MikeGreenwood51]

No-I don't think so. Your view seems as unstraight as the junky infestion junk yards of Beatland. So how if a few forlorn teenages runawys and artists embrace junk are or art that rejects conformity does those few represent The Youth. The Youth of the USA did not rebell or revolt. San fransisco was not the entire USA and nor are the criminal drug junkies the representitives of the entire nation. In all states in the USA through out the fifties & sixties the nations elections were won by democratic process base on the majority votes and not one state became a Beatnik state. Therefore the entire youth (The Youth) showed their vote by those they returned to office or elected. It may be you think or relate to as you wrote 'The Rebellion'. But there was not 'The Rebellion' but some rebellion my a minority fringe dissident group. A long way from being the majoority.

[@tripspud]

Ken Nordine died recently definitely a 'beat' poet, got to see him in San Francisco on a rare visit, the Dead were there and everything @ Bimbo's Club in North Beach....

[@ralphmilano8918]

the beats never died, just evolved into the hippie generation!

[@iket.9930]

No, totally different people and values. I'm old enough to have personally experienced both.

[@timothyearly7727]

Beatniks! Pot? The Hippies were the pot smokers. They were more into jazz, not rock and roll. Coffee, wine, leisure and off beat clothes were their big things. They were not hot rodders. Hot rodders were competitors. More into the meaning of life stuff. By today’s standards they were only mildly different. The main thing is, they did not want to TOIL in a factory. It was 1950s America. Real adult men were ex military. Combat military! Buttoned up. That was the background they contrasted against.

[@MikeNelson-s4o]

Pot! Oh yes. Pot was around in the fifties! And the beats certainly partook in it. I know this, because I have relatives who were beatniks. And they told me a lot.

[@MarlinWilliams-ts5ul]

The cities and towns look like they were in good shape then. Unlike now.

[@Savadorason1]

-Notice how the beatnik girl saying her poem 'Tomorrow Drags', that nearly all of her words came true?

[@iket.9930]

That's Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester) at the piano behind her.

[@myradioon]

Total Dragsville.

[@TheZsazu]

might want to fix the audio

[@allencrider]

RIP Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Feb 22, 2021.

[@luislaplume8261]

You mean Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan. I am a New Yorker.

[@jeanmarieLillymar]

just wow

I liked beatniks, but didn't hippies. I'm 63, so I was a bit too young for the "Hippie Era" of the '66-'69 era. I remember the beats though of the late 50's and early 60's, as they did get some media coverage, and had been stereotyped in film. Anyway, I think it was much harder to be a beat in the late 40's and 50's than it was to be a hippie. In California lots of surfers were 'beat' and so were motorcycle riders. Getting that conformist job just wasn't the thing to do. It was all about having fun and living life to the fullest. Can you blame some of those who survived WW2 and Korea? Famous line by Cliff Robertson in the Gidget movie when the Gidget figures out he's a surf bum: "I tried that, but no one asked me when I wanted to fly."

[@timothyearly7727]

I was 20 years old in 1968. The “Summer of Love”. I did not see much love in 1968. It was a nasty time and America was coming apart at the seems. The Beatniks were much cooler. In their time there was not nasty war and drugs were not prevalent. Drugs were a Hippie thing. Mostly coffee, wine, dark clothing, slacking and non materialistic. Very cool! We need more Beatniks today.

[@RovingReader]

Great info but audio is poor

[@sharongriffiths4796]

Was this somebody's high school or freshman college sociology project? Ick.

[@captlarry-3525]

When you post the classic Beatnik Exploitation Schmo... Maynard G. Krebs.... you really touch on Beat Exploitation... at its heart.. a grand tradition of Bull Shit.. being carried on here.

[@redjupiter2]

All perspectives must always be analyzed and their relative position understood in order for history to be accurately told to future observers. To ignore any of the ripple effects of anything that humanity has done in the past makes all studies after that omission, incorrect and non sequitur.

[@ZanyJIntPictures]

This is like "endsville" man...

[@luislaplume8261]

The Bohemian were from the 1940s.

[@CaptGage]

Pretty beat poet. It's ironic that the beat sounds like Peggy Sue.

[@jazzguy1927]

I remember the Beat Generation of the 1950’s and the beatniks who read Kerouac and listened to the cool jazz of Chet Baker. I was just a little kid in the 1950’s but I learned to stay away from teenage beatniks. Beatniks were mean sadistic violent teenagers who liked to hide and beat me up and knock me and other little kids down on the sidewalk. They were a bunch of cowards when 5 teenage beatniks had to beat up a little 8 year old boy to get their kicks. And these beatniks all worshipped Kerouac books so whenever I saw one of his books in a library or bookstore I tore out the pages and defaced his books as much as I could when no one was looking. It made me feel good to do this to the books of the beatniks god, Kerouac. The beatniks also liked the cool jazz of Chet Baker snd whenever I saw one of his records in a record store I would slash the record with a knife when no one was watching. The beatniks hated me and made fun of me because I liked early jazz as a kid and bought 78’s by Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke in a Salvation Army store. The teenage beatniks would wait for me walking home with my jazz 78’s and grab them from me and break them on the sidewalk then beat me up. I have hated Jack Kerouac and his mean sadistic violent followers my whole life. They are cowards who get their kicks beating up little kids like I was in the 1950’s. I just wish that as an adult I could have run into the god of these sadistic mean violent beatniks, Kerouac just once.

[@yourmother2739]

You made that up.

[@jazzguy1927]

@@yourmother2739 NO I didn’t. Just proves to me your insensitivity by saying this.

[@yourmother2739]

@@jazzguy1927 They were not beats then dear.

[@littleghostfilms3012]

I don't believe for a second that anybody who read Kerouac or listened to Chet Baker would go around in a gang and beat up an 8 year old. If any of that is true, it certainly wasn't beatniks who did that. It sounds like some kind of alternate history you have invented for yourself.

[@littleghostfilms3012]

@@yourmother2739 It sounds like what an old lady would call a bunch of hooligans who were causing trouble in a neighborhood. "Those beatniks were knocking over trash cans and slashing tires again last night!!"

[@nikjaric5442]

jesus just watch roger cormans film a bucket of blood

[@MikeNelson-s4o]

The hippies were an off shoot of the beats. Their values and tastes were different, but both wanted change! A counterculture. Really even the punk rock time was the same thing. But the beats started it, poetry, and especially music, think bob dylan.

[@SandfordSmythe]

Hippies have their own origin.

[@lucystrauss2989]

The Beats & Existentials… Mainstream called them Beatniks. They hated the term “Beatnik”!

[@swengeer]

Beatnik was derived from sputnik and was considered an insult by the Beats. The Beat Era ended in 1950.

[@MrRatherino]

Great! My child sneers "I hate the Sixties!" Why?\ :You got~\ everything~"

[@phylliselizahb1041]

Conformity is expensive. Especially now. However, cliquish nonconformity costs $ too. Be aware of both. Your only value is buying merchandise from niche interests.

[@gwugluud]

A Beat who hates rock & roll like my square grandparents did; what a poseuy, moronic song, lmao. The Beats happened prior to r n r’s emergence from the fringe underground and becoming a mainstream thing, and quarternoteswise, their thing was jazz, but I have my doubts that many Beats would or could have been averse to rock & roll. I know the scene with the chick spouting words was likely written by cigar-chomping suits, but for being a spoof, it wasn’t half bad. I identify more as a Beat than as a punk, and along with Sun Ra, Coltrane, and jazz which is actually progressive, I dig 1st-wave punk, mid 60s garage rock, and smits of whatever else which masturbates my id. The Beats would have found plenty to dig with the 70s phase of The Fall, Throbbing Gristle, The Desperate Bicycles, etc. Cheersville from dragsville Brownwood, TX.

[@michaelquinones-lx6ks]

Precursor to the Hippies of the mid to late 1960's

[@SandfordSmythe]

Hippies had their own origin.

[@lastrada52]

First of all, we know that your documentary is a nice effort but totally inaccurate. The real Beat Generation people hated the term beatnik. The Beatnik reference was created by Madison Avenue advertising & TV (Dobie Gillis & the character that was a Beatnik Maynard G Krebs -- played by Bob Denver). Using that term dilutes the entire Beat Generation movement. Reducing it to a joke. You should've started by defining that misconception. You keep using the term in your documentary like it's an accepted term. It's not. You show pictures with Steve McQueen and Anthony Quinn -- none were Beat Generation people. They were actors. You didn't even mention Neal Casady. He was Dean Moriarity in "On the Road" -- a pivotal character in the Beat Generation movement. Ginsberg's mother was also schizophrenic -- you left that out. She was committed for years. The Beat Generation were basically American gypsies. Nothing new. That "cool woman in a white top" reciting poetry was actually Vampira as she looked in real life. In the background over her shoulder is a bald-headed piano man -- he was Jackie Coogan. The little boy in the Charlie Chaplin movie "The Kid," & later Uncle Fester in "The Addams Family." No Beat Generation relation whatsoever. These clips came from a "beatnik" Hollywood movie called "The Beat Generation" in 1959 that featured no one who was of the Beat Generation. The film was an exaggeration & actually about a rapist. The movie was a failure & an embarrassment. If you're going to make a viable Beat Generation documentary using this as an example it's BS. By the way, John Clellon Holmes wrote "Go!" years before "On the Road," & that's considered actually the first Beat Generation novel. "On the Road," was rejected 11 times before a publisher was found. Jack Kerouac was also a Republican and somewhat a Conservative compared to Ginsberg. Many people didn't know this. The Hippies were a bigger movement but there are few influential hippie authors. The Beats had far more literate contributions. One other thing...Beats like Jack Kerouac listened to jazz to motivate his writing but jazz had little to do with The Beats. They couldn't care less about those vagabonds. Jazz had its own poets & writers. The majority were actually part of The Lost Generation. Black poet Langston Hughes wrote jazz poems long before the Beats & far better.

[@mervmartin2112]

The term beatnik was coined by Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle to suggest that the beats were communist.

[@lastrada52]

@@mervmartin2112 - True. But Madison Avenue ran with it for advertising & marketing & even applied it to shows like Dobie Gillis. It was a disrespectful dig at hipsters & the Beat Generation by calling these people "beatniks." From what I remember many of the true Beat writers hated the term.

[@mervmartin2112]

@@lastrada52 Absolutely! And don't forget it was the era of McCarthyism. A Commie behind every bush!" So Madison Avenue picked "beatnik" up real quick. It fit their agenda. You're absolutely right, it wasn't appreciated by the Beat Generation. BTW term "Beat Generation" was coined by Kerouac.

[@rev.jimjonesandthekool-aid4488]

What a bra!

[@GeraldM_inNC]

"How to be a beatnik" kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4jNg5qwe8p4lZo

[@jamesdeschenes8307]

A little bit skewed in the research.

[@bohsgerry]

9.37 Def not Beatniks-greasers/hepcats-rockabillies!!!

[@estebansteverincon7117]

Get a better microphone, man!

[@willardjones8546]

I am surprised nobody in the comments pointed out Kerouac was in the Navy, not the Marines. Get your facts right.

[@jerrycruitt5375]

Sophomoric claptrap.

[@johnbroadway4196]

Hey, like yeah, it's A Drag that society has still the same Hang ups. Man.

[@marknewton6984]

Social media today.. Ugh!😮

[@b.deville3236]

Ohhh, that's so kool, man. Until that pesky little thing called "making a living" gets in the way. Some beats straightened out, got jobs, and made real lives for themselves. The others wound up dead or on skid row.

[@yourmother2739]

Many worked at jobs and kept on writing.

[@BarbaraPineda-v9p]

These individ... 're a s... new yorker, residences, and others new comers 'em too it's tooked many yrs, too kept trying too gets riches or middle classed, standard not many did'nt gets there's regarded they's kept trying so harder, also they's wanted individ... too auditions too sees if thats good. Bur allen gburg, throughts he's will be a richest individ... but did'nt be comes so successful, middle, classes- standard not millions individ... did'nt agree abouts this books titles howls, he's wrotes it's and chatted abouts lifes s... out here's this globaliz... also it's harsh reali... defintion means, cast systems, the individ... don't wanted too heard yours situationals eithers if many individ... did'nt commits crimes, and theys now a felonies, a criminals. For evers also allen gburg.... sharing abouts he's also has s... for many yrs, and he's wrotes this downs on whites papers, and types it's ... on a old types writers. And he's chatted abouts it's poetry clubs, out there's n... parks also i had read fews of his poems it's makes sense, lifes it's a s... if susseful or not it's still a s... out there's

[@iket.9930]

Ginsburg was a creep. I had a run-in with him in the early 70's. He was rude, obnoxious and stunk like a rotting dumpster in the hot sun. We had mutual friends at that time.

[@TheAyeAye1]

They led bad lives. They produced bad art.

[@scronx]

Consider this stuff progress, do you?

[@yourmother2739]

It was a relief from the stagnation of the fifties era.

[@scronx]

@@yourmother2739 Like killing a headache with a hammer.

[@yourmother2739]

Absolutely.

[@scronx]

@@yourmother2739 Is that how you cure headaches?

[@pheddupp]

In retrospect the Beatnik and Hippie movements were all about celebrating mediocrity and blandness. The movers and shakers of those movements were as talented as scrub brush, but my how people praised them and inflated their egos just to appear hip themselves. Their music and "poetry" were as lame and unoriginal as modern-day Hip-Hop trash.

[@SandfordSmythe]

Trollsville, man