Hipster, Beatnik, Hippie, and right back around to Hipster. Hip, cool, groovy, dope, deck. The terms used and names given to each generation’s “it” crowd seems to be as ingrained in history as they are in the present, but who were these groups and how did their slang come about? And how is it that we’ve had two generations of hipsters?
The 1940 Hipster
The original hipsters were so named because of their awareness and openness to a certain attitude toward life. In fact, the words “hep” and “hip” are both derivations of the African word hepi—meaning to open one’s eyes. Early jazz musicians used the word “hep” for anyone in the know, especially with regard to the black world of jazz; the musicians and their fans were known as “hepcats.” In the 1940s, when modern jazz began replacing Swing, the term “hep” had morphed into “hip,” leading to the new name for musicians and their fans—“hipsters.” A group of ultra cool jazz aficionados ablaze in their devotion for and knowledge of the art chose to espouse the relaxed lifestyle of the jazz musicians, calling themselves Hipsters as well.
This group of jazz aficionados grew and was particularly attractive to the lower class white youth, a lot of whom were frequenting African-American communities in search of alternative dance and music. It was within these urban black communities that youth looked for their fashion cues, attitudes, drug use, and language. The language or slang used amongst this group appears to be of the utmost importance in defining their belief system. According to Marty Jezer, in his book The Dark Ages: Life in the U.S. 1945–1960, this limited and obscure “Hipster” language was perfect in a world that defied definition. The world of the commonplace was a world of untruth and therefore unworthy of words. Contrast this to the world of music, which was considered worthy and trustworthy. And with music there is no need for words. The world of the Hipster was so illusory that sentences were started with that word that drives modern parents crazy, such as “like.” “It’s like totally cool, man.” As if to say, maybe it’s cool, maybe it’s not; whatever you like, man. I’m not here to define your world.
Hipsters were looking for the meaning of life and they wanted to have that meaning now. They did not think in the current and divisive terms of the “free world” and “Communist bloc.” The only division was the hip and the square. The Squares believed in obtaining security through traditional methods of job, family, politics, and common social etiquette. The Hip world was one that ran together, melding the bohemian, the juvenile delinquent, and the Negro—a melting pot seeking consciousness.
Beatniks
There is definitive distinction between Jack Kerouac’s original term “Beat Generation” and “Beatnik.” Just to be clear, the Beat Generation—which did appear to give distorted rise to the “Beatnik”—was a term Kerouac devised in 1948 to describe his personal social circle, a group of New York underground anti-conformists. Kerouac’s Beat Generation was, to him, a group of blessed (beatified) and downtrodden (beaten-down) people. This group may have been downtrodden, but they were not completely down and out. They were blessed with ardent personal conviction and represented an anti-materialistic literary movement. The Beats exposed themselves to the absorption of culture through music, poetry, literature, and bumming with self-imposed poverty across America. Marijuana and other drugs didn’t hurt either.
