Why not giving up your subculture, when adolescence is over?

Hi everyone, I would like to know how you all think of being a hippie. Do you think of it as a subculture? If you do, please tell me why you or someone you know did not gave up on his/her/your subculture onces you were over 18.
You could really help me just by telling your story...

 

Hi Mr. Interviewer!! First off I would like to say I love being a Hippie. For me, being a Hippie isnt a subculture its a way of life that happens to fit the way I am. This wearing "Hippie cloths " and and looking like a "hippie" isnt true Hippie. What makes you a Hippie is whats in your heart and spirit. Just because we dont feel the need to have nice or namebrand clothes doesnt mean we are trying to start a style for ourselves.

well my story- Ive been a tender hearted Hippie from the time I took my first breath. Highschool was when I first started questioning myself and apperence "Like Most young adults". I cut my hair, shaved and started thinking that the way I was treated was the way to treat others if I was ever going to get anywhere, trying to conform to society. Strangely enough my world fliped upside down after doing so. I didnt feel like the same person. That went on for a few years as I put my beliefs on the backburner. I came to see that I cant help who I am so here I am now....Just me.

ps sorry I had to rush and finish this, so you might not make anything out of it.

 

People do not consider themselves following any subculture, one follows young dreams into an open country where dreams become their reality.In other words we continue because we were and are RIGHT! Take a breath of this filthy air or a drink of this chemical soup called water and you too can see that the "hippies" were and are right.

 

If you choose to be a hippie to be part of a subculture, you have missed the point. It may have been a subculture, but that is irrelevant. It is not a fad. People were (and are) hippies because they are. If you could give up being a hippie just because you turned 18, you probably never were one to begin with.

As tanasi said, why would you give up being right just because you turned 18? If it was right to begin with , it remains right now. Hippie values endure because they were and still are right and wholesome.

 

welll put the both of you...better than I could have put it

 

imo i think it is a subculture. i dont think this forum would look the same if there wasn't a kind of comformity to feel comfortable with and associate/relate with. labels aren't bad, its the generalizations that are.
people are individuals definitely but labels should be used in a way to approximate a style for description, for example: "he has a kind of hippie-ish style to him" instead of saying "he's probably a hippie". the labels should be universally understood and used to point in a general direction. a lot of people say hippies are pure thinkers, but i see purity of thought as quality of thought instead of a characteristic or label.

i think people change cuz of those stresses we can't really escape which root mainly from the monetary system imo.

 

Subculture? I think the Establishment is the SUBculture, and we have stepped out of their slime, and broken the shackles that held us down. We are Hippies, the new and improved Homo Sapiens - and damned proud of it!

 

Well said. You were confused and at a crossroads, not a hippie. Thank you for trying our lifestyle, not ridiculing us (as so often happens); but it clearly wasn't for you, so please do not call yourself a hippie anymore.

 

Thank you all for the lovely replies!!
But I have to ask this: don't you think something changes when you turn 18? You're out of school, you're an adult. Doesn't that change anything about you being a hippie?

 

Bravo, well said.

 

Of course being an adult changes things. You have to work out a way to support yourself in some way, you may have children, etc. But being a hippie is not a subculture, if you really understood what it was all about, it's a lifestyle, a life choice. For me, it's a moral and ethical decision. Yes, when I had two babies to look after I couldn't party all night and drop acid every day. But I grew my own vegetables, baked bread, educated my children, taught myself to make clothes..... Sometimes I had to take on boring office jobs for a while to make ends meet, but we all have to do things we don't like at some time, even hippies! Both of my kids grew up to be hippies, and they now have kids of their own. In my family, we are now on third generation hippies.....that's no teenage subculture.
My generation looked at the world around us and knew we could find a better way to live. And why would you ever want to give that up?

 

Your question suggests that you think of hippiedom as "kid stuff" that sensible people outgrow when they become adults. Maybe for some, it is, but not for all.

Yes, things change when you become an adult. For me, what changed was that I stopped being a square and became a hippie. Realizing where my true values lay was one of the most adult things I have ever done.

 

I think it'd make me more of a hippie (im 16) I don't have to listen to my dad then, I can do what I want, and live the way I want to.

 

I don't think I could ever not be a hippie.

My mom could never make me wear shoes, I've wanted to do acid since I was eight, and pot is a comfort smell that reminds me of my childhood.

A lot of subcultures are a passing phase of adolescents trying to find a place in the world. I won't argue that I'm above that, because I'm not-- hippiedom is one of the hats I wear when dealing with others. But it's much more of a part of me than some subcultures are for others. I'm not gonna suddenly relinquish my tie-dye and get a desk job.

 

I may grow old, but I'll never grow up.

 

There are a lot of sub/counter/alternative cultures. I think the one thought of as hippie is really people coalescing around a very loose and wide perspective and style that started back then and has survived into the present. If you're into it, I suppose that makes you hippie. When people refer to me as an old (I'm 56) hippie, I ask them to define hippie because I don't know what it means. I make it clear I'm playing a little game, the point being to think before you slap a label on anybody.
If we look under the hippie umbrella, thre is great diversity, with some things in common, and many not. Men, women, religious, atheist,straight, gay, users, non- and former users, people who have some liberal, some conservative, some progressive views in various mix, all sorts of folk. But some things in common, too. That's community, and that's beautiful.

So why give it up?

 

I turned 18 in 1964 before people started using the word hippie. When the word came into common use it seemed to describe me better than any other label. The awareness that there were lots of people whom held values like mine was great. It gave me an avenue of inquiry to flesh out feelings that had been growing on their own.

As others have said, Hippy isn't a subculture for lots of us, it's just a descriptor word that covered many of us. As I grew even more past 18 I realized that the label hippy wasn't adequate to cover near all of who I was. It worked well for me though because it described as much of me as I was willing to share to the general public.

Does that make sense?

 

"As others have said, Hippy isn't a subculture for lots of us, it's just a descriptor word that covered many of us."

Very well said