“WHO WERE THE BEATNIKS”

After the publication of Jack Kerouac‘s “The Road”, journalist Herb Caen invented the term Beatnik to parody the Beat generation and its followers.

Although Beat writers rejected the term, it was spread by the media, applying it to a youth stereotype. These were distinguished by the way they dressed and were associated with a rather negative attitude. Gradually the term spread like wildfire, both to the youth stereotype and to the artists of the Beat generation. The Beats and the Beatniks merged in the second half of the sixties, immersed in the countercultural movements.

While the term Beat, in local American slang, referred to culture and literature, Beatnik was used to stereotype Beat culture as it appeared in comic book characters.

Beat thought was countercultural, anti-materialist, anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian, in short, anti-system. The important thing was to improve one’s interiority beyond material possessions and the rules imposed by the system. They placed great importance on sexual freedom and drugs as a means of inner exploration.

Some Beat writers focused their attention on Eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Taoism. This was the case with Kaufman.

Politically, they tended to be center-left democrats or social democrats, supporting causes such as the anti-racist struggles of those years.

In art they adopted an open attitude towards African-American culture, something that was very noticeable in jazz and rock and roll.

During this period of time it became fashionable among American students to adopt the Beatnik “style” , with the generalized use of the “chiva” beard, beret, horizontally striped shirt, black glasses, turtleneck sweater, rolling tobacco and playing the bongo.

The women wore black tights, tights or tight pants up to half a leg, black glasses, shirts knotted at the chest, large sweaters, shoes without heels (or barefoot) and long hair, in a show of rebellion against the standards of the media that established that women should treat their hair to have it permanently arranged.

A special slang also emerged among the Beatniks, characterized by the use of lighthearted terms and expressions, many of which have persisted, such as “cool man”, “daddy-o” to address others, “rad”, “cool”, etc. daddy-o” for addressing others, “rad”, etc. The beatnik man was referred to as a “beatnik cat”, a “cat”.

Both the movement Beat as fashion and stereotype BeatnikIn the 1960s, they spread during the first half of the 1960s to almost disappear in the second half, largely replaced by other countercultural movements, which were also the object of stereotypes and simplifications in the media and a specific fashion.

The Beatnik stereotype gave rise to a certain tendency of suspicion and persecution against the cultural manifestations of young people, which ended up extending to the youth itself.