Hip Hop Hap Hup Hep

I have often wondered where the hippies got their moniker.

Did they wear their jeans low on their hips? Or was it because the earth mothers carried their babies on their hips?

No, according to Wiki, they got their name from the original hipsters, the beatniks as immortalised in Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’.

Go figure, modern day hipsters 2.0 aren’t much like hippies, nor were the original beatnik hipsters.

However the people in all three groups are (or were) remarkably keen on making sure that they fit into their genre.

In fact, little effort is/was spared by all of them to create the impression that no effort was made to fit in.

The hippies are the only party of three that try to create the impression that they are happy all the time (man). So maybe the term ‘hippy’ is a concatenation of ‘hip’ and ‘happy’.

The original hipsters were a grumpy lot, epitomised by their love of the blues.

The latter day fashion-driven gen Y hipsters seem neither happy nor grumpy; more bemused, combined with a feigned unawareness of their environment.

The real mystery according to Wiki is where the term ‘hip’ originated. It was first noted to be in use in the pre-war black jazz movement in the US. However various hypotheses as to its origin have no hard evidence in support.

So it remains a mystery.

Hip hop, by the way, is a term whose origin is entirely unrelated to the ‘hip’ of the black American jazz movement. Wiki tells the story and it’s quite banal and not worth retelling here.

And, finally, since the hipsters have now had a second coming maybe the next big thing will be hippies 2.0 as propagated by the millennials.

Just think, urban pseudo-hippies wearing nice sunglasses employed as your local baristas. Coffee will always be served cold.

You heard it first here.