Hippies

[Bengalzona]

(06-19-2018, 10:06 AM)Dill Wrote: Nailed it. From even before Goldwater, fringe right wingers were complaining of government/media liberal bias, especially the Fairness Doctrine, even when we had a conservative press. But it was Edith Efron's 1971 book The News Twisters that finally got mainstream--and corporate--attention. I doubt it would have, had not the Pentagon Papers and the general Vietnam crisis disillusioned people with government.  Worried about the anti war protests and spread of counter cultural values, Super Rich folks started funding right wing journalists and media outlets. Pols like Nixon turned to Roger Ailes to manage television PR.

The Right suffered a heavy blow when Nixon was exposed. It was hard to undermine liberal media sources when both party leaders seemed to lie, and it was the "liberal" media who exposed both while the minimal right wing media had protected Nixon to the last. (Current commentators have wondered if Nixon would have been impeached had Fox existed back then.) Evangelicals turned to born again Carter in the next Election, only to be disappointed in liberal, pro-choice Christianity. But the moment of Reagan, Atwater (of the Southern Strategy) and Ailes was just around the corner.

One of the signal achievements of Ailes et al. was to make something called "the left" a constant referent in news discussions.  Most of America being centrist liberal, "the left" had previously referred to the a sliver of the electorate: Communists, Democratic socialists, the core of the civil rights movement, and the New Left of the counter-culture--not "real" Americans.  Now it referred to virtually all media and politics outside what had formerly been the fringe right. Mike Dukakis, Bill and Hillary, and Obama became LEFTISTS.  Now we frequently hear commentators ask what does "the left" have to say about issue X?  The fringe right standard became mainstream, normalized, as Fox made a whole new generation comfortable with this usage.

One thing that changed before the media changed was the marketing. Madison Avenue took a group which was generally a bunch of grungy social outcasts in the early 60's and turned them into a chic and popular style statement. They replaced the drab grunge-hobo look of actual hippies with bright, kaleidoscopic colors and psychedelic lettering to hock merchandise to a fascinated public. This kind of makes sense in the ad world, which has always straddled the line between artsy-fartsy and cold-hard capitalism. This change had been going on in the fashion and music industries earlier in the mid-60's. But Madison Avenue brought it to living rooms and waiting rooms across America.

Interestingly enough, it was never how the original hippies looked and dressed.

This is a picture from Haight Ashbury Street in 1967 (that's George Harrison with the guitar):


Here is the Madison Avenue version in 1968:


So, what made Madison Avenue move in this direction and retool a bunch of social outcast hobos? The answer is pretty simple. What always changes and drives fashions? Women, of course.