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Beatnik was derived from sputnik and was considered an insult by the Beats. The Beat Era ended in 1950.

The cities and towns look like they were in good shape then. Unlike now.

A little bit skewed in the research.

A Beat who hates rock & roll like my square grandparents did; what a poseuy, moronic song, lmao. The Beats happened prior to r n r’s emergence from the fringe underground and becoming a mainstream thing, and quarternoteswise, their thing was jazz, but I have my doubts that many Beats would or could have been averse to rock & roll. I know the scene with the chick spouting words was likely written by cigar-chomping suits, but for being a spoof, it wasn’t half bad. I identify more as a Beat than as a punk, and along with Sun Ra, Coltrane, and jazz which is actually progressive, I dig 1st-wave punk, mid 60s garage rock, and smits of whatever else which masturbates my id. The Beats would have found plenty to dig with the 70s phase of The Fall, Throbbing Gristle, The Desperate Bicycles, etc. Cheersville from dragsville Brownwood, TX.

My mother (who was nearly 40 years old in the mid-50's) was enthralled by the Beats, much to dismay of my father. I will give the Beats credit for being educated and intelligent, something the later hippies most definitely weren't. I grew up around 1950's Jazz musicians and the Beats kept them working.

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The Beats & Existentials… Mainstream called them Beatniks. They hated the term “Beatnik”!

The beat generation was a movement by a woman that was William S Burroughs his wife that he murdered....

Precursor to the Hippies of the mid to late 1960's

Great info but audio is poor

-Notice how the beatnik girl saying her poem 'Tomorrow Drags', that nearly all of her words came true?

In retrospect the Beatnik and Hippie movements were all about celebrating mediocrity and blandness. The movers and shakers of those movements were as talented as scrub brush, but my how people praised them and inflated their egos just to appear hip themselves. Their music and "poetry" were as lame and unoriginal as modern-day Hip-Hop trash.

Conformity is expensive. Especially now. However, cliquish nonconformity costs $ too. Be aware of both. Your only value is buying merchandise from niche interests.

Hey, like yeah, it's A Drag that society has still the same Hang ups. Man.

Sophomoric claptrap.

They led bad lives. They produced bad art.

First of all, we know that your documentary is a nice effort but totally inaccurate. The real Beat Generation people hated the term beatnik. The Beatnik reference was created by Madison Avenue advertising & TV (Dobie Gillis & the character that was a Beatnik Maynard G Krebs -- played by Bob Denver). Using that term dilutes the entire Beat Generation movement. Reducing it to a joke. You should've started by defining that misconception. You keep using the term in your documentary like it's an accepted term. It's not. You show pictures with Steve McQueen and Anthony Quinn -- none were Beat Generation people. They were actors. You didn't even mention Neal Casady. He was Dean Moriarity in "On the Road" -- a pivotal character in the Beat Generation movement. Ginsberg's mother was also schizophrenic -- you left that out. She was committed for years. The Beat Generation were basically American gypsies. Nothing new. That "cool woman in a white top" reciting poetry was actually Vampira as she looked in real life. In the background over her shoulder is a bald-headed piano man -- he was Jackie Coogan. The little boy in the Charlie Chaplin movie "The Kid," & later Uncle Fester in "The Addams Family." No Beat Generation relation whatsoever. These clips came from a "beatnik" Hollywood movie called "The Beat Generation" in 1959 that featured no one who was of the Beat Generation. The film was an exaggeration & actually about a rapist. The movie was a failure & an embarrassment. If you're going to make a viable Beat Generation documentary using this as an example it's BS. By the way, John Clellon Holmes wrote "Go!" years before "On the Road," & that's considered actually the first Beat Generation novel. "On the Road," was rejected 11 times before a publisher was found. Jack Kerouac was also a Republican and somewhat a Conservative compared to Ginsberg. Many people didn't know this. The Hippies were a bigger movement but there are few influential hippie authors. The Beats had far more literate contributions. One other thing...Beats like Jack Kerouac listened to jazz to motivate his writing but jazz had little to do with The Beats. They couldn't care less about those vagabonds. Jazz had its own poets & writers. The majority were actually part of The Lost Generation. Black poet Langston Hughes wrote jazz poems long before the Beats & far better.

Beatniks Were Like, Cool & Logical. You Dig? (smile)

Your interpretation of the Beat Movement is very good. thank you.

I am surprised nobody in the comments pointed out Kerouac was in the Navy, not the Marines. Get your facts right.

the beats never died, just evolved into the hippie generation!

@this video maker.. Your video is full of lies and inaccuracies. Ive better things to do so I, ll be brief as I can. Where to begin?!!.. Obviously you hav,nt read this years edition of the history books. It's been updated to accomadate and tally with last years history books rewrite. It's a mess. Firstly the citizens didnt right the rules of what was acceptable behavior. The powers that be did that and then brain-washed the people vía the media in all it's lying forms. Which is the same as what you do. The people dont and never did believe what you say they did. Only you believe your own twisted slant on society. Society does not buy disinformation except for the odd nut. Like I said, you never got your history update and your so called facts are laughable to anyone with a good memory. I think you have abused enough of my time. Have a nice day as they say in your neck of the jungle and if you cant be honest at least be nice about it.Finally, you dont get more conformist or brain-washed than this little video.. As for Communism I believe the closest Beatniks or Hippies got to communism was sharing a joint. . Sounds fairly harmless to me. Not my cup of tea but there you go.. Not these days anyway.

Laurence Ferlinghetti one of them.

Nice work. The term beatniks was a slur on the beat generation. As one of those I like your video.

Women beat poets were rare because during that time frame women were often "put away" if they so called "acted out". Very sexist time.

Still beat.

I remember the Beat Generation of the 1950’s and the beatniks who read Kerouac and listened to the cool jazz of Chet Baker. I was just a little kid in the 1950’s but I learned to stay away from teenage beatniks. Beatniks were mean sadistic violent teenagers who liked to hide and beat me up and knock me and other little kids down on the sidewalk. They were a bunch of cowards when 5 teenage beatniks had to beat up a little 8 year old boy to get their kicks. And these beatniks all worshipped Kerouac books so whenever I saw one of his books in a library or bookstore I tore out the pages and defaced his books as much as I could when no one was looking. It made me feel good to do this to the books of the beatniks god, Kerouac. The beatniks also liked the cool jazz of Chet Baker snd whenever I saw one of his records in a record store I would slash the record with a knife when no one was watching. The beatniks hated me and made fun of me because I liked early jazz as a kid and bought 78’s by Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke in a Salvation Army store. The teenage beatniks would wait for me walking home with my jazz 78’s and grab them from me and break them on the sidewalk then beat me up. I have hated Jack Kerouac and his mean sadistic violent followers my whole life. They are cowards who get their kicks beating up little kids like I was in the 1950’s. I just wish that as an adult I could have run into the god of these sadistic mean violent beatniks, Kerouac just once.

Vegan felines recruiting high profile future 15minute faders to make badges and patchwork culture sew itself like seeds in the wind. Tumbleweeds remain. Find the Tumbleweed by the big Gong. You will not regret the quest. Ride along your life fantasy Princess 🙃

Many of the vanguard were materially comfortable scions and beneficiaries of a strong post-war economy unlike their immediate forebears who endured the Great Depression of the 1930s and conscription in World War 2. Their assimilation of drugs, alcohol, and sex ( as highlighted in this video ) were hardly novel or constructive even if their affirmed practices were prescient in characterizing societal entropy seen today resulting from similar hedonic and nihilistic impulses. Some of these protagonists, including Burroughs, hightailed it to Tangier to enjoy or exploit the locals with their Yankee dollars. Of course, there was much about society worth critiquing, particularly during the mid-century de-colonization era, but there was scant self-analysis by these protagonists in reference to their own inherited privilege and power. Such an attempt is left to later generations.

9.37 Def not Beatniks-greasers/hepcats-rockabillies!!!

Ohhh, that's so kool, man. Until that pesky little thing called "making a living" gets in the way. Some beats straightened out, got jobs, and made real lives for themselves. The others wound up dead or on skid row.

Get a better microphone, man!

What a bra!

It’s crazy to think how to Beat Generation were the Big Bang of culture, every subculture and culture defining moment from then on was a ripple effect with beat culture the cause. Also it’s cool thinking about how the soldiers were away, fighting for freedom, and when returned, enforced their idea of freedom and idealistic society upon their youth. A youth who had their own hopes and ideas of what this freedom would be. This resulting in the rebellion, the youth turning to idolise the Beat Generation and ultimately become beatniks

The Bohemian were from the 1940s.

You mean Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan. I am a New Yorker.

Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac pushed communism while cashing in on capitalism. Karl Marx basically did the same, lived in a mansion and stashed millions while claiming to be living in abject poverty

Consider this stuff progress, do you?

RIP Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Feb 22, 2021.

Funny and ironic how the first song sounds like Rock and Roll but with bongos instead of guitars

When you post the classic Beatnik Exploitation Schmo... Maynard G. Krebs.... you really touch on Beat Exploitation... at its heart.. a grand tradition of Bull Shit.. being carried on here.

This is just more Beatnik Exploitation... what a load of crap. The assholes who want to explain it to you are the same SQAURES the beats had no fucking use for ! Listen to some 50's jazz, read some books and poems, find some real beatnik art ( if you can) .. and fuck sources like this who haven't got a clue !

If COVID happened in 1962. No one would wear masks

jesus just watch roger cormans film a bucket of blood

Was this somebody's high school or freshman college sociology project? Ick.

This is like "endsville" man...

Beatniks! Pot? The Hippies were the pot smokers. They were more into jazz, not rock and roll. Coffee, wine, leisure and off beat clothes were their big things. They were not hot rodders. Hot rodders were competitors. More into the meaning of life stuff. By today’s standards they were only mildly different. The main thing is, they did not want to TOIL in a factory. It was 1950s America. Real adult men were ex military. Combat military! Buttoned up. That was the background they contrasted against.

Beatniks were so cool. They were before Hippies and drugs. Mostly coffee, wine, dark clothing, slacking and non materialistic. Very cool! We need more Beatniks today.

Ken Nordine died recently definitely a 'beat' poet, got to see him in San Francisco on a rare visit, the Dead were there and everything @ Bimbo's Club in North Beach....

Imagine an America that 95% of the men were veterans. Heavily indoctrinated with military regiment. Many of them experienced the bloodbath of battle and remembered the names of fellow soldiers that died. These were tough men. They won that war with guts and muscle. The Beatniks were younger and were saying they did not want to live such hard lives. Who would.