"What Is a 'Hippie'" by Meredith Tromble

Funny you should ask...I have been looking forward to seeing a current exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum entitled "Hippie Modernism." I have turned to the press release for help in articulating an answer to this important question. Building on their text, a "hippie" was a participant in the "counterculture" of the 1960s and early 1970s. "This period witnessed a variety of radical experiments that challenged societal and professional expectations, overturned traditional hierarchies, explored new media and materials, and formed alternative communities and new ways of living and working together. During this key moment, many artists, architects, and designers individually and collectively began a search for a new kind of utopia, whether technological, ecological, or political, and with it offered a critique of the existing society."

The exhibition "features experimental furniture, alternative living structures, immersive and participatory media environments, alternative publishing and ephemera, and experimental film...[exploring] one of the most vibrant and inventive periods of the not-too-distant past, one that still resonates within culture today."

According to New York Times technology and science journalist John Markoff, hippie counterculture was a key factor in the development of the personal computer industry: What the Dormouse Said: How Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry.

So -- how do we put this in kid-friendly language? "A hippie is a person with a big imagination and a willingness to experiment with doing things differently than most other people do them"?

Or we could always settle for the ever-popular "willing to wear a tie-dye shirt." Tell the boys I'll help them make their own tie-dye T-shirts next time I come.