Informant38

{late 65 early 66, I met a girl on a greyhound bus, she'd been at a party the night before in the seminal Haight(-Ashbury), there was a reporter from Look Magazine there, it was announced, she told me, that it had been decided that what was happening was going to be called 'hippies'.
my point is that it was decided, and thus it became what was, and people everywhere became more comfortable, because once something has a name it can be much more easily dealt with, manipulated, controlled. without the name you might find yourself controlling and manipulating the wrong end of the thing.
so somebody somewhere called this stuff 'blogging' 'blogs'. and the effort to make sure that that's what it stays is pretty easily seen as ego-based striving, on the part of participants.
which is not the main point. of course people ego-based strive. that's what we are in the main. but so much is lost in the tiny tight compartments of these terms of convenience.
what was there before the term hippie reduced it all was huge and bright and scary in its freedom. the confetti from that celebration alone still frightens the control structure. it was only a few years later that the cliche hippie bell-bottom patchouli oil caricature became a permanent historical marker. but what was there before that reduction was immense. unlimited. a library of dreams and visions. whose doors were always open.}