Beatniks v. Hippies: What is the difference?

By: Rebekah Sorrells The only difference between beatniks and hippies, were that the beatniks came before the hippies. The beatniks were the "parents" of the hippies. A writer named Jack Kerouac in 1948 coined the phrase "beat generation" to describe a group of struggling poets and writers all of whom were loosely part of a new bohemian group of people who were simply tired of conforming to society and its closed mindedness. In the post world war II generation, if a person did not conform to governments control they were branded communists. The products of this generation were the beatniks, and they used creative means to express themselves. Things like poetry, books, and songs were what made the beatniks “artistic, creative and alive in a country that was feeling dead.”