Hippyland’s 10 Year Anniversary!
It’s hard to believe that 10 years have gone by since we started
Hippyland back in 1996. Things have changed dramatically since then.
We were still in the Internet boom, and it seemed like the Internet was
going to change the world almost overnight.
It was this enormous potential of the Internet to democratize the flow
of information and empower anyone with a computer that made me decide
to sell my computer business and invest the proceeds into an Internet
venture.
I created my first website as a personal statement about my decision to
reject the prevailing business mindset and a rediscovery of those
values that I cherished during my younger days.
Back in the 70s I was a peaceful pot-smoking vegan, working in hippie
cooperatives in the Pacific Northwest. We might not have been able to
change the whole world, but we could certainly remodel our day-to-day
lives to reflect our priorities.
In that spirit I felt I could once again reorder my life to conform
with my own rebirth and freedom from the stressful business world. To
create my new website, I first listed those things I felt a renewed
spark to write about. Things I really felt strongly about, including
peace, love, spirituality, the environment, cannabis, what really went
down in the 1960s, psychedelics, vegetarianism, etc.
Reviewing that list, I had a sudden realization that I was STILL a
hippie after all these years, and so I decided to create Hippy.com as a
place to store my thoughts on these subjects. I never expected it to
succeed as it has. In fact I thought only a few old hippies would find
it and enjoy discussing the good ol’ freak daze.
It quickly became apparent that not only were LOTS of people searching
for this information, but most of them were young people who weren’t
alive during the 60s. Students, long-haired teenagers and even preteen
wannabe hippies were flooding the site with questions about the
original Hippie Movement. Like me, many wanted to rekindle the spirit
and get it going again.
To answer all those questions, and to set the record straight, I felt
compelled to write a book on the subject. I noticed the media had
rewritten the history of the 1960s to blame everything wrong with
society on hippies and liberals – and they still do! So Hippies from A
to Z was published and sold out (it’s available online here for free!).
Now, after 10 years we can look back and see that we have INDEED
succeeded in restoring the hippie mindset to our consumer driven
society, even to the point of freeing the word hippie from it’s media
imposed derogatory definition. We even helped put the words hip and cool back into the public vernacular as those words were very uncool in the business obsessed 90s.
And more importantly we have succeeded in uniting hippies from around
the world and activating their lives with the hope that we hippies can
change the world together!
With the planet facing its most difficult challenges, severe crises
that affect everyone, we all must spread our love and enlightenment to
the masses. We have a virtual movement online and a real movement
happening again in the world’s streets. As we come together this
summer, let’s send peaceful waves of love to the universe. We CAN
still make a difference!
Peace & Love to ALL!
Skip Stone
July 1, 2006
P.S. Coming Soon! The 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love, San Francisco, 2007! Be there or be square!
Posted by: skip
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