My study has taken a slight turn, it researches the counterculture in terms of the consumer culture and the repetitiveness of historical symbolism evidenced in advertisements dating back to the 1950s. I must admit that I stand a bit confused as to how this will all pan out as I have restructured my essay plan along the way and it is giving me a few problems. Once I changed the word in my essay title from instrumentally to cooperatively, the plan had to take a turn so that the essay would make more sense and that I would be able to form a solid argument.

This essay examines the methods in which youth countercultures are absorbed by Corporate America and how this can be seen in a graphical content. Arguably, it examines the influence that these countercultures have on these systems through this process.

The historical succession of these youth countercultures and the synthesis of evolution is considered by observing the endless conflict between these systems and the meaning behind this. Has this conflict created a system in which the dominate culture has dictated its own ideology to popular culture based on consumerism?

When you look back, you can see the direct result of the hippie counterculture upstart turning mainstream with the inception of Rolling Stone Magazine.

Fig. 1 RS Editors (Source rollingstone.com 1967)

The Year of 1967

“The Hippie movement officially kicked off just two weeks into 1967 with the Human Be-In at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. A flood of young people headed west to experience the “Summer of Love.” The cover of our very first issue – a still image from John Lennon’s movie How I Won the War – instantly establishes the mix of politics, culture and music that has come to define the magazine.

You’re probably wondering what we are trying to do. It’s hard to say: sort of a magazine and sort of a newspaper. The name of it is Rolling Stone, which comes from an old saying: “A Rolling Stone gathers no moss.” Muddy Waters used the name for a song he wrote; The Rolling Stones took their name from Muddy’s song and “Like A Rolling Stone,” was the title of Bob Dylan’s first rock and roll record.

We have begun a new publication reflecting what we see are the changes in rock and roll and the changes related to rock and roll. Because the trade papers have become so inaccurate and irrelevant, and because the fan magazine are an anachronism, fashioned in the mold of myth and nonsense, we hope that we have something here for the artists and the industry, and every person who “believes in the magic that can set you free.”

Rolling Stone is not just about music, but also about the things and attitudes that the music embraces. We’ve been working quite hard on it and we hope you can dig it. To describe it any further would be difficult without sounding like bullshit, and bullshit is like gathering moss.”

— Jann Wenner

References:

Fig. 1  Rollingstone.com/coverwall/1967#0001 (1967) Rolling Stone Magazine [online image] Available at: http://www.rollingstone.com/coverwall/1967#0001 [Accessed 03-15-2017]

Wenner, J. (1967) Quote for Rolling Stones Magazine. Available at: http://www.rollingstone.com/coverwall/1967#0001 [Accessed 03-15-2017]