Like Crazy

Blue and red colored background with an illustration of a man with red hair and exaggerated features. He has crossed eyes, expressive eyebrows, and his tongue is hanging out the side of his mouth. The text is red and above the image on the blue half of the background.

The Beat Generation was both a literary and counterculture movement that formed in the 1940s. They were a group that originally took inspiration from poets such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Michael McClure. The group used their art and poetry as a way to speak out against capitalism and materialism, and to call attention to the atrocities that took place during World War II. The “Beat” in their name was meant to signify the ways in which their spirit felt beaten down by the post-war capitalist system of America. However, the term “Beatnik” was not popularized until the 1960s when writer Herb Caen used it to describe someone coming from the Beat Generation and merged it with Russia's satellite “Sputnik”, which was in space at the time. The “Beatniks” created their own culture apart from the original Beat Movement with a change in style, language, and artistic expression. 

They were known for using a more alternative vocabulary including words such as “like”, “cool”, and “cat.” A phrase such as “like crazy” could help enhance a sentence and was used to describe something as “really good” or exciting. Often “Beatniks” were seen and characterized as wearing black turtlenecks, black berets and sporting goatees. They were known for experimenting with drugs, supporting sexual freedom, and living a bohemian lifestyle.