Image by Matthew Dean
COUNTER CULTURE? By Samantha Swider Layout by Annie Bolthrunis
T
he 1950s had the Beats, the ‘60s and ‘70s had the hippies, so where is our counterculture? In my four-and-ahalf-years at UMass Dartmouth, I can remember one protest. But I also remember numerous tuition hikes, a recession and a war. If this were the ‘60s, wouldn’t we all be standing up and picketing? Starting on September 17, 2011, Occupy Wall Street took a stand. But does that mean the Occupy movement is the counterculture
of the 2010s? When you think about the hippies or the beats, you think about a group of people under the radar – not the majority – but the Occupy movement’s entire message rides on them being the majority, as evidenced by their slogan “We are the 99%.” As of December 2011, Occupy Wall Street had over 135,282 followers on Twitter, plus 347,562 likes on its Facebook page. The way the Occupy movement uses social media (such as Twitter)
reflects a fundamental shift in the organizing principles of counterculture movements and how they communicate their message. The counterculture, in the past, has spent time smoking weed, tripping on acid and raging against their parents’ generation. Now, they trend on Twitter and organize General Assemblies via Facebook and text message. Sephora Borges, senior English major and one of the Occupy UMass organizers, understands the contradiction inherent in the
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