How The Hippies Invented Social Media
For most of the world, social media is a phenomenon that came out of Silicon Valley. Sort of. But not in the way you might think and it was about half a century ago, not just twenty years. And it came from the minds of the subculture, or counterculture group, we call hippies. And it started with a print magazine.
To uncover the origins of social media, we’ve got to wind back to the days of free love, LSD, stinky cannabis, long hair, folk music and funky fashion choices. Whether it was mind-altering substances that played a role we will never know. But I somehow doubt it.
Where it all started was with a magazine called the Whole Earth Catalog which was published between 1968 and 1972 around the Bay Area of San Francisco, California, which included the nascent Silicon Valley area, before hoodies became a thing.
The publisher was the renowned thinker, Stewart Brand and his wife Lois at the time. He is a Stanford educated biologist who spent some time in the US Army as a parachutist. To this day he remains very active in technology spheres and is co-founder of the esteemed Long Now Foundation.
Let’s get back to the hippies.
Stewart and his wife created a magazine called the Whole Earth Catalog, which was aimed at the growing DIY movement and hippy communes around the Bay Area and…
