Disillusioned by the Vietnam War, racism, politics, and the corporate and consumer cultures, a significant segment of the nation's youth rebelled in the mid-1960s. In growing their hair long and rejecting fashion, they refused to go along with American society's conformist and materialistic values. Some became active in radical politics and civil rights, while others just took drugs and "dropped out." Still others went "back to the land" and experimented with communes in cities and rural areas. Mainstream Americans either viewed them with contempt or adopted the hippie look as just another fashion. Ironically, corporations made -- and continue to make -- millions by marketing the hippie culture. (For instance, this was the beginning of the designer jeans still sold around the world today.) Yet, the hippie movement undeniably injected the culture with new ideas, and made some small but lasting changes in the mental landscape of America.
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