I dress accordingly to the weather. If it's too cold I like to wear something on my feet (when it gets below 50 the ground is just cold), usually light slipper like shoes which come off as soon as I get inside. Right now it's like 20 and I'm dying for warm-barefootin' weather!
<satirical_humor> MY GOD I'm OLD! OH! I'm like the cryptkeeper! I'd better hurry out and invest in Haliburton stock, get into watching Claud Van Damme movies, cut my hair, buy a suit and shiny, shiny shoes, join the coalition for a drug-free American and the John Birch Society, invest in gold mines and beef ranches in South America, buy a whole bunch of Billy Ray Cyrus CDs and get a job with the FBI. Yup, that's the ticket... Just wait 'till you're old, barefootjaime and you'll come over to the dark side with us. Conformity, greed and lust for power happens to EVERYONE after they turn 30! </satirical_humor>
You're getting into the nuances of the definition of the word "hip", which has been debated many times here, in many lengthy threads, often by the forum's webmaster. It's a complex subject. The short version: Some people define hip strictly by superficial means, such as appearance. Others go far beyond this and make it more conceptual. Essentially, a hip person is an open-minded individual who thinks for himself and does not automatically accept whatever he is told by people who present themselves as experts and authority figures. If such a person is told, for example, by a hippie in a downtown park that hip people can never wear shoes, he is no more likely to take that at face value as he would if the statement came from a government agency. He is going to listen to what is being said, take it all in, think it over, and make his own decision as to whether or not he agrees with it. When you have thousands of people in one place who are all thinking for themselves, you are going to have thousands of diverse opinions and approaches to life. That leads to good, useful, interesting conversations, and more open-minded thinking. This site draws in people who have unconventional ideas about a variety of issues, including drugs, sex, politics, and religion. We don't blindly follow mainstream society's vision on anything. It's all up for debate. When a group of people do everything exactly alike, that's a fad, and fads never have a lasting impact. We're about things that go far beyond superficial fads. After you have been here for a while, you will see that there is some quality thinking going on here, and relationships that have some depth. Maybe this will be worth something to you, maybe it won't. It takes time to understand what this group has to offer.
In my mind hip had to do with a person being hip to jazz or Beat writers. Hip and hippie had nothing to do with each other other than spelling. BTW, there does seem to be a lot of hippie related threads on the forum. Oddly they don't seem to discuss barefooting much....
Well, we had this thread a short while ago, where the subject was whether any of us barefooters are actually hippies too... and it was already agreed upon that hipness goes way beyond mere appearance - however, that barefeet befit the mindset quite well. Why not take a turn there and ponder and reflect upon what was written there? Wiggling somewhat hippie toes, ~*Ganesha*~
What I was trying to say ever so gently is being a hippie had nothing to do with walking round barefoot. That was a provocation. Hippies cared bout civil rights, kids getting shot on campus, more kids getting beat up in chicago, the panthers, changing the dynamic their parents controlled. Being barefoot was a symptom.....a way to piss off their cultural war opponents. The proclaimed statement that if someone goes barefoot they are hippies. That is bullshit.
I actually think he looks quite all right. I would definitely sport the pants myself, but with a t-shirt that's not tucked in.
Why should I care how that guy is dressed? It has no impact on my life. It's his right to wear whatever he wants.
And that very statement is one of the most UNHIP I've read on these forums from someone who's not a troll.
That's not the way of the world; that's the way of your coterie. The world is a far bigger place than the one they inhabit. The way of the world is that different cultures view bare feet differently under different circumstances. The ideas of appropriate dress embraced within your cultural milieu and demographic are, by definition, very narrow. In my tiny universe, bare feet look best all of the time and shoes suck.