Why the Beat Generation?

The Beat Generation, the people who joined in on the fun, were basically a group of writers who experimented and reached out into different areas expression and explored them. According to Wikipedia, the "Central elements of "Beat" culture included experimentation with drugs, alternative forms of sexuality, an interest in Eastern religion, a rejection of materialism, and the idealizing of exuberant, unexpurgated means of expression and being." The group was prominent in the 1950s and in 1948 Jack Kerouac came up with the name "Beat Generation" because it represented the young people in New York (mainly) that were beaten down. (It also represented music beats too.) The beats started in Colombia University, with a group of people, who although they claimed to start their own ideas, got many of their ideas from a professor. The small group of the first beats was a bit hectic, with one of the killing another. They were also well known for their drug use, including marijuana, morphine, and LSD.