Jimmy Gilmore – Writer – Director

I’m going to date myself. When I was in col­lege, in the late 80s, The Grate­ful Dead were hav­ing their sec­ond hey day. Peo­ple were sick of hard-core punk and were ready for an acid flash­back and some Quaaludes. This meant too many bongs and tie dies on cam­pus owned by neuvo hip­pies with hacky sacks and lit­tle pouches with crys­tals in them.

I never really got the crys­tal thing but their owner’s swore they were cre­at­ing good energy for the peo­ple who wore them. Maybe they did, and they only rea­son they got busted for dope deal­ing was the neg­a­tive energy the dancing-bear bumper stick­ers on the back of their VW buses were send­ing the cops.

There were other hip­pie types though that weren’t just going to Dead show’s expect­ing pos­i­tive vibes sim­ply for show­ing up with the right clothes. Instead of putting faith in crys­tals, they got involved with causes they believed in, art or help­ing oth­ers. For them, the hip­pie thing was more than an excuse to smoke pot.

20 years later, the pos­i­tive hip­pies are still doing things like fight­ing for social just or help­ing teach chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties and not fin­ish­ing up their lat­est detox like their poser counterparts.

They have all now aban­doned their crys­tals for iPhones and along with half of the cor­po­ra­tions on earth are now attempt­ing to use social media to bring good energy into their auras.

Just like strap­ping a crys­tal neck­lace around your neck, expect­ing social media to pas­sively bring good energy your way is a silly idea. Social media hates posers. But embrac­ing the pos­i­tive aspects of social media and being active in the cul­ture in an intel­li­gent way can bring pos­i­tive change over time. Just don’t ignore you karma.