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Beatnik was the "cool cat" of his time, daddy-o. Into jazz, coffee houses, intellectual pursuits, writers, poets, part of the "beat generation". The beatnik's "home base" was in Greenwich Village section of New York City in the mid to late 1950's. Yes jazz was the type of music they seemed to prefer. In one sense they were the forerunners of the Hippies of the 1960's. The beatniks did not, on the surface have any political agenda. The other characteristics mentioned in the original answer are true. They did these things and led a life style that was considered not the "norm". As example, Jazz had existed before the "beat" generation. The new Jazz bands created their own non-contructed aspect of Jazz that fit into their own life styles. This was not the jazz of Billie Holiday. They new jazz was personified in bands such as the Dave Brubeck Quartet. While the Hippies' long hair was their signature appearance, the beatniks' beret was their signature apparel. The beatniks also drew criticism from mainstream America because they became associated with the use of marijuana and the presumed nature of "free sex" among them.
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What are beatniks?
A beanik is a young person in the 1950s and early 1960s belonging to a subculture associated with the beat generation.
What is an example of counter culture after World War 2?
Read 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouc, the guidebook of Post-war American youth who gave birth to 'beatniks' (a term coined by San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Herb Caen), what some might call a reactionary group that faced the Korean War and what evolved into the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation with a mixture of intellectualism, nihilism, pessimism and lots of anxiety. Jazz found a new voice after the War also, introducing Miles Davis, Dizzy Gilespie, Charlie Parker etc., who blew the old days of 'Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye' crowd away, giving birth to be-bop. In the art world, Jackson Pollack stunned the art world with huge canvases of paint dribbles, Jasper Johns and endless iterations of the American Flag, Claes Oldenburg's sculptures all described a break from the Old to the New.
