English Dictionary

When long-haired, outlandishly dressed, drug-using hippies pilgrimaged to Haight-Ashbury in the early 1960s, they were quickly dubbed freaks; the pejorative appellation was both obvious and intended. It was not long before freak had become practically synonymous with hippie. It seems, however, that with the acceptance of long hair, the appearance and popularity of some rather bizarre fashions, and the emphasis placed upon doing one's own thing, freak is no longer burdened with all of its former derogatory associations. Instead […] the word is beginning to acquire a quality which is favorable, glamorous, and somehow even admirable.]