As someone who has first-hand experience with many people who were an actual part of the Beat Generation I can say that the “beatnik beret and bongo” imagery is wholly manufactured. Even the name beatnik was largely considered pejorative (even though many took ownership of the name later). Most of them were young and ordinary people from disparate backgrounds united by common ideals.
There’s also the irony in the Beat counterculture eventually being co-opted into the mainstream but that’s another topic for another time.
