It became such an “epidemic” at Stephen F. A solo streaker even interrupted the 1974 Oscars, in an incident that some say was a pre-planned way for the award show to grab the zeitgeist, like a stadium security guard grabbing a nude interloper.ĭuring streaking’s 1974 peak, masked students from Cal Poly State University run into the Cigar Factory restaurant in San Luis Obispo, CA Bettmann/ // Getty ImagesĪround this time, streaks became more organized, involved more people, and transformed into spectacles. Streaking made the cover of Life magazine. People love attention!īut 1974 was the year that streaking went from a countercultural campus joke on The Man to full-on craze, like pet rocks or Slinkies. Observers can’t pinpoint exactly why young adults suddenly decided to take their clothes off and run around in nude groups, but it could have been due to several factors: changing attitudes toward sexuality and nudity, generalized distrust of authority and institutions, and the fact that streaking tended to garner a lot of media attention, which begat more streaking. He would go on to become a doctor and, later, a congressman.īy the 1960s, American college students would rediscover the Adamite joy of gathering in groups and running naked through public places, much to university administrators’ chagrin. Though his motivations were lost to time, he was suspended for a semester after being arrested for running nude through his college town in 1804. Historians say Quakers-Quakers!-revived the practice in the 17th century, protesting the Church of England and often urging onlookers to repent.Īmerica’s first streaker was a Washington & Lee (then called Washington College) student named George William Crump. During the 15th century, the Adamites protested the Holy Roman Empire’s buttoned-up morality by running naked through their Bohemian village, as Adam and Eve would have intended, if Adam and Eve, like the Adamites, had regarded monogamy as a sin. Running through a public space fully or partially nude has a long history with motivations to match the era. And it’s a reflection of how seriously we take our own rules, and ourselves. It is running’s wacky cousin, its quirky neighbor. Just as an asthmatic pug is the same species as a greyhound, so too is streaking in the same species a Kipchoge marathon. Yes, streaking-the kind people first think of when you talk about run streaks, and the silly counterweight to the emotional heaviness of giving your all. A streaker warms up the track before the final of the men’s 100m at the 2017 World Championships Antonin Thuillier/AFP/ // Getty Images

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