page_title: Hunter S. Thompson
section_title: Persona
hierarchical_section_title: Hunter S. Thompson / Legacy / Persona
caption_attribution_description: English: Cartoon of the journalist and writer Hunter S. Thompson, based on his classic look. Español: Caricatura del periodista y escritor Hunter S. Thompson, basada en su clásico estilo. Italiano: Fumetto del giornalista e scrittore Hunter S. Thompson, basato nel suo clasico stile.
context_page_description: Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author, and the founder of the gonzo journalism movement. He first rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels, a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of the lives and experiences of its members.
  In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which both raised his profile and established him as a writer with counterculture credibility. It also set him on a path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and even a participant in the events of the narrative.
  Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement.
context_section_description: Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
  In the late '60s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.
  A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
  Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
caption: Caricature of Thompson
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