Dan Dan The Android Man

Do it yourself (or DIY) is a term used to describe the creation, alteration or reparation of something without the aid of experts or professionals. The phrase "do it yourself" came into common usage in the 1950s in reference to home improvement challenges that people might choose to complete independently.

The DIY scene of today is actually a re-introduction (often to urban and suburban dwellers) of the old pattern of personal involvement in home or apartment upkeep, making clothes, maintenance of cars, computers, websites, or any material aspect of living. A comment by philosopher Alan Watts (from the "Houseboat Summit" panel discussion in a 1967 edition of the San Francisco Oracle) reflected a growing sentiment of that time:

Our educational system, in its entirety, does nothing to give us any kind of material competence. In other words, we don't learn how to cook, how to make clothes, how to build houses, how to make love, or to do any of the absolutely fundamental things of life. The whole education that we get for our children in school is entirely in terms of abstractions. It trains you to be an insurance salesman or a bureaucrat, or some kind of cerebral character.