Bowlie is a slang term, probably originating in the West of Scotland. It is a misconception that the term describes a haircut that appears to have been created with the help of a bowl (a 'bowl cut'). A 'bowl cut' is more associated with the 'mop-top' haircuts of the 1960's.

It has also been used as a negative slang term that has been adopted as a positive term by those who were called it. Amongst these people it is now used to signify a type of music fan who might wear duffle coats and/or parka jackets (Not to be confused with 'mods' and the 'mod scene') and listen to C86/indie music. There is substantial overlap with the indie scene.

The Bowlie Weekender was used by Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian as the name for a music festival in Camber Sands (South coast of England) in 1999, which in later years metamorphosed into All Tomorrow's Parties. The festival was something that Stuart had dreamed up as a result of his having worked for Butlins in Ayr (inspiration for the song "The Chalet Lines" on the album "Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant"). The Bowlie Weekender was curated by Belle & Sebastian and headlined by them on the Sunday night. They finished their set with a rendition of "The Kids Are Alright" by The Who. The festival was a lot about the people who attended, sharing chalets, beach parties and the bonding/communal experience. It marked a resurgence in interest in indoor festivals in a mostly outdoor dominated UK festival market.

The term Bowlie has also cropped up in the Belle & Sebastian song "The Model" and may help to give it some context:
<blockquote>
The dream of all the bowlie kids that hang around here;
And I'm no different from the rest
-- Stuart Murdoch, "The Model"
</blockquote>

Bowlie.com is also a virtual community discussing, among other things, indie music. The forum was originally a meet-up messageboard on the Jeepster (Belle & Sebastian's old UK record label) website. Over time the messageboard grew into a forum and when David Kitchen, the maintainer of the website, left Jeepster in 2000 the forum moved onto a domain of its own and grew independently. In 2001 a poll was run on the forum to decide a name for the site, Bowlie was chosen because of the associations with the band Belle & Sebastian and the popularity of The Bowlie Weekender.

You could also say, if you had half a mind to, that being a 'Bowlie' is not so much about the music you force yourself to listen to, or the sleeves of your clothes that you pull at, it's more a state of mind, like New York (as Billy Joel once claimed at his piarno). 'Bowlies' tend to be cloyingly insipid, claiming to read books they haven't read and thinking they're all that when they ain't. Sometimes they've been known to climb up and across washing lines, suspending themselves upside down to collect nuts from bird feeders.