leave my house I despise you!

It has been a little quiet around here as of late. I’ll admit the “joy” of blogging has pretty much left me this last while, and even now I have very little of interest to say. However I thought I’d make an effort if only to keep this thing alive (albeit, barely). So, today I was reading an issue of “Ladies Home Journal” from December 1990. You might say “but wait! You’re sixteen years too late to enjoy reading an expose on Three Men and a Little Lady. Nonsense. Danson, Guttenberg, and Selleck are comedic geniuses no matter what the decade. Actually, I was more interested in the ads in the magazine than the stories (although, it was nice to see that the list of “tips for surviving the holidays” remains virtually unchanged from the list in this year’s “Good Housekeeping”). I find advertisements always interesting, especially those from the past because they very often capture an era better than anything else. What was selling in the early 1990’s is no exception. Since this is a woman’s magazine, not surprisingly there are alot of ads for perfumes and home appliances (and also family-friendly cars half a decade before the SUV became the car of choice for soccer moms). As I admire these products, I am fascinated by what was the aesthetic of the early 1990’s. There is a very streamlined, clean look to everything. I think Black & Decker products of the time sum it up quite nicely. Functionality overtook expression. You could perhaps say that the “yuppie” aesthetic became king, if only for a short while. I don’t think there has been another time where the trendsetters on Madison Avenue and Wall Street so clearly saw their tastes and values spread into the marketplace of mass consumption. This isn’t to suggest that we aren’t still living in a world where our trends reflect those started in the cathedrals of consumption in New York City. However, I think the late 80’s and early 90’s reflect the peak of this alignment between Madison Avenue and Madison, Wisconsin. Looking back on these advertisments now what is missing is the irony and detachment with which we view ads today. I don’t want to suggest we are living in a world with a reduction of the power of advertising; in fact, with the proliferation of various multimedia advertising outlets we are more inundated today than at any point in the past. Yet it is easy to see how advertising once relied much more heavily on provoking an emotional response than an intellectual one. Perhaps much of it has to do with the fact that we cannot as easily determine which culture we which to identify with. The yuppies are gone, but who took their place? If Generation X has almost ascended to the stations of power, than it is not surprising that such a jaded generation equals a difficult culture to identify with for those who came before. 1990 perhaps represents a much more important decade turning point than 1980 or 2000 ever did. It is not an understatement to say that the collapse of the Soviet Union did much to centralize the locus of world power directly in the United States. The machines which make such a country work best are often those which work on the level of media and consumption. Not surprisingly then, the advertising world of 1990 reflects an America in which the pursuit of wealth (and consequently, the consumption of products) is directly linked to its status as world superpower. However, I am getting off topic. All I really wanted to say was I got a kick out of reading this old magazine because it reminds me of my own childhood and invokes those feelings of nostalgia which often, and incorrectly, lead us to believe we came from a “simpler” time. Not simpler however; just different.