The Boomer Mascot Muddle and Our DIY Nominees

What kinds of symbols say "Boomer" to you?  Springsteen? Dylan? Beatles? Barak or either one of the Clintons? A flower pointed at a gun? A burning bra or an angry student or Dennis Hopper on his cycle? (The pic at left is adapted from a wikimedia clip of Janis Joplin's Porsche.) When it comes to icons and emblems, we cover a lot of turf and it's really hard to peg one, isn't it?

If I think of visuals that were common during my salad days, what pops into my head are things like Grateful Dead graphics or shots of the campanile at UCB, but I don't want to bring back the Woodstock days per se; I'd like to capture the gist of our whole head-spinning boundary-bending crazy-making trajectory from Viet Nam to Iraq. But how to be emblematic of that?

Book-Ended by War
It's ironic and sad that both ends of the bookshelf of our time together as adults are tagged with emblems of war. That's no small irony since so much of our coming of age as a group was embedded in the hope that all war could end. I just hope we don't let that define our whole collective sense of self.

We have lived through so many icon shifts, from Beaver Cleaver to Big Bird to men on the moon and 'bots on Mars, with Hubble in space and the Internet in between. There's an amazing amount to talk about even before we get down to the work of summing it up with symbols.

So what might work to convey the sense and sensibility of a generation that helped to launch so many ships?

How would you convey the impact of, say, a phrase like "Not Your Daddy's Oldsmobile" with only a graphic?  Part of the problem is that we've been a wordy bunch, better known in popular terms for our lyrics, slogans and humor than for our visual footprints.

Meta-Tags for the Mosh Pit
If you are seeking some meta-tags to represent our experience, I suppose you could go for irony, since it's certainly been one of our uber-themes. How could we not spawn a bunch of idealistic cynics after being weaned on a cultural cocktail laced with Mickey Mouse, Tricky Dick and White Rabbits?

There are so many themes and contra-themes in this cultural mosh pit that it's hard to convey the layers of meaning simply. Whatever you pick, it probably takes explaining, as did the Joplin-esque Porsche at the top of this post.
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Thinking of visual arts reminds me that Dilbert and Doonesbury both have the sense of our generation nailed, however our fellow Boomers, Adams and Trudeau, have those icons sewn up for themselves. George Carlin sure seemed like a brother, but technically he was more of a cousin, and he's no longer here to say what he thinks.

Mascots MIA
A lack of iconic Boomer symbols seems to have stumped the folks at Microsoft too. While searching for clip art that others have tagged with something relating to Boomers, I checked an MS clip art library online. It's been full of handy little newsletter-quality icons and 'toons in the past, but when I typed in "Boomer," nada came back. Exactly zip.

Not that I entirely blame them. It's hard to come up with any "meta-toon" for an entire Gen that will play equally well in California and Kansas.

Next I try Clipart.com ($15 for one week of all you can eat last time I looked) but it isn't much better. Only 23 hits for "Boomer," starting (one wonders why) with a couple football players, followed by some golfers of a graying vintage. The aging- but-active angle seems to be their primary aim. Not surprised. That's where the biggest ad dollars lie. But if this is emblematic of the extent of the vision when they try to sell us things, no wonder most ads aimed at the starting-to-age have been so insipid.

After the tepid golfers, there is one picture of a beach (is the allusion there to the Beach Boys or the notion that masses of us are already kicking back surfside with our pina coladas?  Dream on. Most of us don't have our Daddy's pensions either.)

Among the last few graphics on the Boomer page are a couple of cartoon firecrackers. Go figure. Because we symbolize explosive change? Yeah, well, kinda maybe sorta. Oh, she said belatedly. Now I see. It's because they go "boom." Silly me. (Search bots are only as smart as their tags.)

Surfing Upstream
Let's surf upstream to a venue that's more Madison Avenue than Main Street. How about Getty Images where I get some of my classier clips for a fee?

This time "Boomer" yields 82 hits. Now we are cooking. Maybe. Let's see what is the creative class is offering to the trade.

People in groups smiling as if it's a great reunion (so the only good times left for us are remembering when?). A guy in a baseball cap shooting hoops (mixed metaphor; that part fits cleverly). Another darn golfer, but a bit classier one in black and white. A kangaroo (!). More sports pics, lots of them (why do I feel like I'm back in high school?) There's that darn kangaroo again (still stumped why it's there, probably another silly synonym).

Then we have several shots of a grizzled, but trendy, grayhaired guy with a surfboard (getting closer). Same grizzled-but-trendy guy kissing a much younger girl in a swimsuit on the top of her head (no comment). Several more surfing and sand pics with other guys.

So the only girl who rates a shot in this set is the surfer's ambiguous chick who could be either a daughter or girlfriend? Slice me the proverbial break.

 

OK, let's get more specific before we give up on Getty. I change the search to "Baby Boomer."

This yields 20 fewer hits than "Boomer" alone, but with a change in emphasis. Now there is a black couple too. Over a series of shots, they laugh together at the beach (again, a beach), he golfs (of course) with a smile at the camera, she tunes her IPod with interest, then they both, still smiling, stroll the sand looking for seashells before he is back in some other pics hitting the links (again) with his buds.

 

So the emblematic Boomer couple, according to this collection, are affluent non-whites who like turf and surf? All rightee then. That may work for an updated Oldsmobile ad, but it's not exactly the zeitgeist I'm seeking.

 

The DIY Mascot List
I guess it's time to quit asking how Madison Avenue sees us, and do what Boomers have always done: ask how we see ourselves.

Here's a short list of the first several icons that came to the front of my brain:

Beach Boys
Beatles
Big Chill
Laugh In
sunglasses
psychedelic fractals
pop art graphics (a la Peter Max or Austin Powers)
flower children
peaceniks and Beyond War
Black Power
Dennis Hopper
Jack Nicholson in Cuckoo's Nest
Saturday Night Live
any character played by Robin Williams
Kermit the Frog (even if we were 20-somethings by then, he still made us grin)
symbols from Berkeley or San Francisco
madras & Indian prints

OK, I admit it, many of these are skewed towards California, but you will excuse me, I hope, since not only do I come from Cali, but so many our local themes went national while we were coming of age.

But enough about what comes off the top of my own head. How does it seem to you? Nominate your own Boomer emblems here and let's see what crops up on the DIY list we define for ourselves. If this list gets growing, I suspect we can get a few eyes from Madison Avenue to dial in to it too.