Most authorities in such matters credit writer Tom Wolfe with coining the phrase “the Me Decade” to describe the 1970s, a time when people seemed focused on themselves and their personal desires.
The current decade may well be remembered someday as “the My Decade,” because it’s pretty hard to get through a day without seeing a reference to “MyThis” or “MyThat.”
That’s true even if you just want to relax your mind by minimizing its activity and watching television. The other night I saw a promotion for a Denver station that now calls itself “My20” and offers programs from “MyNetworkTV.”
As nearly as I can tell, this trend actually started with the release of Microsoft Windows 98 eight years ago. Its default screen showed an icon for “My Computer.”
At first I thought it was an effort at honesty, in that Bill Gates probably views every computer in the world as “my computer.” Then I realized it just described a collection of programs and had nothing to do with Bill.
But now, on a Windows XP machine, to get to photos retrieved from a digital camera, the path is something like “C:Documents and SettingsEdMy Documents My PicturesMy Kodak.” That’s a lot of “My.”
I know, the modern computer interface has you pointing at icons, rather than typing commands. This is not progress.
Historians say the alphabet was a great improvement on hieroglyphics as a way to communicate, and here we are going backwards.
Anyway, Microsoft seems to have started the modern “My” trend, and it will doubtless get worse when Windows Vista is released one of these days. It’s surprising that the company hasn’t started suing others for infringing on its “My.”
Potential targets might be the “MySpace” website, which allows you to introduce yourself to millions of strangers, not all of whom necessarily harbor benevolent intentions. Cyberspace also offers “MyYahoo” and “MyAOL.” Time Magazine just headlined an article “My Person of the Year.” The Sunshine State promotes itself at “MyFlorida.com.” But since MyCrosoft has yet to threaten litigation, others might pick up on the trend.
For instance, the U.S. Army used to recruit with the slogan “Be all you can be.” Then it switched to “An Army of One,” which makes absolutely no sense – an army, by definition, is a group. After failing to meet its recruiting goals in 2005, the Army just adopted a new slogan: “Army Strong.”
Don’t you think it would do better with “MyArmy” now? Vice President Dick Cheney could appear in recruiting commercials: “Join MyArmy, and you can be in the thick of hot Baghdad action that makes Grand Theft Auto look like a Sunday school picnic. To this day, I regret that I had other things to do 40 years ago, and I missed out on all the excitement. Join MyArmy today. Be part of MyIraq or maybe even MyIran.”
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says the president doesn’t need congressional authorization to tap phones without a warrant, but Congress should pass it anyway. We might quit noticing such anomalies if he promoted the program as “MyInfo, the important tool the president needs to find terrorists, and all it takes is a little sharing. And no registration is necessary – you’re automatically enrolled.”
Our real-estate industry might do well with “MyColorado – your own expansive half-acre ranch with stunning views of snow- capped peaks.”
Lame-duck senators and representatives could pay their campaign bills with MyCongress. Contribute handsomely and you could get MyTaxBreak or MyEarMark, providing you act quickly while they’re still in office and in session.
There are a lot of other My possibilities. Circulate petitions in Colorado and hold MyReferendum to pass MyAmendment. The homeless can enroll in MyShelter, which could be a cardboard box. We could stop referring the “the uninsured” and instead say they’re participating in MyHealthCare.
Why all this “My?” Perhaps we’ve finally reached that long-stated Republican goal of creating “an ownership society.”
Or, at least we can pretend by joining the shopping website MyTrend.
Ed Quillen of Salida (ed@cozine.com) is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.
