Healthy Thoughts

April 2009

Slipping Swiftly into Demographic Insignificance

By Christopher Peppas

This is as much about a state of mind and overall internal well-being as it is about anything else. I had a birthday recently. It WAS a marquee trip around the sun for me.

I turned 55 – yes, the dreaded double-nickels…the federally mandated maximum speed limit on the nation’s highway system.

I must admit that I don’t feel 55 years old. And I’d like to think I don’t look 55, either.

However, for our purposes here and on the rare occasion I still get carded at a liquor store, I have to go by what’s printed on my driver’s license. After all, it is a state governmental agency so you know they’ve got it right.

It will be the marking of yet another milestone, albeit a rather pejorative one, at least to me. I will be slipping, oh so swiftly into demographic insignificance. Allow me to explain.

Whenever you fill out a form (pick a form, any form) you have to check a little box denoting the age group in which you currently dwell. You know the drill by heart to be sure. Please check the appropriate box: 18-25, 26-35, 36-44, 45-54. On most forms one fills out these days, that’s the end of the road.

Apparently, the TV, radio and internet ratings companies…you know the folks at Nielsen and Arbitron and others have deemed those of us who turn 55 to be mere fuddy-duddies. That is also true of pollsters, marketers and some ad salespeople.

What? It’s as if after blowing out the candles on the cake I’ll stop shopping! Will I drift aimlessly down the aisles searching only for Boraxo or Lava Soap (made with real pumice)? Forget about buying green bananas. I might not have that kind of time.

The way they see it, we are set in our ways. Stuck in some consumer-phobic loop of ‘Pleasantville’, mired in the 1950s, watching John Cameron Swayze do Timex commercials on our Philco black & white televisions tuned to the DuMont network while trying to book flights on PanAm and TWA, dialing Broadway 1-1101 for more information.

It is ageism, nothing more…nothing less.

In the Milwaukee radio market, 94.5 WKTI FM is trying to corner what for them is a very coveted demo, that’s demographic for all who are unschooled in media-speak. It’s an age-group, in this case, Females 25-54.

Pity the poor gals born in 1954. Apparently, WKTI no longer cares whether they listen to the ‘Greatest Hits of the 80s, 90s and Today.’ I don’t mean to single out WKTI. A lot of members of the MSM (Main Stream Media) do likewise.

May I say that their mindset, their picture of a person of 55 years, is also woefully out-of-date and just as stuck in the 50s as they believe that we are. The increase in our life expectancy would tell you that.

I get the fact that the numbers have indicated over the years that people of a certain age resist change. But the world has never changed more rapidly than it has since the advent of the PC. The people on this planet have been dragged by the lapels into the Information Age.

And yes, I’ll admit there are Luddites out there who simply refuse to get with the program. There are people who feel the last, great innovation was the four-slice toaster.

But the vast majority of us are more hip than the Nielsens and their ilk would give us credit for.

I’m not saying we’re all early-adopters. Not everyone in the Male 18-34 demo is either, although I will grant you a higher percentage probably are. Nonetheless, I wasn’t the first on my block to own an HDTV, but I was among them.

There are some exceptions to this hard and fast rule. The 60-something Harrison Ford is still clinging to his leading-man status with the latest incarnation (or shall I say resurrection) of Indiana Jones. If there is a fifth one on the horizon, may I proffer a title: ‘Indiana Jones and the Search for the Lost AARP card!’

If I believed they were right about this, I would simply be holed-up in a dank, dark room somewhere, quietly waiting to play a final game of chess with the Grim Reaper.

I don’t believe it for a nanosecond.

Age is a matter of mind. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

I have always prided myself on keeping up with the popular culture: movies, music, technology etc. The more I remain dialed in, the better I will be able to stave off becoming irrelevant in the fast-paced world we live in.

I can’t help getting older, but I can help getting OLD. We ALL can.

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