Keeping It Real

If you’re a Baby Boomer like me, you were raised in a mid-century world that fetishized authenticity and apologized profusely for anything faux.  Changes in cultural norms have elevated vegan leather but in the 1960’s and 70’s, plastic imitations of anything were scorned as cheap and cheesy.  Back then, new polymer-based synthetics had to be cleverly positioned to make them acceptable: “It’s not fake anything. It’s real Dynel.”  Even products we’d grown up with were pressure-tested for authenticity, like Coke—repositioned as “the real thing” in 1969, a watershed year of living earnestly.  And people needed to be real too.  Holden Caulfield, hero of the anthemic book of our generation, spent most of his time outing “phonies.”  (Bonus points for Millennial readers who said Catcher in the Rye without asking Chat!)