If I have only
one life, let me live it as ….
you fill in the blank.
A … blonde?
In 1961 a copywriter named Shirley Polykoff was working for the Foote, Cone & Belding advertising agency on the Clairol hair-dye account when she came up with the line: “If I’ve only one life, let me live it as a blonde!” In a single slogan she had summed up what might be described as the secular side of the Me Decade. “If I’ve only one life, let me live it as a—!” (You have only to fill in the blank.)
So wrote Tom Wolfe in his New York Magazine Essay, The “Me” Decade and the Third Great Awakening, August 23, 1976.
The ‘Me Decade’ refers to the 1970’s.
I was 10 years old.
I can verify I was pretty self indulgent.
But I was born blonde.
How do I answer the question today?