Democratic Individualism

I was sitting at a stoplight today when an SUV pulled up beside me with a special Virginia bowler license plate. What? So I got curious and went to the Virginia DMV website. There are now 180 choices for your car's plates. You can not only tell the world you are a bowler, you can tell them you are a fox hunter! Or love the Class J No. 611 Steam Locomotive! Or you are a Parrothead (this one can even be for your motorcycle!)! Celebrate our Tobacco heritage on your plates! Or tell the world, "Hey, I'm a friend of Tibet!" You can even spread the news that you went to Virginia Highlands Community College! Neato!
And on the other side of me was a bright yellow, tricked out Scion with a website for a Scion club decaled onto it back window. At the Scion webpage there is a link entirely for Scion "culture".
Those two cars got me thinking about how we as a culture seem to want conflicting things, simultaneously. We want to be an individual and stand out, while not wanting to stand out so much that we are left out. We want to be part of the crowd, but not "the crowd" if that makes sense. It's like that old Far Side cartoon with the penguins all standing on ice and one in the middle is singing, "I gotta be me, I just gotta be me..." . I guess I mean that the rule is, as our culture sells it to us, there is plenty of room to be yourself within the confines given to you. Like "the crowd" says you should own a car, but doesn't say it can't be bright yellow with a stupid "KIDS FIRST!" license plate. What about not owning a car in the first place? Then you are no longer an individual, you are weird. Then wouldn't weirdness just be society's distinction between "normal" individuality and unacceptable quirkiness? Ehhh?
That's it, I'm getting a hot pink Scion with brown dots and 10-inch alloy dubs and two subwoofers and a spoiler and my blog stenciled on the window with my "HORSE ENTHUSIASTS" plates.


Oh and while I was at the DMV site I checked the availability of getting some form of Labowski on a bowling plate. LBWSKI is already taken, as is DADUDE and THDUDE but I could totally get LABWSK.