American Identity

Well, the thing is that Americans have a strong sense of identity. Everyone has one. Everyone is a Somebody. Any other way just doesn’t process. Bums, billionaires – Doesn’t matter. Everyone’s a unique Somebody, one way or another. We raise our children that way . . . our children’s children . . .

Well, there’s the great American mythology, too: The rugged individual (though the nation was built on rugged cooperation), the trailblazer, the Great American Everyman immigrant bootstrapped himself up as far as the vision of his Great American Dream. Nice stories. There’s a ton of them in the character DNA of Americans.

Well, anyway, Americans just don’t process weak identities. It’s not enough to just be a human being. In America, there are the phantoms, the vast unrecognized, and there are the real people, the people with identities, the Somebodies.

If you don’t have an identity in America, you can buy one. If you can’t afford it, you can get it with plastic.

And you’ll spend more of your plastic with companies with strong identities. They speak to you. They speak your language.

JUST DO IT,

Ed