The Sixties, It’s Not How Old You Are, But How Groovy You Are…or Yeah Baby!

The sixties. I’m not talking about how old I feel, I’m talking about the decade that influenced so much in the lives of people my age. I wasn’t around in the sixties, but my childhood dripped with its immediate aftereffects like sticky honey. I grew up in the echoes of its music and fashion, and I still gravitate to those elements. I’m listening to Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart’s “The Countess” as I write this. I am not, however, wearing bell bottoms.

And the cars. Oh my. They were works of art that my generation revered as sacred. Even in the 1980s, every teenager’s dream was to roll through town on a Saturday night behind the wheel of a 1969 Camaro with a throaty V8 under the hood and SS stripes on top. At least that was the case in my small town.

We could get into the politics of the time. The defining events. But I wanted this post to be fun. I imagine that the Cuban Missile Crisis was harrowing, not fun. Society has largely forgotten the Civil Rights Movement. Again, serious, not peppy like The Association singing “Windy”. And, of course, there’s Vietnam, or as my father called it, Southeast Asia. My dad was what I would call one of the last of the Cold Warriors. He used to quip that he worshiped the mighty SAC god. For those not familiar, SAC = Strategic Air Command. He was an Air Force Parajumper who saw action in Vietnam and Laos rescuing downed pilots.  This was a man who was also shot down and survived in the jungle evading enemy capture for three days before being rescued himself. He lived that decade like few did. His ideas about the sixties were different than mine.

When I think of the sixties, I think of Swinging London, psychedelic colors, and miniskirts. What does the Evil Mr. G (Google) think? While researching films to review for this blog, a search for “1960 spy film” yields links to the following: The Best Spy Films of the 1960s, Category:1960s spy films, 20 Classic Spy Thrillers From the 1960s, and the like. The common thread is the 1960s. That’s not the 1960 I searched for. Only after scrolling down a few seconds does a link to a Youtube video appear that even lists the specific year. That made me think the Evil Mr. G favors the concept of the decade. Let’s face it, just the word is iconic in our lexicon, and I believe more people associate it with the era before they think of a person’s age. The Evil Mr. G does too. The first link from a search for “sixties” is the Wikipedia entry for the decade. Right below is a preview of the images section that focuses on art, hippies, and fashion with a featured thumbnail of the Swinging London scene with, yes, women in miniskirts. The Evil Mr. G thinks like me. The horror.

How about Mr. Bing? Let’s find out. For “1960 spy film” we get a strip gallery of clickable movie poster images compliments of IMDB. That’s handy, but once we hover over the images we see that they’re not from 1960 but rather the 1960s. The rest of the page is very much like the Evil Mr. G with everything focused on the sixties. So let’s try searching “sixties”, shall we? Mr. Bing gives us another strip gallery of clickable images. This time the links lead to Walmart and The ‘Zon where we might purchase CDs or books. Microsoft then favors Wikipedia, History.com, and PBS for their takes on the decade.

Next up, Mr. Dee-Gee (DuckDuckGo). How might he see things? Well, “1960 spy film” nets more categorical returns about the decade plus a nice variety of images that mix movie posters with movie stills. Again, not 1960. Try “the sixties”, and yep, we get Wikipedia, History.com, and some images of ladies in miniskirts. The refreshing change here is the inclusion of accuradio.com on the first page where one might listen to music from the 1960s on a free internet radio channel. Personally, I’ll pass on that one. I already use Youtube for that.

With all due respect to Mr. Wilde, does the search engine imitate life, or does life take its cue from the search engine? I know, it sounds silly to someone who was an adult in the pre-Internet era, but think about the world we live in. The Evil Mr. G is an omnipresent octopus, his tentacles slithering into every nook and cranny of our digital existence. I sometimes wish I could wake up and discover that it’s still 1989. That’s not going to happen. Our reality is that we are such wards of the digital state that we are all influenced by SEO whether we like it or not.

Poor sexagenarians. They get no love. Don’t worry, help is on the way! I’m not that far behind. How do I know? I’m sitting here listening to Frank Chacksfield, remembering Technicolor, and thinking of the girls on Hee Haw. No one under fifty can have those thoughts.