Got to be good looking 'cause I'm so hard to see.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff

Just recently, reading a national magazine article about all the cable news networks and programs, I came across this statement: "CNN's ratings improved dramatically, particularly among the most desirable demographic, 25- to 54-year-olds."

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At first I was offended.

You see, I am on the verge of leaving the "most desirable demographic," as age 55 looms for me in a month.

I was thinking how important demographics have become to nearly every segment of American business--television sure, but also retail, food service, investment and commercial banking, real estate, travel, et al.

So now that I am about to exit the "most desirable" category, well, I guess I am about to become irrelevant. I was in a funk for a day or two.

But then I snapped out if it. I realized that rather than becoming irrelevant, I am actually about to become invisible. Big difference.

Irrelevant means having no meaning; invisible is all about the freedom. Yes, I am about to become an old coot and I can say pretty much whatever the hell I want because I am now not obligated to hold up all the stereotypical expectations of a "most desirable" demographic. I was a member of a club I never wanted to be a member of anyway, so now I don't have to pay dues anymore. Twenty-nine years is a long time to be sucked into a vortex and force-fed whatever it is the demographers decided I wanted.

Demographics, and its widespread embrace in our society, is yet another example of the decline of America, part of what may be termed a voyage "to hell in a hand basket," if you will.

Demographics can be used, I suppose, to predict the probability of market acceptance, but it is also, by nature, a limiting factor. I mean, someone comes up with a good idea, then the powers-that-be measure it against what the demographics suggest the "target audience" will accept. They make adjustments, and you end up with bland, or strange.

It's creativity by committee, which of course isn't creativity at all.

What it creates is sameness. As an example, go anywhere in the U.S. these days and it's easy to find the same old restaurants--Chili's, Appleby's, Macaroni Grill, PF Chang's, etc. Some of these are actually good places; that's not the point. The real issue is that my menu of choices in restaurants has...