the feminist librarian reads

There was nothing very self-indulgent about the Pet Rock. It was inexpensive. It provided no immediate pleasure. It was relatively difficult to consume conspicuously, though the joke embodied in the Pet Rock was about, among other things, conspicuous consumption.
Here’s why I found the New York Times’ implausible explanation so interesting. The idea of the “self-indulgent ’70s” is a variation of one of the most common contemporary descriptions of that era: the ‘Me’ Decade. This description of the Seventies had extraordinary currency during that decade. But it is little reflected in the historiography of the Seventies.