Saw this at Barnes and Noble the other day and flipped through it. I hit upon a section near the end that talked about the rise [add Godzilla music here] of scrapbooking as a hobby/industry.It talked about how scrapbooks have changed since, say, the 1800s... Scrapbooks used to be just that -- scraps of people's lives. Nothing really planned out. Then scrapbooking stores began to pop up, some of them Mormon-owned, encouraging the importance of family... apparently scrapbooking your family, especially your family tree, is something of an expression of faith in that community, according to the author.
An underlying feeling that you have to Get It Right -- the layout, the color combinations, whatever -- crept in too. And the cottage became an industry, so to speak: scrapbooks have more uniform with this embellishment and that layout class, and ephemera now comes in an Ephemera Pack.
Dang. Just skimming that book makes me feel like I've been tracked as part of a sociology experiment. Yes, I know, there's nothing new under the sun, but it was like discovering you're the lead in "The Truman Show." Do I not have one original thought, unplanned impulse, chance to not be a person of my times?
I think I'll go see what Ricë is doing. That should be a good antidote to feeling like one of the herd.