The burden of the backpack

And a brief case for the briefcase

Rush hour on 57th Street, New York City (1980). Photograph by Richard Sandler.

The briefcase used to be ubiquitous. Before the advent and widespread adoption of digital technology in the 1980s and 1990s, it was the definitive work bag for decades. I have vivid memories of my dad’s briefcase: a formidable brown leather bag engraved with his initials, stuffed with file folders, legal pads, documents, highlighters, and blue BIC ballpoint pens. It was mysterious and impenetrable to me—very masculine, very grown-up, very much giving “DAD.”

In those days, no self-respecting adult man wore a backpack. That’s what I wore. Backpacks were for schoolchildren.

Not anymore.

Two women walk together on 34th Street, New York City (1980). Photograph by Richard Sandler.

Some of my readers may know that I’ve written about what I call “Unpretentious Genius Aesthetic.” The basic idea being that our Bay Area-based tech overlords and various “relatable” celebrities created a kind of anti-fashion uniform—marked by plain grey t-shirts, machine-washable sneakers, blue jeans, and sweatpants—emblematic of their narcissistic belief that they are “above” fashion and simply “don’t care.” I argued that this fundamentally lacks respect for oneself and respect for you (the employee, the general public).

As a trend, I think this still holds up. But I overlooked something crucial for white-collar office workers the world over: the backpack. I neglected to consider the backpack.

Upon further examination (using my feminine intuition), I’ve come to the conclusion that backpacks are a psyop. We’ve been brainwashed by Big Backpack, which is under the thumb of Big Tech. As Britney Jean Spears once said, “This is a conspiracy theory that I am actually interested in.”

You did not choose the backpack. The backpack chose you. The backpack is probably the most prevalent accessory of the modern era, cutting across gender, culture, and country. They’re everywhere. They plague our streets. And the backpack’s ubiquity is indicative of much larger, more sinister shifts in our culture.

Let’s take a look at some of the possible reasons for the backpack’s dominance and the briefcase’s disappearance.