Vanity in the Heartland

Almost from the moment I arrived in Springfield, I was struck by the seemingly high percentage of cars sporting vanity license plates. It could have been sampling error at first, just a random encounter with multiple vanity plate cars driving side by side in a two-lane or parked next to one another. But it's not sampling error. People in Springfield purchase vanity plates.

I took all of the following photos in a 24-hour span. I wasn't looking for vanity plates. They're everywhere.

SNOMEN 8 (left, middle-ground), FINN 87, FLAT 367

FITTS 9 and 1 HETON

MISSION and PKAY 92

A 6-bagger! LM, MINNI G, UFO 9, SANTAR 4, JOE 24, and OHHH 7 (continuous row, multiple photos)

It's gotten to the point where I look for vanity meanings on regular old humble plates most likely coded by the State ... "H2O 6458"? This is an excellent use of my free time.

I asked a graduate student who works part time at the Museum about the Springfield vanity plate phenomenon. She surmised that people get them because cars in Springfield all look pretty much the same; individualized plates make it easier to find one's auto in the parking lot. This is a classicly "emic" explanation, if you ask me. Of the 13 cars in the photos above, no two are the same make/model. Further, in any given State, all license plates are unique, regardless of whether their individuality is the result of State assignment or car-owner choice. This is a ready-to-wear dissertation topic for a socio-cultural anthropologist, no? Maybe if my cranial data is a bust, I'll switch wings.