Happy birthday, indeed.

When I turn 35 in a couple of weeks, I will officially be uncool.

No longer a part of the coveted 18-to-34-year-old demographic, TV producers won't worry whether I'm watching their shows, editors won't notice if I'm reading their newspapers, and retailers won't care if I'm buying their products. Pretty humbling stuff.

And, actually, it's more than a little annoying. Who made these 18-to-34-year-olds kings of the universe, anyway?

Of course it all made sense when I was one of them. We were hip, we were trendsetters — the funniest, coolest kids on the block and, as such, it seemed only natural that our tastes would dictate pop culture.

But then I found out that it's not about culture — it's about consumerism. If the advertisers can hook 'em while they're young, so the thinking goes, they'll be hooked life.

"If you can convince a young person to start using Clairol Herbal Essence ... you've potentially got a customer for 50 more years," says Syracuse University media/pop culture guru Bob Thompson.

I've been walking around for 16 years with a target on my forehead for the sake of shampoo?

Well I have news for the marketing pros: Whatever I was buying when I was 18 is not what I am buying today. Think CDs and Top Ramen.

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A VERY GOOD YEAR?

When I was 18, I was in college and had NO MONEY. I bought Stop & Shop brand pasta and whichever diet soda was on sale. Hardly habits the marketers are hoping you develop. Shampoo? Whatever the special was at CVS.

My bank at 18? BayBank, in Boston. I chose it because I liked their green-and-blue color scheme and they had a much hipper logo than stodgy Bank of Boston.

I can hear the marketing mavens now: See? Marketing works! Well, yeah, it worked. Until Bank of Boston BOUGHT BayBank and made us all customers by default. (Bank of Boston, of course, was then bought by Fleet, which was then bought by Bank of America.)

I might mention, too, that I moved to Washington, D.C., just before the BayBank merger and had to find a new bank entirely, since its branches didn't extend to the mid-Atlantic. So much for customer loyalty.

OK, I'll admit that 18 was a long time ago. So let's take another random age ... say, 25. I'm in my early journalism career and STILL MAKING NO MONEY. I've moved up from generic pasta, but I'm still buying whatever's on sale.

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BRAND LOYALTY?

Even today, people switch cell phone service at the drop of a call. Airlines have come, gone, merged and unmerged so many times in the past 16 years that it's dizzying. Ask me what happened to my frequent flyer miles with TWA and Pan Am.

Brand loyalty in America? Maybe back in the day when people worked for the same company their whole lives and, when they retired, got gold watches to show for it. But not now.

Wharton School marketing professor Barbara Kahn says 18-to-34-year olds are prime targets for advertisers because they are building their nests and making a lot of first purchases. The 34-to-49-year olds are "feathering" their nests with added luxuries, says Kahn, and really aren't entirely ignored.

After 49, however, "they basically think of you as dead, in a retail sense," she says.

Great.

Yet apparently that mindset is changing, along with technology and the spending power of baby boomers. Even President Bush has an iPod.

So to all my younger friends who are still cool, enjoy that target on your forehead for a few more years. I'm taking my Pantene-washed hair and moving on to the 35-and-over demographic, which so far offers the best birthday milestone yet: I can now run for president.

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Kathy Matheson is a reporter in the AP's Philadelphia bureau.

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