I've been keeping quite a number of posters over the years, mostly rolled up and stuck in tubes.
I'm not sure if this was more of an 1980s thing, or has always been a general teenager thing. But when I was a teen, posters are what truly made the bedroom your bedroom. The more posters the better. There was no such thing as too many posters. The goal was to cover every square inch of those walls.
Come to think of it, no, this wasn't a strictly 80s thing. Because I had posters in my rooms at college. And when I visit colleges, I still see them. In fact, I actually give a lot of credit to my posters for making the moving-out process much easier. When I first moved into my freshman year dorm room, I started feeling at home once I put up my posters, including my big Alice Cooper one. Just having the familiar collage of images next to me made me feel right at home, and realize that the concept of "home" didn't just mean my parents house. I never ended up getting homesick while I was at college.
My posters had two enemies. The first of course was my mother. It's natural for mothers to hate the aesthetics of their teenage sons. So it was just another thing she'd nag me about. When I moved out to college, the nagging just escalated. She wanted all of those posters down so that she could re-wallaper the room. It was, however, still "my" room on the summer seasons, weekend, and vacations. Or something like that. Anyway, the posters there eventually came down.
The second enemy to my posters was a long-term girlfriend I had at college. After my first couple of years at college, I moved into an apartment with her. She pretty much insisted on complete decorative control over the whole place. I tried to put up my posters, and she immediately protested. "This isn't a dorm room!" was her argument. I could go on, but my time with her was a whole other nightmare I could write a book about.
So, fast-forward to 2010. I've found a lot of strange posters.
Cockroaches, movie posters, calendar posts (talk about out of date!), rock band posters, the list goes on. I got promotional posters at some point for Arizona Iced Tea, Jolt, Bud Lite, and who knows what else.
More on this tomorrow.
