Hello, I'm special : how individuality became the new conformity

Format:

Book

Title:

Hello, I'm special : how individuality became the new conformity

Author:

Niedzviecki, Hal, 1971-

ISBN:

9780872864535

9780872864443

Publication Information:

San Francisco, CA : City Lights Books, 2006.

Physical Description:

xviii, 259 pages ; 22 cm

Contents:

Introduction: "Mom, Dad, I've Got Something to Tell You ..." Discovering the New Conformity -- Who We Are Now -- Hello, I'm Special -- Alone Together -- (re)Creating the Individual: Pop-Culture Conformity -- Everyone's a Star -- Crowd Control -- The Paradox of Individuality -- "Who Else Is Me?" -- The Search for Home -- Rebellion? -- Extreme Behavior -- Revolution Redux -- Conclusion: On My Own at the End of the Road.

Summary:

"Hal Niedzviecki has a blunt message for the army of tattoo and piercing enthusiasts, bloggers, skateboard warriors, and anyone else walking around with the smug certainty that they are one of a kind: individuality is the new conformity." "Niedzviecki offers up a barrage of facts, observations, and arguments that point to the extinction of the non-conformist. His meditations touch on everything from designer religions to webcasts, from reality TV to the endless "Everybody Is A Star" platitudes of global pop culture. He unearths the amateur underground and shines a spotlight on the self help industry, Hollywood, and mainstream media. The result is an argument that shatters the you-can-do-anything pop myth and exposes the paradox of individualism." "A serious book with a sense of humor, Hello, I'm Special is the first book to account for the conflicting trends, collapsing traditions and changing pop culture landscapes that are, increasingly, shaping our world. More than a trend, the central premise of the book - individuality as a conformist imperative - is a notion with the power to challenge how we think about our world and our selves."--Jacket.

Subject(s):

Popular culture.

Individuality.

Conformity.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Monmouth Public Library	306 Niedzviecki, H. 2006	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

"Hal Niedzviecki is one of the wisest, funniest and most acute cultural critics writing today."--Naomi Klein, author of No Logo

Hal Niedzviecki has a blunt message for the army of tattoo and piercing enthusiasts, bloggers, skateboard warriors and anyone else walking around with the smug certainty that they are one of a kind: Individuality is the new conformity.

Niedzviecki's meditations touch on everything from designer religions to webcasts, from reality TV to the endless "everybody is a star" platitudes of global pop culture. The result is a smart, witty and impassioned argument that shatters the you-can-do-anything pop myth and exposes the paradox of individualism.

Hal Niedzviecki is the founder of Broken Pencil magazine and the author of We Want Some Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture.

Author Notes

Hal Niedzviecki's writings on culture have appeared in newspapers and magazines across North America. He is the founder of Broken Pencil, a magazine covering zine culture and the indie arts. In addition to Hello, I'm Special, Niedzviecki is the author of three novels and a story collection, and the book We Want Some Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

When nonconformity has become not only cool but also consumable, and everyone is told they are special, what happens to our definitions of rebellion and individualism? Are our real rebels against "conformist nonconformity" now the "neo-traditionalists" who exchange their individualism for membership in a community that offers meaning in backward-looking ideologies? These questions are pertinent but hardly original, and Niedzviecki's approach doesn't refresh the cultural debate. Niedzviecki (We Want Some Too) details lively examples from pop, consumer and counter culture-e.g., backyard wrestlers who assert their uniqueness while participating in mass culture; the "philosophy" brand of health and beauty products that sells its lotions with "moral maxims." But he molds these cases to fit his often predictable arguments: celebrity culture has been confused with individualism; the "semi-collapse" of traditional culture has led some to rebel by embracing orthodoxy; marketers have exploited ideals of individuality; and political activism is often just a way for protestors to "affirm their specialness." Falling short of a richer, more contradictory and more provocative analysis of these cultural items, Niedzviecki only grazes the surface of many of the issues Christopher Lasch (The Culture of Narcissism) and Thomas Frank (The Conquest of Cool) have already explored with depth and complexity. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Library Journal Review

Add this to the growing list of books in the Malcolm Gladwell (Blink) observations-of-pop-culture genre. Niedzviecki, a novelist (The Program), 'zine founder (Broken Pencil), and social critic (We Want Some Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture) addresses "who we are" in a slightly rambling, albeit witty discussion of how being true to ourselves is not necessarily a good thing. (One is reminded of the song from the long-lived musical The Fantastics, in which the heroine begs "Please, God, please: Don't let me be normal!") In our longing to be different, and our insistence on being accepted as we (supposedly) march to a different drummer, more often than not we are actually in lockstep with one another, suggests Niedzviecki, sometimes to the point of our own detriment (e.g., it's okay to be obese, as long as you have self-esteem). Where Gladwell is bemused, fellow Canadian Niedzviecki is curmudgeonly as he points out the rampant hypocrisy reflected in New Age religion, celebrity worship, and current perceptions of community. Although there is an index and lists of references for each chapter, this book is, like its subject, an artifact of pop culture and, as such, it is recommended for public and undergraduate libraries.-Ellen D. Gilbert, Princeton, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.