All tagged Conformity is mediocrity
Is it still breaking the rules if everyone knows you’re doing it?
My kids’ High School has this tradition near the end of Senior Year called “Senior Ditch Day”, where kids skip school and just hang out. Now, this was never a thing when I was growing up (I didn’t grow up in the US) but it seems to be here.
For most of us, when we’re growing up, we’re exposed to plenty of structure. From our family rules to our religion to our social and community expectations, we’re guided (explicitly or implicitly) by defined sets of rules that tell us what to do, how to behave and even how to think.
“People want companies and the world around them to align to their values, their goals, their needs, their interests. People want to find where they belong. They’re sick of fitting in.” Chris Brogan
We’re in a very different age from the one I grew up in. Back then, consumer brands exhibited personalities along parameters that were, generally speaking, non-controversial. It was important to offend no-one and “to stand out” was to do so along ‘conventional’ lines (sexy was cool but in a heterosexual way; models were never plus-size; family units started with a man and a woman, etc.).
