The Hunger Games, Coldplay, Starbucks, Facebook, P90x, and Doctor Oz are all a part of what we call popular culture. All of the innovators who brought these forms of entertainment, comfort, or healthfulness deserve their recognition. All have distinguished themselves by their ingenuity, and some have retained their novelty and usefulness in a culture that clamors always for something new.
Set as an ashen background behind the throng of their followers, however, idles a smaller, ill-noticed group. They are the anti-followers, the indie rock fan, Facebook-coffee-shop boycotting, "read-it-before-it-was-famous" clan, those who thrive on being on the outside and set against joining in. They are the pop-culture refugees, who at once shun what others embrace and embrace what others shun. They are the brightly contrasting brush strokes on a cultural wall that seems to them painted one color. Some of them choose it while others are chosen by it. They are the artists, the innovators, the very people who create what eventually becomes the thing they hate. They are the musicians who refuse to sell out, the intellectuals who cling to blacklisted ideology, and the technology experts who distrust Apple (I probably sound like the famous Apple motto right now).
There is a streak of anti-follower in all of us. In the spirit of the anti-follower, however, I wonder whether the choice to embrace the outside is always logical. After all, the popular thing grew popular for a reason. It somehow solved a problem, or improved on the solution to one, anyway (think Facebook's ability to connect people on common digital ground or Wikipedia's capacity to consolidate information in one easy-to-access-- if often distrusted-- location); synthesized the new and old in an innovative product (think Apple's iPhone and iPad or Suzanne Collins' ability to make the literary dystopia accessible to young readers in The Hunger Games); or touched on an underlying cultural need (think Doc. Oz's use of the talk show to address medical needs, something that wasn't necessarily new, but desired nonetheless).
If the things being followed have real value, then why do the anti-followers exist? To me, they exist for at least three reasons, reasons that manifest themselves in different subgroups of anti-follower. The first is the "visionary" anti-follower. This group simply has alternative tastes or perspectives. It is this subgroup that sees great cultural value in the not-so-popular things, who looks long enough to find value that others miss.
The second type is the "identity" anti-follower. This anti-follower refuses to join the crowd because of the driving need to retain his or her identity. There is in all of us a need to remain authentic, undefined by others. It beckons back to the existentialists who mourned the loss of personal man to institutions like church and state, and the Max Webers who decried the "iron cage" of bureaucracy that led man to become "a cog in the bureaucratic machine." We simply need to be known, understood, and loved by ourselves and by others. Following what others follow is a threat to that concrete image of self (or porous image, in many cases).
Related to this subgroup is a third type of anti-follower, the "acceptance" anti-follower. This anti-follower believes that the bandwagon of followers is too full. That is, those who would otherwise be followers believe that joining the group is a means to social acceptance, and from this perspective, a risk that might lead to others rejecting them. "Joining in this trend will not lead to true acceptance," this anti-follower thinks, "and it is this acceptance that I yearn for most."
To borrow from the Twilight craze, there remain, then, two camps: Team Follower and Team Anti-Follower (though it is more accurate to see following as a spectrum). Interestingly, when you look more closely at the two groups, and the subgroups within them, they are not all that different after all. Both groups long for love. Both yearn for acceptance. Both are human. It's just that one tends to find authenticity in being different.
I wonder, though, whether the anti-followers can learn something from the followers. I wonder whether one can find his identity in something other than the things he refuses to follow. I wonder if one's identity can be found on more solid ground. It is ironic that the anti-follower finds part of his identity in rejecting the things he believes will strip him of it. The act of rejecting those things for the sake of his identity leads to him-- and sometimes others-- perceiving him in relation to those things. There must be an alternative for the anti-follower, or at least the anti-follower who follows for the sake of identity or acceptance. He or she must act on the knowledge that identity and acceptance is found in something-- or, I believe, Someone-- greater. This frees this shade of anti-follower to choose what he or she likes based on personal taste rather than degree of popularity. In short, it frees him to be him.
Set as an ashen background behind the throng of their followers, however, idles a smaller, ill-noticed group. They are the anti-followers, the indie rock fan, Facebook-coffee-shop boycotting, "read-it-before-it-was-famous" clan, those who thrive on being on the outside and set against joining in. They are the pop-culture refugees, who at once shun what others embrace and embrace what others shun. They are the brightly contrasting brush strokes on a cultural wall that seems to them painted one color. Some of them choose it while others are chosen by it. They are the artists, the innovators, the very people who create what eventually becomes the thing they hate. They are the musicians who refuse to sell out, the intellectuals who cling to blacklisted ideology, and the technology experts who distrust Apple (I probably sound like the famous Apple motto right now).
There is a streak of anti-follower in all of us. In the spirit of the anti-follower, however, I wonder whether the choice to embrace the outside is always logical. After all, the popular thing grew popular for a reason. It somehow solved a problem, or improved on the solution to one, anyway (think Facebook's ability to connect people on common digital ground or Wikipedia's capacity to consolidate information in one easy-to-access-- if often distrusted-- location); synthesized the new and old in an innovative product (think Apple's iPhone and iPad or Suzanne Collins' ability to make the literary dystopia accessible to young readers in The Hunger Games); or touched on an underlying cultural need (think Doc. Oz's use of the talk show to address medical needs, something that wasn't necessarily new, but desired nonetheless).
If the things being followed have real value, then why do the anti-followers exist? To me, they exist for at least three reasons, reasons that manifest themselves in different subgroups of anti-follower. The first is the "visionary" anti-follower. This group simply has alternative tastes or perspectives. It is this subgroup that sees great cultural value in the not-so-popular things, who looks long enough to find value that others miss.
The second type is the "identity" anti-follower. This anti-follower refuses to join the crowd because of the driving need to retain his or her identity. There is in all of us a need to remain authentic, undefined by others. It beckons back to the existentialists who mourned the loss of personal man to institutions like church and state, and the Max Webers who decried the "iron cage" of bureaucracy that led man to become "a cog in the bureaucratic machine." We simply need to be known, understood, and loved by ourselves and by others. Following what others follow is a threat to that concrete image of self (or porous image, in many cases).
Related to this subgroup is a third type of anti-follower, the "acceptance" anti-follower. This anti-follower believes that the bandwagon of followers is too full. That is, those who would otherwise be followers believe that joining the group is a means to social acceptance, and from this perspective, a risk that might lead to others rejecting them. "Joining in this trend will not lead to true acceptance," this anti-follower thinks, "and it is this acceptance that I yearn for most."
To borrow from the Twilight craze, there remain, then, two camps: Team Follower and Team Anti-Follower (though it is more accurate to see following as a spectrum). Interestingly, when you look more closely at the two groups, and the subgroups within them, they are not all that different after all. Both groups long for love. Both yearn for acceptance. Both are human. It's just that one tends to find authenticity in being different.
I wonder, though, whether the anti-followers can learn something from the followers. I wonder whether one can find his identity in something other than the things he refuses to follow. I wonder if one's identity can be found on more solid ground. It is ironic that the anti-follower finds part of his identity in rejecting the things he believes will strip him of it. The act of rejecting those things for the sake of his identity leads to him-- and sometimes others-- perceiving him in relation to those things. There must be an alternative for the anti-follower, or at least the anti-follower who follows for the sake of identity or acceptance. He or she must act on the knowledge that identity and acceptance is found in something-- or, I believe, Someone-- greater. This frees this shade of anti-follower to choose what he or she likes based on personal taste rather than degree of popularity. In short, it frees him to be him.
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