Cultural Fracture
The enormous choices offered by our low-friction world of innovation can be seen as an enormous positive. But there are also downsides.
Way back in 2004, the American psychologist Barry Schwartz wrote The Paradox of Choice about the fact that having more options wasn’t always a good thing. In his most famous example, he talked about going to buy a new pair of jeans and being overwhelmed by the options: sizes, fits, colours, brands. There were aisles and aisles of just jeans, and he had no idea what to choose.
Since 2004, the lowering of commercial friction brought about by technology has increased our choices exponentially in those categories affected by High Frequency Change. Fashion is one of them, but you can also think about media, entertainment, financial services, consumer electronics, communications channels, food and drink, and many, many more.
Not only has choice increased, but one of the key filters for our choices, geography, has been largely removed. We can now access almost anything, from almost anywhere in the world.
What’s the Big Idea?
Our identities are defined, or at the very least largely communicated to the rest of the world, by our choices about what we consume. What music do we listen to? What sport do we watch? What novels or comics do we read? Which games do we play? Who do we associate with? What brands do we wear? Are they environmentally friendly? Or super-expensive?
As the range of available options has expanded, and the limiting factor of geography has been removed, our identities have naturally diversified. We’re less obliged to join, or define ourselves against, local groups and their identity choices. Instead we can choose to join any one of a million global tribes. Or more likely, form a tribe of one based on our own choices, intersecting with a range of different other groups based on our particular interests.
Think about the classic social tribes of modern British history. Mods and Rockers. Or from my teenage years in the 90s, Indie Kids & Ravers. These were groups who collected locally, albeit as part of national or even international trends. Being part of these tribes meant listening to certain bands, wearing certain clothes, riding a particular brand of motorbike or scooter. These tribes would not cross over, other than to maybe throw a few punches (I was mostly on the receiving end).
Ask young people now about which social tribe they are part of. One of two things will happen. They will either look at you blankly, eyes widening as you explain how things used to be, before explaining that they don’t subscribe to such a rigid identity. They’ll tell you how they have self-assembled their own public identity from a selection of their passions and preferences, and how that identity sees them intersect with multiple friendship groups, on and offline.
Or, they will give you some super-niche title for their style and identity presentation, usually telling you that they are a mix of two or three. “At weekends, I’m mainly Soft Girl, but I might bring in a bit of Cottage Core Chic.” They’re not part of one group, they’re a blend of ten or more.
Why does it matter?
This ‘cultural fracture’ is in many ways a positive thing. We’re not all being squashed into conformity into one or two social tribes that just happen to be local to us. We can find ‘our people’ wherever they may be and we don’t even need to be restricted to one set of people! We can happily explore lots of different ideas, fashions, forms of entertainment with little restructuring.
But there are downsides, both for the individual and for the organisation.
Being part of a group brings a sense of belonging. The compromises that we have to make to be part of that group might be good things (e.g. behaviour moderation), or even when they’re not so positive, the sacrifices that we make can help to bind communities together. There’s little evidence for this yet but I do wonder if there is a risk of lower social cohesion.
For organisations trying to reach people, the challenge os much less nebulous. Marketing is harder now because you can’t just latch on to the tropes, styles, or language of a large group. Instead you have to find ways to appeal to a thousand smaller niches. The number of brands or properties that can span all groups seems to be shrinking all the time, whether it is the appeal of major cinematic universes, sports, or fashion brands.