x to y

Teens have created an image for themselves that conflict with their parents’ family decisions. Young people suffer from anxiety by having to conform to the fact of being surrounded by elements that don’t necessarily depict the brand they have decided to create for themselves. They grew up in a society that’s addicted to designer brands. How can we blame them? It’s the generation raised on reality TV. Their curiosity is constantly being fed by how others live. It’s no longer just about impressing the neighbors, you now have an entire planet to emulate.

Excerpt from a teenager’s blog:

“Recently, my parents purchased a Dodge Dakota Sport (extended cab).

I am embarrassed, even though the car was very economical, and made tons of sense for our four-person nuclear family. I make my parents drop me off a block away from school, just in case people ‘judge me’ based on the car that my parents’ drive. It just doesn’t make sense that some1 with my personal brandwould come from the ‘mediocrity’ that my parents’ car seems to represent. I wish I could have been ‘consulted’ a little bit more when they were making their decision. Feel like my needs are also important, and are usually ‘neglected’ due to budget constraints. Ugh. Wish my parents had jobs that paid more and meant that they’d travel a lot.

Just afraid that I will look ‘too middle class’ if people see me getting chauffeured around the city in that ‘normal person’ car. Wish they had something sportier, or possibly a car that made our family seem ‘richer’ than we actually are. I feel like it is important for other people to have an appearance of your life being ‘a process of getting whatever you want’, even though everything is a struggle at my house.

Also feel ‘incredibly generic’ since my mom wants to give me her boring Camry as my first car. Seriously would rather fucking ‘walk every where.’ “

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2009/07/my-parents-drive-a-car-that-makes-me-look-poor.html

Bottom line: You think this generation is fearless? They are sooo scared, scared of a ‘generic image’, of being just another human being on this planet, an average Joe, a mediocre. Forget about suffering from a terminal illness. That’s nothing compared to drowning in the middle class pool.

Insight: You need to dress for the job you want, not for the job you have. Teenagers feel they have a brand to protect.

Have you ever played that game where someone says a word or phrase and the next person has to add something else and so forth? Well, by xploring a conversation among Karen, 15 years old, and her friends on Facebook, I couldn’t help but think that online conversing among teens is just like that game. You follow the thread, but you really don’t follow it. You just have to make sure that you participate - online socializing. You add random comments that spark a reaction, that engage, that make others want to outdo your ‘word’ game. You use symbols to communicate your gestures, your wit.

Facebook conversation (they are all about 15 years old)

I’m so cool , Ice cubes are jealous ?

lmao yes

matt jones sporty?

yah he is wait who am i?put your mouse over your name and look at the pictureWho am I? Im on mobile.what the hell!! im the smallest one there!! i didnt do that!!-.-hahahaha welll….. its based on……uh…nvm….michael, your the emo looking rocker guyThat’s cute. Michael & I are both the little rocker dude. :P Michael looks like a redneck, now, though. He hangs out with rednecks too much!lol wowArrr… Who am I? On iPodI’m on my phone so I can’t see, what am I tagged as?lol im surprized im not the terroristto lazy to do them all, but gregg ur right u deserve to be a terrorist :)lol ty..i think ^_^I’M NOT ON THIS!! :O *GASP*haha im the random chinese friendd -.-;weed? lolyes weedexcuse me? loldid u sneze?wtf nahhhahaha Ivan got the short guy with the chode..ahahahahpsh what u rtaling about adele is the terriorest :) jk jk

Insight: You don’t care what others say, but more how brilliant can you look? Their comments are your spring board to shine.

A generation afraid of being plain simple ‘normal’.

Teens have created an image for themselves that conflict with their parents’ family decisions. Young people suffer from anxiety by having to conform to the fact of being surrounded by elements that don’t necessarily depict the brand they have decided to create for themselves. They grew up in a society that’s addicted to designer brands. How can we blame them? It’s the generation raised on reality TV. Their curiosity is constantly being fed by how others live. It’s no longer just about impressing the neighbors, you now have an entire planet to emulate.

Excerpt from a teenager’s blog:

“Recently, my parents purchased a Dodge Dakota Sport (extended cab).

I am embarrassed, even though the car was very economical, and made tons of sense for our four-person nuclear family. I make my parents drop me off a block away from school, just in case people ‘judge me’ based on the car that my parents’ drive. It just doesn’t make sense that some1 with my personal brandwould come from the ‘mediocrity’ that my parents’ car seems to represent. I wish I could have been ‘consulted’ a little bit more when they were making their decision. Feel like my needs are also important, and are usually ‘neglected’ due to budget constraints. Ugh. Wish my parents had jobs that paid more and meant that they’d travel a lot.

Just afraid that I will look ‘too middle class’ if people see me getting chauffeured around the city in that ‘normal person’ car. Wish they had something sportier, or possibly a car that made our family seem ‘richer’ than we actually are. I feel like it is important for other people to have an appearance of your life being ‘a process of getting whatever you want’, even though everything is a struggle at my house.

Also feel ‘incredibly generic’ since my mom wants to give me her boring Camry as my first car. Seriously would rather fucking ‘walk every where.’ “

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2009/07/my-parents-drive-a-car-that-makes-me-look-poor.html

Bottom line: You think this generation is fearless? They are sooo scared, scared of a ‘generic image’, of being just another human being on this planet, an average Joe, a mediocre. Forget about suffering from a terminal illness. That’s nothing compared to drowning in the middle class pool.

Insight: You need to dress for the job you want, not for the job you have. Teenagers feel they have a brand to protect.

Opportunity: Rally behind this young generation in their quest to surround themselves with elements that elevate their own personal brand.

Posted 5 days agoTagged: Laura Semple, US, Latino, teen hipster.Dare to be random!

Have you ever played that game where someone says a word or phrase and the next person has to add something else and so forth? Well, by xploring a conversation among Karen, 15 years old, and her friends on Facebook, I couldn’t help but think that online conversing among teens is just like that game. You follow the thread, but you really don’t follow it. You just have to make sure that you participate - online socializing. You add random comments that spark a reaction, that engage, that make others want to outdo your ‘word’ game. You use symbols to communicate your gestures, your wit.

Facebook conversation (they are all about 15 years old)

I’m so cool , Ice cubes are jealous ?

lmao yes

matt jones sporty?

yah he is wait who am i?put your mouse over your name and look at the pictureWho am I? Im on mobile.what the hell!! im the smallest one there!! i didnt do that!!-.-hahahaha welll….. its based on……uh…nvm….michael, your the emo looking rocker guyThat’s cute. Michael & I are both the little rocker dude. :P Michael looks like a redneck, now, though. He hangs out with rednecks too much!lol wowArrr… Who am I? On iPodI’m on my phone so I can’t see, what am I tagged as?lol im surprized im not the terroristto lazy to do them all, but gregg ur right u deserve to be a terrorist :)lol ty..i think ^_^I’M NOT ON THIS!! :O *GASP*haha im the random chinese friendd -.-;weed? lolyes weedexcuse me? loldid u sneze?wtf nahhhahaha Ivan got the short guy with the chode..ahahahahpsh what u rtaling about adele is the terriorest :) jk jk

Insight: You don’t care what others say, but more how brilliant can you look? Their comments are your spring board to shine.

Opportunity: Give them the opportunity to shine with their random brilliance.

Posted 5 days agoTagged: Laura Semple, US, Latino.Path to freedom

I just got back from Xploring in Dallas. I had a chance to meet Rocio, an 18 year old Latina who grew up in the US. Her parents are hard working blue collar immigrants who struggle to make ends meet. Her submissive mom works really hard and finds pride in putting everyone in her family first, works two jobs, cooks and keeps the house clean. Rocio is trying to find her place, understand who she wants to be. Today, she’s a Mexican girl raised in America who’s confused and uninspired by her environment.

Her strict parents question her obsession for upscale brands. Brands help them feel good about herself. To her mom, Rocio needs to figure out the meaning of money. Rocio has been instructed to take two jobs so she sees what it’s like to earn it, sweat it. It’s been already six months since Rocio began working at a shoe store and a fast food place. Rocio has learned that money gives her power and freedom. Freedom from an environment that’s sooo focused on sacrifice. She’s planning to go to college to become a nurse. She won’t leave her jobs. To her, College+work= freedom from an uninspiring, frighten world of self punishment.

How can we blame them for feeling so powerful?  They have grown up in an incredibly connected world. As I was talking to a a friend of mine who’s in her early twenties, she pointed out how people older than her were more submissive, wanted to follow so many rules and didn’t allow themselves to find out who they really were. She, on the other hand, was not planning on wasting her life following one single path. The world had so much to offer her that all of a sudden it seemed that a life time would not be enough for all the fun that was up ahead. She went on to saying that older people stress out about everything so much. To her, there were people who had less, yet had managed to live a happier life. Why settle down? Why commit? Why save? So much travel to do, so many places to see, so many cultures to experience. Money is not to be saved but to be put to used to discover your true self, to live life with intensity and and try out new things.

Ask a young Chinese if they feel like they are being ‘Westernized’ and they’ll reply indignantly ‘No! We aren’t Westernized, We are International Chinese’.

Young Chinese have grown up with Japanese Cartoons, Oasis, Beyonce, Korean fashion, Gossip Girl and Starbucks. But on the other hand, China’s one child policy has meant they have also grown up with a top-heavy family structure where one set of parents and two set of grandparents have had a huge influence on teaching them values and filial piety.

Once they leave the rigid Chinese schooling system where ‘we are all taught to be carbon copies’, they are very eager to explore their new found freedom and identity.

Many think best way to do that is to be open to all sorts of influences and so have a pick and mix approach to their values, personality, style.

We have nicknamed it MASH IT UP CHINESE CULTURE. Perhaps the best example of this idea is Zhang Yi.

This is Zhang Yi, he is 26 and is a live-at-home son. When asked what kind of women he might want to marry he said ‘The most important thing is that she is filial to her parents’. Wow! I doubt an British 26 year old would ever say that!

He found Buddhism on his own accord and proudly wears a modern chunky silver necklace with a carving of Buddha. He has weakness for Burberry and Marc Jacobs during the sales. His icons are Lady Gaga and Spice Girls as they are not afraid to express themselves and are really unconventional.

DON'T LEAVE GOOGLE, WE'LL MISS YOU

Chinese youth have a highly emotional relationship and dependency with the internet. It's their oxygen. One girl said that she'd rather be dead than not have the internet.

Whilst Americans like the benefits of banking, shopping online, email, Chinese love and NEED the entertainment aspects - gaming, blogging, social networking, music. 

You have to remember that they are a generation that have grown up with no siblings due to China's one child policy, a rigid school system and parents that think more like 'old China'.

Many of them feel that they can only truly be themselves on the web. One 21 year old girl even said to me 'Emails and speaking over the phone is old fashioned and for the older generation. IM and Social networking is instant, casual, fun, chatty and constantly networked. I always feel connected to my friends. I'd only email if it was something serious to my dad, I feel like I am the truest person when on QQ or KaiXin' (social networking sites).

Lessons I learned from my fellow Gen Yers...

1. There are PLENTY of chances to make a first impression.

2. When it comes to solutions, quantity IS quality.

3. The planet is anything but lonely.

4. Escape from the real world starts in the digital world.

5. The perfect role model is as fictitious as the fairy godmother or Santa.

6. There are no extra-curricular activities.

Growing up we’re wired to believe in proverbial truths and expected to act accordingly. Sayings like “don’t judge a book by its cover” are like a nagging voice in our head that torment us even when we’re convinced that the book will be as lame as its cover. These past weeks, as I’ve been tuning in to the Gen Y universe, I’ve noticed that some of these dearly held truisms actually seem kind of outdated. Or at the very least deserve a bit of updating. Let’s start with an advertising favorite:

1. There is no second chance to make a first impression. Turns out, there are MANY chances to make a first impression.  True, first impressions still matter, but not nearly as much as they used to. In the past sometimes all you had was that first time to make it or break it with someone- a crush, a job interview, an acquaintance. Today life is more forgiving about first impressions, so it's ok to have a bad day.

Celine, 24, tells me her strategy, “Sometimes I’m in a bad mood an not feeling very social, but if there’s a guy I like and I see potential, I make sure he can find me on Facebook and I make my move then.” Similarly, employers can follow a potential hire’s blog or website if they weren’t too convinced the first time around and acquaintances can find more than meets the eye through the various networks. 

2. It’s all about quality not quantity. Maybe. But perhaps when it comes to finding solutions, quantity IS quality. Gen Yers are fast and furious when given the mission to find a solution. I’ve noticed their strategy is not to mull over the first option they come across, but rather to find as many options and then go with the easiest. This past Christmas I almost had a heart attack when my memory card wouldn’t show the 3000 plus pictures I had taken over the past months.  In my state of panic I kept inserting and removing the card. Insert again. Remove. Wait ten seconds. Blow a little (don’t ask). Insert again. Nothing. Sadly defeated, I turned to my two cousins and I offered $50 to the first who could get my pictures back. Twenty hours and two-dozen downloaded programs later, it was mission accomplished. Thank you Dieguito!!

3. Out of sight, out of mind. This one just needs a reinterpretation. With so many ways of connecting, it often feels like the last person in people’s mind is the person right in front of them.  Amanda just got a blackberry for her 16th birthday. Within an hour of being connected she had over 120 contacts on her messenger! “Who are all these people?” I asked her. “Just friends. Friends of friends. You have to add them and be on people’s list otherwise it’s like you don’t even exist. Most of them go to school and I see them everyday, but still. If you can’t chat with them on blackberry you might as well be invisible.” Perhaps the adage is the same, but what changes is the concept of “sight.” Being out of sight to Gen Yers is about not being easily accessed through the network du jour.

4. You are only as good as the company you keep. If this were true when it comes to social networking, 80% of the people on Facebook would be wildly schizophrenic. Granted, by viewing people’s friends you may get a squint as to who they are, but don’t be fooled. Not all friends are created equal, as 19-yr old Florent can testify, “I have people on my network that I wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with in real life. But it’s ok to have them on my network. I still want to know what they’re up to. You never know.”

Junya is 24 years old and is just about to finish his first year working at one of the giant Japanese auto-makers. His office is located 2 hours away from Tokyo at a production location, and he works on supply-chain management.

He had high expectations when joining this prestigious employer, but by now he has a much more skeptical look at his situation. It’s not that he has difficulties to live up to expectations, however he doesn’t feel that the work he’s doing will be something he wants to do for too long.

His ultimate goal is to set-up his own company. While he is not clear about what area he wants to get into, he is quite honest about his goals: “If you want to earn a lot of money in Japan, you can only do that by having your own company. I am not even sure, what I want to do, but having my own business and earn a lot of money is my goal.”

However, money is not his only motivation. “Right now I am doing a job that is even hard to explain to people. You don’t feel that you’re contributing in a meaningful way, or have any impact on society. I want to move things, not just be a cog in the bigger picture.”

Junya believes that other people in his generation do not necessarily share his point of view: “Many of my peers are just satisfied working at a big company like I do. In fact from the outside, people would usually believe that I have drawn the big lottery ticket. For many finding a prestigious employer is an end in itself. However, for myself it is important what I am doing, not where I am. That is different to many of my peers, and particularly compared to people older than me. Lifetime-employment is not meaningful to me. I guess for a lot of other people and my family, they will not understand, why I would want to leave the place I am at. Why get out of it, when it is so hard to get inside. But I don’t think that way.”

He acknowledges that he is still too young to work on his own, and needs to gather more experience. He considers changing his job at some point soon, and regularly checks job offers online. He also studies on his own, buying books on accounting and management.

Work is very important to him, but he also has a girlfriend. His plans for the future are rather conventional in that respect. “At some point I want to marry, of course, and I would love to have children then.”

Satoshi and Asami are a couple. He’s 29 years old and she is 25. They met each other through work 3 years ago and date each other since then. As most unmarried couples in Japan they don’t live together, and they remain quite independent from each other: “We hardly ever see each other over the week. There is work, and I also use the evenings to catch up with some friends. So we see each other only on weekends”, says Satoshi.

When describing herself Asami right away coins herself an “Analog girl”. Of course, she uses a PC at work and has a laptop at home, using it for example to upload pictures to be shared with friends. Yet, her involvement with technology is at a relative minimum.

A girlfriend made her join facebook recently, but after trying it she rather lost interest in it, and prefers to stay in touch with friends through more “analog” means.

She even enjoys going to a library when she has something to research, rather than doing it on the net.

Her friends are very important to her, so she spends a lot of time with them cooking together, or just having a few drinks. “I’d love to do something more meaningful together with my friends. We once thought of doing an art exhibition, and everybody would contribute something to it. Bu

then again, we’re not even artists anyway, so this idea has not led to anywhere yet.”

Satoshi has a wide circle of friends too, many of them with a foreign background as he has lived half of his life in the UK. He still stays connected with a lot of people in the UK, using Skype or simply sending E-mails back and forth, or using facebook to keep track of his friends’ lives.

He’s generally a very tech-savvy guy, who has assembled PCs by himself, and used to create Drum’n’Bass tracks with his computer, which he then sold online through a label in the UK.

When he’s at home he always has his PC running. And while he’s certainly not a nerd that spends his whole life online, the net is simply an indispensable tool for him to stay connected with friends and family.

Currently he works in advertising, but he’s quite clear, that he won’t do that forever. With 35 he wants to setup his own company. It’s not necessarily for the money, but rather he wants to enjoy his work to the maximum, doing what he wants to do, being responsible for every aspect. Possibly he would include 2 or 3 more friends to work together with, which would be a lot of fun: “I want to enjoy myself, and not regret a single day.”

However, he thinks he still has time, and will rather once more change jobs before becoming an entrepreneur: “I simply still have to learn a lot and get more experience. There is no rush to jump into the cold water right away. Three months ago I have started writing a blog in English about the mobile industry in Japan. That’s the field I want to do something in. The blog is my sketch book to capture my thoughts, ideas and the things I learn. It will be my inspiration and memory for when I start my own business one day.”

As a positive side effect of writing he gathered an audience that follow his blogs and he makes a bit of money from the ad revenue. While it is not even 2’000 Yen ($20) a month right now, he would love to make 50’000 a month from his writing at some point.

He also shops the most mundane things online, be it water, kitchen-paper-towels, ramen noodles, or spices and seasoning. The only few things he actually goes for to a supermarket is whatever needs to be fresh, as fish or meat or vegetables.

Detached from brands

Both of them like shopping, but when they have to come up with even a single brand they love, they have a hard time: “I am wearing a lot of Brooks Brothers. But that is because it’s my client, it’s not that I like the stuff in particular. Maybe Mac is a brand I can respect. They have cool products. Then again, I am not enthusiastic about it. In the end brands are there to get your money. That’s OK. But why should I really get excited about them?”

Asami trying not to disappoint, takes her time to seriously think about a brand she favors, and that sticks out for her from other brands. But she comes to the conclusion: “The are a lot of decent brands with good products out there. But, it’s whether I like the specific product that is important, not the brand. Today I wear a Diesel Jeans, but the shirt is simply from Uniqlo. I have no particular preference for any brand, but like to combine different things.”

Analog-Digital Balance

I came across a book that nicely matched some of my own observations about Generation Y in Japan. It’s called: “The Rebellion of the Simple Tribe – The emergence of the consumer that does not buy things” by Atsushi Miura.

    The people described in this book are not necessarily limited to Generation Y, and neither does everybody in Generation Y belong to the Simple Tribe, yet the phenomenon is certainly most prominent among them. 

7 Reasons why they don’t buy things:

They have grown up in material abundance. They don’t have any appetite for owning things.

Incomes are shrinking, so even if they want something, they consider twice.

They face a generally uncertain future, so they rather save a lot.

With smaller incomes and an uncertain outlook, they don’t marry, don’t get kids and don’t buy homes.

Living in the information age they value information and content, not material things.

Eco-awareness has increased, so they don’t want to buy anything that they don’t really need. They feel some guilt, when buying stuff.

Social conscience has increased. They figure that there are more important things than consumption. 

I wouldn’t take those points too literate. Reality comes in shades of grey. Yet, the overall sentiment of what the book talks about is certainly not far away from the truth.

Of course, while there are also economical factors mentioned to be at work, the Simple Tribe is predominantly well educated and rather of middle-class origin.

  So, the book makes an effort to come up with 7 reasons and explanations for the mystery of why people don’t buy things anymore. But when you really think about it, isn’t it funny that it is our normal expectation that people buy more and more things, despite the fact that 90% of what we buy is not essential. You need justification to NOT buy? 

A friend of mine who would qualify for the older end of Generation Y, picked up the book from my desk, and after flipping through it, commented: “I can quite find myself in here. You know, my parents’ home is filled with things up to under the roof. They bought so many things, and they don’t get rid of anything either. It makes me feel uncomfortable, and I simply don’t want so much pointless stuff in my life.”

  I think, putting external reasons, as the economy and concerns for the environment aside, maybe it is even more mundane: Generation Y simply questions the need for consumption. They ask themselves, a very valid and natural question: “Do I actually really need this?”  

  Kuruma-hanare

  One particularly pronounced example of Generation Y’s abstinence from consumption is “Kuruma-hanare” (as mentioned in the “Future Drive Xploring blog), which basically means something close to “moving away from cars”.

Cars have become less and less important for young people and (according to figures from the Ministry of Transportation) pretty much lost their status as a dating requisite.

Here and Now

At a friend’s dinner party in Moscow, I met Darya, a 23 year old Russian from Siberia who is a professionally trained modern dancer studying Russian Literature in Moscow. Over the course of the evening, our conversation was continuously being ‘put on hold’ by her perpetually buzzing phone. Her hopping into the bedroom to talk in private only to casually pop back out and plop on the couch to (almost) seamlessly continuing our chat went like clockwork. In between her phone calls, she would receive text messages and reply to them as well. Normally, that would irritate me but I found it strangely endearing. I think it had something to do with how effortless the whole thing seemed to be for her. I could hardly keep one conversation going and here she was juggling with more than I could count.  

At some point, I asked her for the time as I had noticed her rather large watch (mine, for the record, was gathering dust at home with a dead battery). She smiled and stretched her wrist out to me.

Her ’watch’ had just 3 words etched onto its shiny aluminum face: здесь и сейчас

For non-Russian speakers (such as myself), that translates into: Here and Now.

Darya’s watch, as it turned out, wasn’t actually a watch. It was a fashion accessory. It was also, quite poetically, her carefree answer to my generation’s linear sense of time, purpose and conversation.

Thought: Gen X talk about the here and now as though it’s one moment (right here and right now). For GenY, ‘here and now’ is multi-dimensional. Physics might limit how many places they can be at any given time, but that doesn’t stop them from ‘being in’ and ‘enjoying’ multiple ‘heres and nows’