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Curated Ego

Brands are faced with a highly narcissistic ?Generation Me? which curates its big moments in the form of the selfie. Poor quality of product and poor service is not tolerated. The lack of style becomes a serious business impediment

One of the most vivid memories of 2013 will be of American president Barack Obama caught in an awkward moment, posing for a ?selfie? with the United Kingdom prime minister David Cameron and Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. All this during the somber memorial service for Nelson Mandela. The picture obviously went viral and was much debated, because of its obvious departure from accepted funeral etiquette. What Obama did was to cap the year of the selfie, with one of his. This was the water shed moment when the selfie became a mainstream word.

A selfie, quite simply, is internet obsession with the self. It comes into being when you take a picture of yourself and post it across the social networking sites ranging from Instagram to Snapchat. It has transcended from being just a picture and has moved on to new permutations and combinations. It has moved on from vanilla selfies to ?yogis? (selfie + yoga) and ?belfies? (bum + selfie) and it makes you.

Wonder about where this obsession with the self can go. What is clear and beyond doubt is the fact that this bout of narcissism is being fuelled by smart phones, phones that are now ubiquitous and in every pocket. ?A host of celebrities, industry titans and politicians have been bitten by the obsession of self. While some have used it as revenge against paparazzi, others have turned it into a business opportunity. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow has for example launched Goop.com where she curates stuff she likes. She peddles stuff that ranges from the bizarre to the obscene, such as monogrammed napkins.

The selfie is also a self-created advert for ?what are you doing now?. This trend has now being used by a variety of mobile phone apps like Klout (personal influence), Strava (cycling), Tictrac (personal dashboard) and the good old Nike+ (running). All of them do one thing, which is to build the self and create such branding across social networking sites.

The critical question to ask is this. Is this a narcissistic epidemic or is it a pointer to something more meaningful happening around us? ?Generation Me? is not a new term. There need not be one definition of this term. It largely refers to a bunch of people who have very high self esteem and are overly materialistic. They are confident at some point, and at other times, are overconfident of their abilities. Many of those that belong to ?Generation Me? live in a self created bubble. This is a group of people who invest a large sum on self-vanity. The obsession with self cannot be seen as the good thing by the sociologists. After all, it is this very self obsession that has resulted in a failing global economy and plummeting personal relationships. There are examples of the selfie having gone too far. If a young teenager buys a limited edition Aston Martin Rapide and then boasts about it to all and sundry through a selfie, then it isn?t exactly a model example of social behavior. The self created video of the teenager who drove the Ferrari somewhere in Kerala that was doing the rounds on the internet, did create a furor and may even have forced action by the authorities. The narcissism epidemic is very real and dangerous, because of its ability of inflict itself on youngsters and give them a fall sense of heightened status and ability. Though it must be said that ?Generation Me? isn?t wholly composed of kids. It is not a homogenous audience. It is unlike most other generation nomenclatures that exist. ?Generation Me? is a sign of changing times and cuts across a wide swath of populace.

It has the ability to drive change in appositive way too. One thing that ?Generation Me? does is build on immediacy. Their impatience is in-built into codes of conversation. As individuals they never feel that they are powerless. They don?t feel helpless in the face of status quo. This impatience is manifested across a range of activities that they are indulging in. This turbulent generation is extremely fashion conscious and style is their currency. They shun brands that are un-cool. More and more brands are now forced to rev up their ?looks? quotient. Traditionally we have focused a lot more on what we deliver, and a lot less on what we deliver. The lack of style is now a serious business impediment. They shun brands that are not up on the style quotient. Their impatience leads them to met out punishment instantly. Poor quality, poor service and even poor attitude, is not tolerated and immediately commented upon. This generation is not looking at creating a social wave out of their comments. They are individualistic people. They are happy at being the sole individual who took the brand to task. The brands may dismiss their individual comments, but collectively the brand owners cannot ignore this new trend. ?Generation Me? also rejects the established order. They will create a new protocol and before the world realises what it is in for, it will already have become the new way of doing things. ?Me? now defines who I am.

Naresh Gupta

The writer is managing partner and chief strategy officer, Bang in the Middle

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First published on: 21-01-2014 at 02:15 IST
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