Hello, I’m Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity

“Hal Niedzviecki is one of the wisest, funniest and most acute cultural critics writing today.”—Naomi Klein, author of No Logo Hal Niedzviecki has a blunt message for the army of tattoo and piercing enthusiasts, bloggers, skateboard warriors and anyone else walking around with the smug certainty that they are one of a Individuality is the new conformity. Niedzviecki’s meditations touch on everything from designer religions to webcasts, from reality TV to the endless “everybody is a star” platitudes of global pop culture. The result is a smart, witty and impassioned argument that shatters the you-can-do-anything pop myth and exposes the paradox of individualism. Hal Niedzviecki is the founder of Broken Pencil magazine and the author of We Want Some Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture .