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 kind: 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 Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture.