Revolt Against The New Conformity
Let’s talk about how to be outliers (and who knows—maybe start the big cultural movement of the 2020s.)
Last week I wrote about The New Conformity—the alarming and depressing sameness of thought and style driven by social media giants and enabled more and more by AI. This conformity goes far beyond any idea of “conservatism” or “wokeness.” It defines what is “aesthetic” and what is not, what is acceptable self-expression and behavior and what is “cringe,” and who is worthy of basic dignity and respect. People uphold it with brute force in the form of cyberbullying. Because of social media’s influence on traditional media and other corporations, it even goes beyond the boundaries of social media.
Who benefits from the New Conformity? The billionaire owners of social media companies. Other billionaires, who make the most money when everyone behaves in predictable ways. Owners of companies that literally bank on our manufactured desires to become more acceptable and on our complacency in a system that makes the very rich ever richer. A few pretty people, but never for long.
Who benefits? Certainly not art. Certainly not literature. Definitely not us.
Anyway, the post struck a nerve. People said things like…
I would have hoped that technology…would have produced a Harlem Renaissance of variety in tastes and a depth of progress… Regrettably, expression in this world has become a Lipton instant soup instead of the rich and varied stew it should be.
How easy to pile on or even silently accept group think. Sadly, alternative ideas to the mob will get you cancelled.
It’s important here to distinguish between an outlier and a counter-conformist… outliers…are mindfully independent thinkers who celebrate their oneness without any condemnation, or even comparisons at times, of others.
I…wonder when the pendulum will swing back against it and what that will look like, and hope that it means individuality with no strings attached will be celebrated instead of pounded down like a nail sticking out.
The Definition of Outlier
I really liked the word outlier in one of those comments, so I used it for this post (though I also considered renegade.) The word outlier can mean “a person or thing situated away or detached from the main body or system” (Oxford Languages.) This makes a lot of sense when we talk about being detached from a conformist society.
Outlier can also mean “a person or thing that is atypical within a particular group, class, or category” (Merriam-Webster). Outliers don’t behave in the expected ways.
Outlier Behavior
Avoiding the New Conformity means being able to recognize and resist, in the moment, the pressure to conform. It means cultivating a habit of independent and original thought.
These are some of my ideas on how to be an outlier. They are mostly ideas I came up with for myself, so they may or may not be interesting to you!
1. Limit Our Time on Social Media
Limiting social media obviously limits our exposure to groupthink on a mass scale.
For some people, deleting social media accounts is practical. However, many of us have made positive friendships over social media, and creators and contractors may need it to share and sell our work.
Keeping Bo Burnham’s thoughts in mind—”they are now trying to colonize every minute of your life“—we can limit social media and internet time by doing things like:
•recording the time we spend—and setting a daily limit (you can use a time tracker app or just a timer)
•taking a break one day a week—or taking a weekly break every one or two months
•making good online friends “offline friends” by exchanging phone numbers and texting now and then…or setting up group text threads
2. Resist Pile-Ons
If a politician has done something egregious, we can consider taking effective political action. If a not-powerful person has done something egregious and is being criticized for it, our additional opprobrium is not needed. If someone is being unfairly ridiculed or harassed, we can say something in their defense.
3. Share the Unorthodox
Share thoughts that matter to us even if we’re in the minority. Politely dissent with conformist speech, even if it’s among our “own people.” If we’re so inclined, share images that reflect our reality and/or our personal aesthetic, even if they don’t fit conformist ideas of how to look, dress, decorate, eat, travel, or be.
4. Keep an Open Mind
We can pride ourselves on knowing that issues are complicated, that media outlets often lack both the incentive and the bandwidth to be accurate and even-handed, and that it’s worth considering outlier opinions. We can remember that we’re not even required to have a settled opinion on every single issue.
5. Read a Wide Variety of Actual Books
Obviously, I think online articles and essays are valuable, or I wouldn’t be writing one! I read them and enjoy them. But books offer the opportunity to take deeper dives into stories and topics, which is good for critical, original thought.
Reading bestsellers is great if they interest us, but reading books from different centuries and from different countries, books on specialized topics that interest us, and books from a wide variety of publishers, are all great ways to broaden our perspectives.
6. Seek Out Face-to-Face Interactions
Social media interactions can be rewarding, but gamification of human connection, through likes and comments, affects what we say and how we say it. The algorithm may bury what we share, making us feel unloved, and the asynchronous conversations can lead to shallowness and misunderstandings. In-person or Zoom get-togethers can enable more original conversations that aren’t as controlled and analyzed.
7. Cultivate Our Personal Style
Never mind what’s “in” or “out” in home decor; what makes us happy? Ignore fashion trends; what clothes make us feel the most like ourselves? Shopping at independent shops, thrift stores, and flea markets may help us escape sameness in design, and our purchase data won’t be as useful to corporate algorithms.
8. As Much as Possible, Avoid Overwork
The feeling that we should constantly be doing something useful, which creates terrible anxiety, is integral to the New Conformity. Cultivating our own tastes and style takes time. If we’re overworked, we’re more likely to turn to low-effort mindless scrolling (which zaps our creativity and energy even further). Let’s recognize that productivity is not moral superiority.
9. DO NOT USE AI FOR WRITING OR DESIGN
and criticize companies that do.
When you use AI to write, you’re voluntarily giving up your individual voice and helping yourself forget how to express yourself. This is conformity and compliance in its most abject form.
When you use AI design, you’re using a program that stole millions of people’s original photographs and pieces of artwork without their consent, and you’re contributing to the creation of a world where artists cannot meaningfully profit from their art, which is devastating to our culture.
The Transcendentalist Connection
In the 1820s and 1830s, American transcendentalism was a philosophical movement that took exception to conformity and focused on the importance of being an individual rather than following the crowd. Back then, “the crowd” included one’s New England neighbors, one’s local church, and universities. I think that due to the more pervasive influence of social media today, thinking for oneself and knowing oneself may be even more difficult, but to me, the writing of transcendentalist writers such as Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Henry David Thoreau are more relevant than ever.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
What are your thoughts on being an outlier?
Does some of this sound right to you? Do you have a completely different point of view? Let us know in the comments! I always learn a lot this way. 🙂 Thanks so much for reading, and have a great (and original) rest of your week!
An outlier is simply another boundary in a spiky world of technologically amped-up boundaries. To be an individual (boundary of one), understanding social, political, and legal boundaries, would be my choice. By understanding the boundaries that pop up, as they pop up, and why they are popping up, we can avoid, within reason, begin drowned in them. In some cases, specific groups work to redefine norms, claiming they are the only correct group. (‘Make America Great’ becomes an idiom for patriotism, even though, at its extremes, it may question democracy, or ‘Black lives matter’ may become a rallying cry, not for equality, but as a channel to promote a different type of spike in society, or, capitalism and greed may drive economics instead of humanity or a better world.) An effective individual may dig into the core of these, recognizing them as ‘distributions’ of beliefs and emotions, ranging from one extreme to another, and settle, uncomfortably, into the middle – yet not falling into yet another category (except the middle also has its boundaries and beliefs). Effective individuals recognize that we are all human, living on one planet, and sharing the universes’ resources.
Until we learn to shift our values from self-centric to universe-centric (not human-centric, or we will destroy the planet and other life in the name of humanity, not environment centric or progress will stop, not religion centric or belief becomes fact and wars happen, and not science centric or humanity gets replaced), until then, technology and other boundary tools will drive self-interest rather than serve common-interest (We see this in social-MEDIA, which is driven by advertising, and recognizes that dissent drives advertising revenue (yes, Bryn, that finger points at your site, too).
Let the intelligent, moderate individual lead and we can get to a humanity that respects the universe. Let the extremist lead, and, well, take a look around and throughout history at the great stories we inherit, and those we create and leave for others.
(Look at me, evangelizing for the middle boundary clan! I guess that vile finger points here, too.)
Randy, thank you for reading! I agree with what you’re saying about moderate rather than extremist leadership. I think there’s nothing wrong with dissent when it comes to important issues, and sometimes respectful debate can lead to persuasion or new insights, but the key word there is ‘respectful.’ I appreciate the thoughtful post!
This is wonderful timing. I’m very much an outlier in life, living many marginalized identities and recently discovering more of the same about myself which has been a painful process. When I was younger I used to be a renegade (I like both terms!). Loud and proud about my uniqueness, constantly pushing the envelope. As I’ve gotten older, things around us shifted and the ground feels unstable underfoot in so many ways, being an outlier feels hard in a way I would never have expected. But, I’m coming to understand, like many things in life (and as the saying goes), if it was easy, everyone would do it. This is precisely what you’re suggesting we rally against: the often mindless ease of conformity (even if it has many long term hidden costs).
I think it is key to outliers mental health to acknowledge how hard it is. Swimming upstream is exhausting. It’s okay to swim to the shore and watch the water flow by for a while. As you mention, we all need rest.
Love what you wrote about AI, especially about giving up your voice. I’m going to read some of those transcendentalist thinkers and see if I can pull some inspiration into my own life.
Hey there! I appreciate your writing about your self-discovery. It can be really hard and I am sending good wishes your way. You are bringing up such a good point here: it takes energy and effort to know yourself and be yourself instead of always being swept along with the current. Thanks so much for reading and for the kind words, and thanks for the great post!
I think I am pretty successful at ignoring trends and using common sense to navigate my life. I stay sane by interacting with others on a regular basis. I think it’s important to avoid social isolation, which can make an outlier stray too far from reality. I applaud anyone who is creatively unique, as long as they are productive and happy.
This is a very thoughtful and inspirational post. Thank you for sharing it, and, if you don’t mind, I plan to share it on social media. 😉
Thank you so much, Karen! I appreciate the kind words and the share 🙂
I’ve always been an outlier, on the fringe, living with one foot in and one foot out. I embrace the hokey pokey of it all.
Ha! I love that! 🙂
Hi, Bryn. I wanted to respond to your previous blog post, but time got away. I agree with everything you said there and again in this one.
I’ve lived several decades and seen many trends, but the conformity we’re seeing now is suffocating to free thinkers. We’re supposed to help people as we walk through this life, not harm them. We’re supposed to use our own brains, our own God-given creativity to make our choices, not follow social media trends and dictates.
I gave up Face Book for Lent. In that 40 days, I found I could live without it. Now, I do a fast scroll through a couple of times a week to see if I missed anything from family and close friends. Sometimes I forget.Nothing tragic happens when I do.
You mentioned the 90s in your previous post. That was a great free-thinking time to be alive. Everything worked. Shabby chic, garage sale finds, doing whatever you wanted with your walls. Nobody cared.
You go right ahead and create a revolution. I’m right behind you. I have a great deal of respect for a woman who uses her platform to sound off about what she sees as just wrong.
Bonnie, this is such a great post of yours that I’m going to go back to it and read it now and again! I agree; we’re supposed to help people. And “suffocating” is the perfect word. I love it that you’ve backed off a little from social media. I’m doing the timer thing to limit my engagement!
And YES re: the 90s! I believe we can create a new era that’s less confining!
Thanks, Bonnie! I appreciate you!
You article was an eye-opener. I find I’ve been an Outlier all my life – partly because my father taught me to think, and because I am neuro-divergent (being hyper-active naturally leads one to behave outside the usual norms of society). Add to that, I had a close relative – a rebel who challenged everything.
When I first started writing fiction, I did try to absorb all the “rules” that I learned, and that editors wanted to impose; but it merely ended in in a bad case of writers block. I tried several of the editing programmes, which purport to analyse your writing, and rank it. I found it messed with my style, and failed to understand what my carefully chosen words were trying to convey. So I rejected them all – Word’s spell-checker is the only aid I use regularly.
The word “Outlier” strikes me as le mot juste, and I adopt it with relish. I’ll add it to my current motto, “growing old disgracefully”..
Hi Anne! It’s great to hear from you. It’s funny, because I share writing advice all the time, but I think if it gets too complicated and it’s just one rule after another, our imaginations go on strike! (Not to mention that I see ALL kinds of “advice” out there that almost no editor would actually agree with.) I’m glad “outlier” strikes the right chord for you. I LOVE that motto, “growing old disgracefully”!
Thanks so much for your great post. Have a good week!
I just want to thank Bryn for the incredible amount of thought, concern, time, and effort in this post. It certainly motivated me to think and rethink on these issues. So, Thank you so much for creating this truly enjoyable, artistic, and intellectual community!