Synopses & Reviews
When being a rebel is sanctioned by society, what is left to rebel against?
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.
Niedzvieckis meditations touch on everything from designer religions to webcasts, from reality TV to the endless Everybody Is A Star platitudes of global pop culture. He unearths the amateur underground and shines a spotlight on the self-help industry, Hollywood, and mainstream media. The result is a smart, witty, and impassioned argument that shatters the you-can-do-anything pop myth and exposes the paradox of individualism.
Review
"Niedzviecki rightfully and painfully illustrates how the pull between competing interests creates bizarre contradictions between consumers and pop-culture-at-large. That's what makes Niedzviecki's groundbreaking new book so refreshing: he reminds us that pop culture itself isn't an absolute means to an end; it's the people who exchange it and want to be a part of it all that remain its most fascinating components." Zachary Houle, Popmatters
Review
"I'm Special asks why we all seem to do the same damn thing in the name of individuality. It's about time somebody did." Kim Hughes, The Toronto Star
Review
"[A] slightly rambling, albeit witty discussion of how being true to ourselves is not necessarily a good thing....Where [Malcolm] Gladwell is bemused, fellow Canadian Niedzviecki is curmudgeonly..." Library Journal
Review
"Hal Niedzviecki is truly special, but not in the mass market way. He is one of the wisest, funniest and most acute cultural critics writing today. A sure-footed guide through a surreal landscape." Naomi Klein, author of No Logo
Review
"By turns infuriating and illuminating, Hello, I'm Special does not seem likely to please Niedzviecki's peers....After all, who wants to be told, as Niedzviecki tells his readers, in no uncertain terms, that ours is 'a dying culture.'" San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"Niedzviecki's examinations yield fertile insights, without sounding overly pretentious. Rather than risk alienating his readers with either verbose references to Situationists, or invocations of the anti-globalization movement, the author wisely looks at our cultural transmitters and how they influence our desires and ideas of the self....[A] fascinating portrait of contemporary culture." Gerry Donaghy, Powells.com (read the entire Powells.com review)
Synopsis
-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.
Synopsis
Shatters the you-can-do-anything pop mythology and exposes the paradox of individuality as a cultural norm.
About the Author
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.