Plain lessons from the ordinary hipster

THERE are few greater joys than finding life lessons from a defeated hipster.

And so it was that a hipster was recently insulted by a study on how his tribe essentially behaved the same way, even when in rebellion against the mainstream crowd.

The hipster hit the magazine that wrote up the study this month with threats of legal action, after he claimed that the publisher, MIT Technology Review, had used his photo without his permission.

Then came the delicious irony: it turned out that the picture was a stock photo from Getty Images, proving that these self-appointed agents of counterculture do indeed, wear the same threads and have collectively misplaced their shavers.

The study in contention suggested that hipsters who try to deviate from the norm end up synchronising their actions, which is why they look or act the same way.

"We show that when hipsters are too slow in detecting the trends, they will consistently make the same choice, and realising this too late, they will switch, all together to another state where they remain alike," the study said.

To be sure, the study based on a mathematical calculation has been panned in some ways for assuming binary choices (say, beard or no beard).

"If a majority of individuals shave their beard, then most hipsters will want to grow a beard, and if this trend propagates to a majority of the population, it will lead to new, synchronised, switch to shaving. But what if one can grow a mustache, a square beard or a goatee, would that diversity of choices allow hipsters to be as different as they can?" it asked.

Still, Mr Angry Hipster's diatribe helped to carry the bigger point along that as much as how an individual tries to be unique, the individual is inadvertently part of a collective, big or small.

It's just like that mix of feelings that washes over you when you check out a seemingly undiscovered indie band, only to find about 100 other fans swaying to the same music. You give up a bit of that claim to individuality but in so doing, find your people.

It also sparks questions about this cult of being so wholly different at a time of innovation fervour. Amid the Industrial Revolution 4.0, there is a call for that dissenting voice to break old habits in the old economy.

But without understanding how people are organised around tribes and communities, therein lies the risk that the most toxic individuals in the workplace are lauded, even when they exist for no other reason than to needle co-workers. Disruption without a cause can get destructive.

There is a lesson on constructive dissent from Israel, and it comes from its devil's advocate office, or what had been popularised by Hollywood as the Tenth Man Rule. Set up after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, this devil's advocate office consists of staff who question military intelligence analysis, with the aim of probing assumptions, battling groupthink, and spurring creativity.

The zombie movie World War Z explored a fiction of how Jerusalem was able to keep out the undead by strategising along the lines of the Tenth Man Rule - that where nine agree on how a problem should be solved, the tenth man must disagree and find imperfections in the plan.

But there are caveats worth noting. As a study put out by US think-tank The Brookings Institution noted, those in the devil's advocate office in Israel are extremely experienced officers who not only have a reputation of being creative, but are also highly revered. The point behind this detail, is that they become a dissenting voice only after gathering support and respect from the group. They also operate amid a culture of openness, for ordinary analysts can also submit reports that disagree with their department's call, and are not censured for writing such memos.

So how one stands out constructively is not a matter of individuality, flattering as that might be. To be a successful disruptor in the office or in social settings is to build experience and secure credibility in the conventional sense, recognising group dynamics, and then finding new ways to work with the group, rather than apart from it.

That disruptive success also comes with a healthy dose of self-awareness. In his book Originals, Wharton professor Adam Grant told the story of an entrepreneur who opened his pitch to investors with three reasons they should not invest in his company. That unusual self-criticism opened the door to advice on plugging gaps in his product, and later, some US$3 million in funding.

Similarly, at a recent press briefing in Israel, a local startup's founder told reporters that he had run a beta test on his product, and found very high satisfaction reports from the pilot test group. Far from being excited, the entrepreneur concluded that the pilot was simply not testing for the right things. The reason? "We knew the beta wasn't very good." That honesty allowed him to refine the test, and then, the product, for a greater shot at survival.

So it seems being a true original doesn't come from chest-thumping chutzpah. The individual who seeks to make a difference should first find his or her own quiet path, with some confidence that he or she is unlikely alone, but can be answerable to his or her own conscience and purpose.

And once he or she finds his or her collective space, be it large or small, he or she can choose to project his or her voice a little louder. Dissenting or otherwise, flannel shirt or not, that individual's greatest advantage then, would be in owning it.