Uma novela sobre Mongo (parte IX)

 Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V, parte VI, parte VII e parte VIII.

Uns trechos sobre a explosão de diversidade, sobre a explosão de tribos, sobre o fim da massa uniformizadora.

"The curious thing about demographics is that they were actually shaped by the media, rather than the media reacting to what the demographics liked and believed in. The media loved the idea of demographics so much that they invented pet names for different groups to define them in neat, saleable clusters: the baby boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, the sea changers. They were all designed to simplify the selling process. The media shaped the demographics itself according to what it chose to expose the demographic to.
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The probability of aggregating an audience was higher at that time because the media was part of the shaping process itself. The choice of what any demographic group would see was determined by a very thin line-up of media. They all aired the same types of program at roughly the same time. They all ran the same advertisements for the products they thought a demographic may buy, and the retailers would choose to only put those products with national advertising support on their shelves. The limited choice created the profile more than the attitude and desires of the people inside the profiles. It was also hard to escape the ‘norm’. [Moi ici: Recordar que foi a produção em massa que criou o mercado de massas e não o contrário] We all worked and went to school at normal and predictable hours. It was hard work just escaping the message. For want of a better term, people got brainwashed into fitting into their pre-defined demographic behavioural pattern. But this system is breaking down, and beyond age and a few limited geographic constraints, demographics is totally finished as a useful marketing tool."

O trecho que se segue é bem exemplificativo da realidade actual:

"How similar are teenagers who live in the same suburb, go to the same school, with the same ethnic origin profile, with the same average income who are also these different things: goths,[Moi ici: Nuno, era este grupo que nos falhou na conversa durante a viagem, os góticos]  punks, surfers, skaters, geeks, ravers, jocks, musicians, hipsters, preps, emos, gamers [insert your preferred teenager genre here]?
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Would any of these groups listen to the same music, wear the same clothes, hang out in the same places, eat the same food, read the same books or watch the same movies … let alone like the same brands?"