Move along

[aroraborealis]

In any social trend, there are phases and groups. There are the groundbreakers, the early adopters, the mainstream adopters, the sticks-in-the-mud. The average person probably spends most of his or her time in the middle groups, but probably also has areas of interest or disinterest that swing them into groundbreaking and sticking in the mud.

It's easy for me to see places where I'm a stick in the mud, but harder to see any where I'm a groundbreaker. Is this common? Do you see yourself as a groundbreaker about anything? If so, what? If almost-but-not-quite, what keeps you from it? What about stick-in-the-mud-ness? Is that easier or harder for you to see?

Comments

[dbang.livejournal.com]

I sometimes make choices that are different than most of the people I know. It is hard to know while I'm making them whether they are ground-breaking (that is, in the future, more people will make the choice I'm making) or simply weird (my choice will continue to be unusual with respect to my peers). I think whether a choice qualifies as ground-breaking is only clear in retrospect.

Also, calling it ground-breaking to me implies that my choice actually affected other people's subsequent choices. If I do something that hardly anyone else ever does, and then more people start doing it but their choice to do so was not influenced by me, am I a ground-breaker?

I was a very, very early adopter of nipple piercing, the Java programming language, Reebok sneakers and web browsing. I have no idea whether to call my choices ground-breaking or not. It sounds awfully pompous! But no one else I knew was doing those things, and they all later became nearly ubiquitous.

I would say that I'm more often a stick-in-the-mud. That's always easy to see, because it doesn't require foresight! :-)

[dbang.livejournal.com]

I should add that when I am an early adopter/ground breaker, it is rarely because I anticipate that these things will become popular. I just like 'em.

I think Reebok sneakers are my classic example. I discovered them around 1982 and discovered they fit better than any sneaker I had ever worn. I was hooked. I saw them rise in popularity, and I kept wearing them. Then they became ubiquitous and I was still wearing them. Then they dropped out of fashion and I was still wearing them. Then you could hardly find anyone wearing them and I was still wearing them. Finally, the brand continued, but they labeled my particular type of them "Reebok Classics" and only sold them in off-price stores and I was still wearing them. Then they discontinued almost all the styles in the Classics line and I was still wearing them.

(I'd still be wearing them today if my chiropractor hadn't frowned on their lack of arch support.)

Thus the same choice starts ground breaking and ends stick in the mud! :-)

[maebeth.livejournal.com]

Hmph. I guess it depends on the circumstance. I think of myself as ground-breaking because when I look at something I think: how could we do it differentlly?

I'm an early adopter when someone ELSE says, why don't we do this differently and I say OK.

For sure, much (most) of the time we break ground on somethign that will never develop, and i'm adopting (early and often) something that won't turn out to be popular, or maybe even interesting.

the trait of the two categories is the willingness to get started on something BEFORE it is clear it will work.

A stick in the mud, in my view, is the person who STILL WON'T ADOPT the new idea even after it is clear that it DOES work, and even better than the old way.

[dbang.livejournal.com]

I supposed that's true.

On the other hand, your definition means only ONE person can be a ground-breaker. I think of it more like a bell curve of adoption: there aren't many people out at the tail ends, but there are probably more than 1.

Anyway, often my choices are made without any awareness of how it is "supposed" to be done, or how other people are doing it. This is especially true of clothes. I make my choices because of my own idiosyncratic requirements and preferences, not because I think "Oh, this is a better way!"