Determined to be different

Are thematic priorities worth the effort?

Teenage dress sense and universities’ strategic research priorities may appear to have very little in common. But both hold to a universal law that I’m going to call the Phil Ward Principle of Homogeneity: the more unique we try to be, the more uniform we appear to others.

UK Tribes, a cultural research project by the broadcaster Channel 4 to identify the nation’s youth subcultures, puts it well when it describes the loose grouping of ‘alternative tribes’ of modern Britain: “Tired of cookie-cutter celebs and how everyone at school looks the same, alternative tribes are driven by the need to set themselves apart from the mainstream. From candy-hued hair to sleeve tattoos and multiple piercings, they’re determined to be different—but do it together.”