According to me, people can be classified into different types based on their synergy with the prevailing trend of the world.
Wave Creators:
These are the people who stand out from the crowd and create a wave. They are the trend-setters. This includes people like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, fashion designers in limelight etc. Wave Creators again can be classified in two based on how they became trend-setters: By choice or By chance. I am not going to get deep into these classifications. As a side note, I strongly feel it is enough if you are able to make it to this space only once in your life. Once you make it to that position, whatever you do after that will be called ‘The Trend’.
Adopters:
These are the large mass of people who do anything to be in-line with the trend. Their usual chats include things like
“OMG! I got the latest iProduct. What? You don’t have one? You are missing out man. You will be left behind.”
“I got my XXXX designer bag. Awesome it is”
“That Tarantino/Nolan/Scorcsese movie was just awesome. What you didn’t understand that? How can it be? You need to be high class and intellectual to understand it”
I think you get the point. Yes, they try to associate themselves with whatever is famous or whatever the world thinks is intellectual or a class apart from normal standards.
Rebels:
These are the people who believe that opposing the in-trend thing is cool. Benefit: you seem to stand-out from crowd and thus seen as intellectual. They do not ideally rebel the trends. They are in with the trend. But they just won’t agree that the trend is cool. People who hate giants like Microsoft, Google, facebook; who say the famous movie is a piece of crap; who say an enjoyable book has nothing in it and no-brainer fall under this category. It has to be noted that they will still be active in facebook, watch the movie and read the same book.
Blenders:
These are class of people who blend with the group in which they are with. If they are with the Adopters kind, they will say “yeah! What you say is so cool”. If they are with Rebels they say “you are right. I don’t know whats the fuss about that thing! People are crazy”. They do this because they avoid arguments, or have a inferiority complex or have no idea about what the group is talking about. So they camouflage.
Whatever!
These are the people who neither worry in knowing about the trend nor worry about accepting/arguing about the trend. They are happy and contended within their own space. Their replies usually be like,
“Who is facebook?”
“What is tarantino?” or even,
“What is an email?”
I think the last sect are the people who don’t have to worry too much about keeping up with the trend and thus be peaceful.
So, which category do you fall under?
Disclaimer: These are strictly my classification. There is no solid evidence to these or no studies to prove this. So take it in a lighter vein. And this is for the sake of introspection. Don’t ask me which category you fall under. You wont get the right answer because i am a blender myself.
Pointless & Prosaic 