Disclaimer: This is probably the first time I am writing about a concept or an idea instead of an opinion. I admit I don’t have the answer to this question…but want it so I am asking you to get involved and offer up your opinions and ideas so I can have closure on this.

I love bumping into people I went to High School with.

Not because I like to compare how successful we are or who looks better but because people always tell me how popular I was back then. I find this funny since I never felt like a big shot and had only a few good friends. I was an insecure kid who loved They Might Be Giants, The Pixies and Elvis Costello and would listen to Hip Hop, watch Letterman, spend my Saturday and Sunday afternoons watching movies…oh and I also used to send $75 a month to a guy in New York so he would send me cassettes of a months worth of shows from some DJ named Howard Stern who just talked and talked and never played music.

Truthfully I always felt insulated and different. As hard as I tried I couldn’t get into Phil Collins, Rush or whatever the majority of folks were following and while I wasn’t being different for different sake I just liked what I liked and that was about it.

Looking back I had a combination of an absolute vital need to please, coupled with the unwillingness to bend at all in order to accomplish it….and this is why people called me a “Character”

While not much has changed in the way of my tastes or needs, one thing is very different..I now know I am not the only one who likes the stuff I like and in all honesty it isn’t really that different!

Being part of the final generation that grew up without the Internet “always there” (I got my first computer, an IBM PS1, in 1990) and I wonder what someone would have to do now a days to be different? Just about anything you can think of has not only been done before but also documented on the ole interweb. Simply put…whatever you are into and no matter how unusual you think you are there are 100 others just like you…and this isn’t a bad thing because (sexual predators aside) this internet is actually a place that can help you not feel so alone.

So can you help me with this? I really want to know….

Can individualism still exist in the internet age?

Or with the availably of more and different music, fashion, entertainment, education is it actually easier to be different?

…love to hear your thoughts on this!