The thing about the young

There is one image I cannot get out of my head. There is this scene in a movie called 'Fukrey' where the hero (Pulkit Samrat) jumps over walls and buildings, whilst running on rooftops, to reach his love interest. In many ways, the scene was definitive of the point I have been trying to make in my head for a few months now.

The youth of the day know exactly what they want and they want it not next year, next month or tomorrow but here, now- right now. It is a level of self assuredness about important life decisions that frankly scares me. This self assuredness is born not just from an extremely easy access to information thanks to internet & mobile phones but also because in his own mind, every young person I come across today is a celebrity in his own little world. He has his world on Facebook and on Twitter and Blogger, etcetera and that feeling of achievement, of assuredness- of knowing exactly what they want to do, born out of being mini social celebrities- is incredible. 

I am only 26 but I think I missed this generation by a year or maybe a few months or a bad gene because I can now see this generational chasm between me and the youth of the day as wide as the gap between the buildings Pulkit so effortlessly jumps across. Frighteningly, I do not think a lot of organizations, politicians or brands are awake to this. This target audience requires you to be faster, smarter, almost pre-emptive: anything less than that and they are done with you.

I have unfortunately not had the opportunity to work for brands that actually target people like Mr. Samrat but if I did, I would be very very excited and also very very scared. There are a few brands that do understand this. I was lucky to attend a presentation by the global marketing head of Coke who spoke a few words in the general direction of this phenomenon in the US and how the mission of Coke had changed from making the youth idolize celebs to facilitating the youth be celebs in their own online and offline social circles. And I found that really refreshing. Finally someone gets it.

Or maybe a lot of people already do and I am just one of the laggards who has latched on to this phenomenon. But I cannot wipe that scene out of my mind- the self assured almost cocky gait of our young hero jumping across buildings, unmindful of his safety, focused just on getting what he wants. 

Maybe writing a blog post about it will help.