New Urban Tribes of South Africa
With eleven official languages, and just as many differing points of view, South Africans refuse to fit neatly into traditional demographic profiles.
Living Standards Measures (LSMs) and other commonly used marketing models fail to provide a holistic, three-dimensional view of the various personalities and ideologies that make up our intricate society.
This makes it incredibly difficult for marketers and businesses to define who their customers are, how to segment them and how to connect with them in a meaningful, personal way.
That’s where this report comes in. In New Urban Tribes of South Africa you will meet twelve new, uniquely South African tribes, and get to know who they are, what makes them tick and how to communicate with them – through an anthropologist’s eye.
In this extract we meet one of the twelve tribes, The Techno-Hippies.
T H E T E C H N O - H I P P I E S
Techno-Hippies, otherwise known as Hippie 2.0s, are tech-savvy geeks with hipster tastes and hippie ideas about saving the planet by going green and being sustainably self-sufficient.
Although they are passionate about changing the world on an abstract level, unlike the Faith-Based Youth, they prefer passive activism to actually getting their hands dirty, and as such, have gained the nickname ‘Slacktivists’.
Slacktivist (slacker + activist): Someone who is happy to generate awareness for a (popular) cause on social media platforms, but who isn’t prepared to leave their home and comfortable life to implement change on the front line.
They turn on their computers, tune in to the Internet news, blogs, sites and opinions, and drop out of school in pursuit of Internet entrepreneurship and the dream of living the self-sufficient lifestyle of the modern ‘New Rich’.
New Rich: People who are considered wealthy not because of their possessions or bank balances, but because they have freedom of time and location. They are self-sufficient, self-employed modern nomads who can live and work whenever and wherever they want, without being bound by the clock or serving a full-time boss.
Whereas the Faith-Based Youth have a desire to change the world by setting up ethical businesses, the Techno-Hippies believe that they can make a difference by consuming for good.
In stark contrast to the ‘true believers’, they care very much about what they wear; both in terms of what their clothes looks like and also in terms of the story behind the brand.
It is not uncommon for Techno-Hippies to spend the morning at their local iStore buying the latest iPhone upgrade, only to spend the afternoon at a hippy craft market picking out an up-cycled handmade iPhone case made out of sustainable bamboo.
Up-cycled: A discarded or old item that has been re-purposed or updated and given a second lease on life. For example, old school chairs that are given a new coat of paint and resold in upmarket stores as designer furniture.
Product stories, from source to store, resonate with Techno-Hippies who like to know where their designer hemp T-shirts and leather sandals come from. Knowing that the Asian workers who sewed their shirt were happy and well paid according to fair-trade standards or being reassured that the cow that died for their new snappy leather sandals died of natural causes on a beautiful farm in the Eastern Cape helps to ease their post-cognitive guilt over their unnecessary Western consumerism.
That said, the more militant Techno-Hippies will only wear ‘vegan’ clothing and reject any items made from animal products, such as leather, fur, snake skin and feathers, in favour of hand-woven, sustainable, organic cotton clothing purchased on their spiritual pilgrimages to India.
Wherever possible, Techno-Hippies will try to purchase locally made, handmade or recycled items, and favour clothing brands such as Lunar, which is both locally made and 100% organic.
Vintage, second-hand or up-cycled clothing from flea markets and charity shops, which has a ‘post-manufacture story’ is also popular with this group.
Techno-Hippies are known for swapping their clothes, bartering goods and taking part in shared-ownership programmes, such as Bag, Borrow, Steal, a website that enables members to share ownership of a very expensive designer bag with other members for a reasonable monthly fee.
They also tend to equate clever minimalist design with minimalist environmental impact, as can be seen with the popularity of brands such as Vibram Five Fingers, and the colourful, trendy ‘foot-glove’ running shoes, which separate the toes in the same way gloves separate fingers, giving wearers the feeling of being barefoot and closer to nature.
The desire for extensive knowledge about where the Techno-Hippies’ purchases come from also applies to their food choices.
Techno-Hippies tend to favour produce labelled organic, fair-trade, 100% natural, free range and, preferably, ‘artisanal’.
Wherever possible, Techno-Hippies like to grow or produce their own fresh goods at home, such as herbs, honey, fruit and vegetables. If they live in an apartment or townhouse without a garden, they are keen to experiment with space-saving vertical gardens and rooftop beehives.
Many Techno-Hippies are also organic vegetarians, vegans or ‘raw foodists’ who draw social status from publicly promoting their extreme eating habits.
Raw foodist: Someone who only eats raw, unprocessed, 100% natural foods – usually also vegetarian and/or vegan.
While this dedication to organic, sustainable living is commendable, it should be noted that the 2% of the world who indulge in buying only organic food spend more on filling their pantries with this ‘ethical’ food than the 74% of humanity who can only afford basic life-sustaining food. This opens up an entirely different ethical debate: is it truly ethical to spend days hunting down and indulging in expensive ‘artisanal’ raw cacao and agave vegan chocolate bars when millions of people around the world cannot even afford basic foodstuffs?
Techno-Hippies have a real desire to change the world; they are constantly looking for a fashionable cause they can get behind and ‘wear’ like a badge or brand identity.
While Techno-Hippies are prepared to engage in low-commitment actions to save the world, such as recycling, using solar-powered cellphone chargers, car-pooling or driving a Toyota Prius, they are much more at home creating awareness than actioning change.
They do this by using technology – blogging about social and environmental issues; campaigning for social change on YouTube; following sustainable-living heroes on Twitter; supporting start-up projects on kickstarter.com; and joining Facebook cause groups (such as the ones that post the controversial pictures of dead Rhinos on your profile page).
Techno-Hippies tend to be philosophical and open to new ideas. Because of today’s information availability on global issues, they see ignorance, lack of consciousness and insularity as inexcusable.
The danger is that social networking profiles are often nothing more than social veneer. That said, even if it is nothing more than lip service, they are still getting important messages out to the masses.
This poses the question: can one create real social change without hitting the street and protesting?
The answer, based on the success of the Kony 2012 viral video, is a resounding ‘yes’.
Techno-Hippies stay in touch with each other, and with like-minded brands, through technology such as apps, blogs and social media.
They enjoy absorbing new ideas at trendy tea houses and coffee shops, such as Wolves in Illovo, Johannesburg, and they also support the local Hipster art scene by getting behind the local cinema industry and attending ‘artisanal’ markets, such as the Neighbourgoods Market and Arts on Main in the (now) trendy downtown Johannesburg, or the Old Biscuit Mill in Cape Town.
Techno-Hippies also connect with like-minded people at sustainable festivals, such as the carbon-neutral Rocking the Daises music festival and Afrika Burn, which symbolise principles of radical expression through the building of a temporary community of collaborative arts projects, non-commercialism and collective participation.
They also enjoy travelling with global ‘like-mindeds’, attending international events, such as ‘Rainbow Gatherings’ or going adventure travelling with Mike Horn.
‘Rainbow Gatherings: Temporary communities typically held in outdoor settings, espousing and practising ideals of peace, love, harmony, freedom and community as a consciously expressed alternative to mainstream popular culture, consumerism, capitalism and mass media.’ (Wikipedia.org)
The best way for brands to connect with Techno-Hippies is to attach their products to a cause and hope that the global Techno-Hippie community catches on and turns the product story viral through tweets and blog posts.
The IOU Project is an international brand that has found the perfect way to tap into the Techno-Hippies’ love for both technology and ethical product stories. They sell scarves that come complete with a QR code that tells the story of how the sustainable scarves were made, from the worker who wove the material to the final item. End consumers are even able to add their own photographs and stories of wearing their new scarf to the digital QR code.
On the local front, 5FM’s Eco Brother and former Big Brother star, Irvan Damon, is a Techo-Hippie to be reckoned with. He is also the co-founder of Art de Afrique, a design company that recycles billboards and turns them into furniture and handbags. And Techno-Hippies are not the only ones who appreciate a good designer handbag. Meet South Africa’s Desperate Housewives …
