Hal Niedzviecki has a blunt message for the army of tattoo and piercing enthusiasts, bloggers, skateboard warriors, and anyone else walking around with the smug certainty that they are one of a kind: individuality is the new conformity.<BR>Niedzviecki offers up a barrage of facts, observations, and arguments that point to the extinction of the non-conformist. His meditations touch on everything from designer religions to webcasts, from reality TV to the endless "Everybody Is A Star" platitudes of global pop culture. He unearths the amateur underground and shines a spotlight on the self help industry, Hollywood, and mainstream media. The result is an argument that shatters the you-can-do-anything pop myth and exposes the paradox of individualism.<BR>A serious book with a sense of humor, Hello, I'm Special is the first book to account for the conflicting trends, collapsing traditions and changing pop culture landscapes that are, increasingly, shaping our world. More than a trend, the central premise of the book - individuality as a conformist imperative - is a notion with the power to challenge how we think about our world and our selves.