inspired by a coworker, these are the days of my life...

Thursday, January 18, 2007

have you heard about that god-awful book idea the eight tribes of new zealand? i have and was outraged. disregarding the fact there were real tribes in new zealand long before there were sociologist or anthropologist or whatever ologists who wanted to make a quick buck by publishing their self indulgent work, and that these 'tribes' are much cooler than any coffee table book, i took the online quiz. cos, i'm home and bored and whatnot.
you can take the quiz too.

these are my results.

apparently i'm avant garde. to quote the internet

The Cuba Street Tribe Avant-Garde is a transitional Tribe for young alternative Kiwis on the cutting edge of cool, where new is the greatest virtue, being labelled mainstream the greatest fear and self-expression the great preoccupation. The Cuba Street tribe is the edge from which many trends and fashions emerge in the 80s it was the vanguard of espresso, in the 90s of body piercing and tattoos.
i can back up this cutting edge thing, as tonight i bought couture and the designer himself was there. although i smiled and became remuera when i ranted on loudly so he could overhear about how i will only buy my jewellery from equip these days because marie claire magazine said so.

7 comments:

fish said...

Hmm, I'm 50% Balclutha, 25% Raglan.

To quote:
"The Tribal Mind of the Kiwi heartland, the provincial conservatives, who see themselves as a source of stability and commonsense, bearers of on-going connection with the land solid, reliable and down to earth, but also deceptively smart."

Interesting that most of the labels are from the North Island, and mostly Auckland. Makes me think the authors are probably from there...

fish said...

Hmm, I'm 50% Balclutha, 25% Raglan.

To quote:
"The Tribal Mind of the Kiwi heartland, the provincial conservatives, who see themselves as a source of stability and commonsense, bearers of on-going connection with the land solid, reliable and down to earth, but also deceptively smart."

Interesting that most of the labels are from the North Island, and mostly Auckland. Makes me think the authors are probably from there...

fish said...

Damn double vision! Sorry - can't delete it either, although it makes you look really popular with three comments already!

Off-Black said...

50% Balclutha, 20% Raglan. I actually managed a negative score for Cuba street, which I don't think is accurate.

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness.... You're a Cuba St-er! Cuba Street is my favourite tribe.... I mean, I'm not being rude. It's just that they have all the best songs!!

A bientot
xo

Anonymous said...

FWIW, the usage of 'tribe' in this book is to link into the current round of global conversation using the word to mean trans-national cultural identities based on values and interests. See also tribe.net, the San Fran pioneer of social networking sites that led to friendster and myspace et al.
-morgue

Tom said...

"Interesting that most of the labels are from the North Island, and mostly Auckland. Makes me think the authors are probably from there."

According to a newspaper interview, the authors are from Wellington, and work just off Cuba St in the old Hannahs Warehouse. Some of the "tribes" could definitely have been named after other locations, but others are really only well summed-up by the chose location. For instance, my own "research" indicates that just about anywhere in inner Wellington is full of Grey Lynn-type people, but generally if you say "that's so Grey Lynn" people know what you're talking about, whereas there's no single suburb in Wellington that has the same resonance. Similarly, AFAIK there's no single street in Auckland or Christchurch that sums up their definition of "Cuba St" quite as well as Cuba St itself.

Yeah, it's definitely silly and the quiz is far too short ot be useful, but it might be a good antidote to those politicians and marketers who assume that "real kiwis" are somewhere between Balclutha and Papatoetoe.