As a researcher and a cyclist, I was doubly interested in this Slate article about the absence of fixed-gear, or fixie, bicycles in China. (For those of you not familiar with the hipster fixie trend, here’s a quick primer.) While the article is ostensibly about this one product in this one country, it makes a larger point about trends and cultural context.
What is “cool” and “trendy” to one audience can be “weird” and “useless” to another. And this is not just true when comparing Brooklyn and Beijing. In research, subtle differences in demography can have huge effects on the perceptions of a product. Considering the cultural context in which we operate is always key.
Advertisement
1 comment
Comments feed for this article
April 23, 2010 at 12:01 am
Mark
David Goodman’s article rings very true to what we are experiencing here in Guangdong. When I first arrived in Shenzhen, I thought I would see nothing but a sea of bikes. How wrong i was, there are hardly any bikes on the road regardless of the time of day. Cars are becoming more common even in the short two years I have been here. As for bikes, I have been seeing a trend of more affluent Chinese riding high end bikes and even fixed gear bikes. There are many bike shops throughout the city, but only two which target the fixie crowd. To see a little of what we are experiencing here in Southern China you can check out our blog at vivalabike.com.