How to become remarkable in an unremarkable world!

a weird science based business idea that may not be so bad after all!

In the summer of a few years back, I started reading a book about the unremarkable. I stumbled upon this book by accident and was intrigued. The book written by Eviatar Zerubavel is called 'The Remarkable power of the unremarkable'. First, the title triggered me as I am attracted to everything unremarkable and thus remarkable. Even though I had no idea that I was at the time. It came as a natural thing to me.

I love the odd stuff that most people miss. I love finding weird gum wrappers and buying a pack just because they look nice. I love things that stand out because they are not like the rest. That is what this book is about, and that is also why this can be one thing you need to know to make your creative work or your business stand out.

I love found objects that don't match the accepted aesthetics, which makes them even more appealing. I like people who are not afraid to show their true colours and not follow the herd; I love people, places and objects who are. Yes, like that.

When you are not like the rest, when something is unlike everything else, it stands out. This is not new. Using this to make your point or stand out is super powerful, especially in your creative work or as a creative entrepreneur. But how does it work exactly? There are more exciting details to discover. How can one leverage the power of the unremarkable to stand out creatively? 

Remarkablility

There is something appealing about it. While most people love to be like everybody else, a few don't have that inclination. They don't want to be like the rest; they just want to be like themselves. 

In high school, most of us want to belong. We want to join the gang, fit in, blend in with the masses, and avoid standing out. Most of the time, standing out is something that has to be avoided at all costs.

Once you stand out, you can become an easy target—a target for mockery, bullying, and worse. This is where you become vulnerable, but this is also where personal freedom lies, as you are just being who you really are without any effort to change or to fit in.

We all would love to have this kind of freedom, but we fear it in many ways for the reasons I just mentioned. We're not wrong to think this and to feel fearful about it. Humans can be callous to other humans when they dare to be unlike them. Let's just take a look at social media. You just need to scroll a few times to see the same thing repeatedly. You could make a wallpaper out of the same outfits, the same advice, the same songs, the same captions… (I don't think I need to go further, do I?)

But this is not a piece about fear but the exact opposite: about being free to be remarkable by being unremarkable. I know it sounds very confusing.

Let me explain.

I will talk about the unremarkable first to make some sense of it. Unremarkable is something or somebody who is not marked or needs to be for us to 'get it'. That means all that is unmarked is the normal or the status quo. The accepted default in the society we live in.

It's the marking of an otherwise ordinary street, a two-way street, with a one-way street sign as the marked to make sure people will know the difference. And act accordingly. The marking itself makes something special.

This is only the first part of the marking. The other part is that if something is unmarked in a marked world, it will stand out just because it is unmarked. But to see it (most of the time), we will mark it, and it will become remarkable. It sounds super confusing but bear with me as I will try to explain further.

Take a basketball competition. Think of a basketball competition.

What were you thinking... male?

You are right! Most basketball competitions are predominantly male, and you probably already had an image of a competition or players. And they were male?

For this reason, we don't need to add 'male' to the basketball competitions, as this is the dominant way of thinking. Whether you like this or not. 

We don't use the words: an openly straight person, but there is an openly gay person. We don't say female nurse, but we do say male nurse. 

There are some things in society that we don't mark simply because they are or became the status quo—the rule, the accepted 'view'.

It doesn't mean they are better. They are the accepted way, the normal or the non-distinctive. 

Like the basketball competition, we don't say a male basketball competition. Since the status quo for a basketball game is a male game. Yes, we may not like this status quo; this is what it is.

How the status Quo is unremarkable

If we want to ensure people understand we are going to a female basketball competition, we must add an extra word, the female part. Otherwise, people assume (!!!!) that we're talking about a male basketball game. I hope this explanation makes sense.

So says Zerubavel, everything that is the status quo can be left unmarked. For the simple reason that we already know what kind of event, person, music, anything and everything it is, it remains unmarked because we already know it. Society embraced this kind of event, behaviour, person…. anything as normal.

This is also important; everything that remains unmarked is normal. We take this for granted by default.

So when the unmarked is the normal or the norm or the status quo.… that means that the marked becomes special…. and needs extra information to understand what we are talking about.

It also shows us how our society or culture has created specific rules for us all. 

This can be seen in the marking of parenting. We now have daddy days. But we have never ever talked about mommy-days. NOT ONCE I have heard somebody say proudly... no I can't work tomorrow: It's mommy day. This is because it's normal for women to care for the children. (As I write this in Grammarly, even Grammarly wants to change this sentence: Normally, women take care of the children. So, even AI is using the status quo as a truth. Oooof.) We can learn a great deal from society about how marking happens and how it remains to exist.

This is the exact opposite of what, at least, we have taught to see the world. We feel that everything that is normal, the status quo, is what we need to aim for when we try to do new things when we start a business and create our art. We are taught to not stand out, that we are taking up space when we differ, and that it's wrong to stand out from the next person. We, especially women, are also taught that you must stay humble and disregard your unique quality, as this will be seen as trying too hard or thinking you are better or a show-off. 

Now, when we consider marked and unmarked, remarkable and unremarkable, things change for the better.

Suddenly, everything that is unmarked is … well, dare I say it, quite boring… as this is normal. And this can be nice, but it's not special. Our brain doesn't register the normal as it doesn't require our attention. 

The ancient brain

Our brain has been trained since ancient times to only notice the remarkable, like a sudden encounter with a sabre-toothed tiger, and to dismiss anything unremarkable.

Now, how can we use this specific element in any business? It can make a tremendous difference.

If you are a women in a male dominated space, all you have to do is mark your specilaness and you will stand out.

Most of us—I have done this, too—have always tried to stay under the radar and not make ourselves seen. That means not marking ourselves, not pointing out to others that we are indeed different.

However, once you start marking yourself as different from the norm, you will immediately attract attention to yourself and your business.

But you will have to make sure you understand what a normal or unmarked situation is so that you can make the most of your unique situation.

Change of scenery

However, it also depends on the culture, scene, or society in which we move.

When everybody is wearing a red tracksuit at a running event, and one person is wearing a green tracksuit, that person stands out above everybody else. The green tracksuit guy is remarkable instantly. But if that same guy is wearing that same green tracksuit at a green tracksuit event, where every other runner is wearing that same green tracksuit, he stops becoming the norm and is unremarkable. So, it is also highly relevant to understand where you are marked and where you are unmarked. Or where you can be remarkable and where you can be unremarkable. 

So, the power of the unremarkable lies in changing the scene or making yourself remarkable by adding your remarkability.

The girl with the glasses, that blond dude, that guy who knows everything about screenprinting, that grey-haired creative...

The rude one. That website that only has black pages. 

That will stand out.

Now we're talking.

What seemed to be unremarkable suddenly becomes remarkable.

This is the remarkable power of the unremarkable! It is especially important to take this into account when starting your creative career. 

Your turn: What is the norm in the space you are in? Is there anything remarkable about you? 

What is unremarkable about you, and how can you use that to mark yourself and become remarkable?