Instant Gratification

I find the "Long Tail" to be extremely interesting for a number of reasons. We've grown up in a consumer culture. Essentially everything we encounter on a day to day basis has been commodified, from products sold in store to our time and how we spent it. Everything has become a matter of maximizing potential outcomes. This theory/effect is no different.

We've grown up in a world of instant gratification. In our lifetimes, we've seen the transformation from the process of seeing something we like, desiring it, saving up for it, and eventually, maybe, making a purchase, to seeing something we like and buying it on the spot. We've seen the transformation from "Christmas Lists" to Christmas everyday, because we don't see the value in not acting on our desires.

This YouTube video is an interesting perspective on marketing to the Millennial generation. We are a generation that expects immediacy. "Give us what we want when we want it". This has a huge impact on the Long Tail effect discussed in the article. The primary distinction between the world our parents grew up in and the world we grew up in is that we are entirely dependent on technology. This dependency is a large part of the reason that we like the satisfy our demands immediately, and the reason marketers and producers have adapted all of their strategies to market to us. These changes are essentially the Long Tail effect in and of itself. Amazon is the perfect example. It has adapted into a company that can offer ANY product, instantly and delivered (most times) within two days right to our doorstep.  We want instant gratification? Fine. Amazon makes everything available, slashes prices, and makes it almost too easy to find exactly what you're looking for, just like the article discusses.

This second attached video talks about one last features of Millennials that applies to the Long Tail: we all think we are special. Millennials are a generation that have been raised to believe that we are each unique and special and have something to offer to the world that no one other than ourselves could possibly live up to. That's why mass-marketing doesn't usually work for us. It's the "niche" market we are looking for. Millennials don't want to be generic.