It's Time to Make Smart Sexy Again

My friend and mentor Quincy Jones says it takes 20 years to change a culture.

Well, in the last 20 years we have made dumb sexy.  We have dumbed down and celebrated it. And we need to make smart sexy again.

A few years ago a prominent company — Diesel Jeans — launched an extremely successful new advertising campaign called Be Stupid.  And I mean it was extremely successful.  

And even though the company had a Manhattan flagship location with BE STUPID permanently installed on both sides of the store, no one said a word.

No campaign of parents said “we will not purchase not one more set of your designer jeans until you remove and change this ridiculous campaign from your stores and companies.”  Nope.  

People just said ‘that’s cool,’ and kept it moving. And we all just kept purchasing their jeans, of course.  

But here is the crazy thing — this company didn’t promote this campaign in fast growing emerging market countries like China, or even highly aspirational places in say India and Africa.  They didn’t do it because in these places — all competing with America to become the next America — because it would not have worked. Folks there would have simply scratched their heads with bemusement.  They might have also been, offended.

In these places, parents pay for their children to go to school, and kids show up at school early in the day, and stay later.  In these places, education is an obsession. 

Unfortunately, here in North America, and maybe even in Europe, we just ate this ridiculous campaign up. And then we purchased more Diesel Jeans.  

Now, to be clear, I am not suggesting any damage to this particular company — I am suggesting that we have lost our story line.  And once you regain your story line, you simply would have a new perspective on things. Things -- like this.

To quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and my mentor and personal hero Ambassador Andrew Young from the civil rights movement, when they could not ride the bus they wanted even though their currency was green like everyone else's:

"We simply refuse to finance our own oppression." 

When I say we have made dumb sexy, the easiest visual for people to conjure up is what is unfortunately going on in many of our urban and inner city communities in America, where a generation of young people have seemingly been hijacked by thug culture, gangster rap, and an almost allergic reaction to tradition education.

But even in this instance -- what I have found, working on the ground in these communities through Operation HOPE, Global Dignity and other efforts I am involved in, is that nothing is wrong with these kids.  NOTHING.  

These are the same sort of kids that wore suits and ties in the early to mid 20th century, as a routine.  The problem is, they have been hijacked by today's thug culture.  And as I keep saying, everyone is aspirational. 

But if all you see in neighborhoods you grow up in, as symbols of success, are rap stars, athletes and drug dealers — then why is anyone surprised that what these young people grow up wanting to be, are ‘rap stars, athletes and drug dealers.’  

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a rap star or an athlete, per se, other than the fact that these life choices, limit your life choices.  And of course, beyond the fact that being a drug dealer is both illegal and highly immoral, I remind young people that there are no retired drug dealers.  

My point here is simple; you model what you see.

But in the 21st century, modern society we have made dumb sexy all over the place.  Unfortunately, many college graduates today have what I call an 'entitlement disease.’  Meaning, far too many actually expect things as a presumption — from their parents, from society, and maybe even from you and me.  

And making matters worse, many seem allergic to what I call hard work.  The motto here seems to be — in late, long lunch, leave early.

And this is not just an American problem.  When I am in many cities in Europe, I often run into college age young people who are passionate about only one thing — having fun during the day, and partying at night.

And I getting ‘down’ on this generation?  No. 

I simply expect for them to be the amazing, game-changer generation that God chartered them to be. Based upon the human-brilliance DNA package that He installed within each and every one of them at birth.  

He brought them into this world, to change this world, and not just to sit at the buffet table of their parents creation.

Am I saying, we shouldn’t allow or encourage them to have ‘fun’? Absolutely not.

What I am saying is only in the dictionary, does the word success come before the word work.

We need to re-imagine everything today, because everything is in play in today’s society. We are sitting in a moment in history, right now.  A one in 100 year opportunity to change everything. Everything.

And my only question is, ‘what are we doing about?'

I think we can make Ending Poverty sexy.  

I think we can make education sexy (again).

I think hard work, is sexy. 

I think it’s time we make smart sexy again.

One suggestion — print out this article, and share it with your children or young people you know.  They are literally — our future.  And what they do, and what they believe -- and what they are willing to fight for, matters.

Let’s make Smart Sexy.

Let’s go...

Okay, let’s go.

John Hope Bryant is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE and Bryant Group Ventures, an Inc. Magazine/800-CEO-READ bestselling business author ofLOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass). His newest bestselling book is How The Poor Can Save Capitalism: Rebuilding the Path to the Middle Class (Berrett Koehler Publishing).

Bryant is a Member of the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans, co-founder of the Gallup-HOPE Index with the Gallup Organization, and co-chair for Project 5117, which is a plan for the rebirth of underserved America.

Bryant is the only bestselling author on economics in the world who is also of African-American descent.

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