More importantly, It is reminiscent of adolescence. This is the voice of the slacker generation – not the much-publicised and celebrated male one, but a new kind of female ne’er-do-well.  

It's a culturally savvy move, though. The Du darfst campaign gives people permission to stop worrying, framing the positive rather than the defeatist or slob-like aspects of letting go.

80% of women see diets as “complicated to implement and maintain", according to Unilever's research but this doesn't stop them from trying.

As a result, China's teens play identity games, creating anonymous personas to hide behind when they've had a bad day.  

Everyone assumes you will have one of these, Wang tells us, but it's very bad form to ask what it is. 

“If you have a bad day – there's a test you didn't prepare for, or your girlfriend broke up with you – you go on [a social networking site anonymously] and you just bitch. It's not even complaining, it's about very raw emotions that would never be revealed in a public space or associated with real names.It's always expressed with tons of exclamation marks.”

 

In the mobile version, users select a friend or enemy from their contacts list and make punching motions with their device.

There have been several similarly angry recreational activities designed to release some of the pressure from urban life. Take 'Super Table Flip' the Japanese arcade game for stressed out workers which requires players to throw a kitchen table at family members. In 2009, a group of Tokyo chiropractors opened the Venting Place, a shop where customers fling crockery against a wall for a small fee.
 
The idea proved so appealing to the Western mindset that in May 2012, Texas got one too.

regularly smoking weed,doing coke or dropping acid, with cannabis the most common vice. In the US, an estimated 4.8 million adults over 50 had used an illicit drug in the past year (based on the most recent 2008-2009 data).

These behaviours are part of a bigger shift in cultural attitudes. As the world becomes ageless , we've seen rising divorce rates and adventure travel among women over 50 –see Mamy Rock packing out the clubs Stateside, for example. Glamorous seniors act as fashion muses.

Media has evolved to match; high50 is an online publication for freewheeling baby boomers,and Sweden's M-Magasin was 

threatening innuendos and experimental drug taking. With crowds scrambling to shout “Kill people, burn shit, fuck school” at their sellout concerts, you might be forgiven for thinking that the future’s looking very odd indeed.
 
Beyond the well-worn expression of youthful rebellion, however, the Western preoccupation with authenticity loads flaws and imperfections with valuable social currency.

There's a definite appeal to the aesthetics of ‘bad taste’ in contemporary Western culture, which flaunt convention and codes of behaviour.