"The Tipping Point": Book Review

The dawn of the Hush Puppies shoes craze began with a group of hipsters. The development of the most popular children's show of all time, Sesame Street evolved from what was "sticky" to preschoolers. The small, close-knit groups of women suddenly made an obscure book, "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood", intensely popular. All these social epidemics share one thing in common: they each have a tipping point.

Hush Puppies Ad.
One of the funniest I found.

In "The Tipping Point," Malcom Gladwell argues there are distinct ingredients that lead to the creation of each phenomena. The combination of these ingredients lead to a threshold where something little becomes something great. A simple fashion idea becomes a national trend, a downward drift in crime turns into the an all-time low in crime rate. A simple message by horse mobilizes so many people and begins a revolutionary war. This is what Gladwell calls the "tipping point."

Gladwell doesn't provide ground-less how-to formulas. Instead, he provides a range of countless real-world examples from history, scientific studies, personality types, and expert opinions. All together he creates an intensely interesting idea. I found myself reading and reading the entire book so quickly without realizing the amount of crucial information I had just taken in.

Reading.

On the front cover of my paperback version of "The Tipping Point," there is a quote by Fortune that says, "A fascinating book that makes you see the world in a different way." I had not noticed the quote until I finished, sat it down, and took a moment to take it all in. "Yes," I thought, "I do see the world in a different way."

That's because this book is unlike any thing I have ever read. I was utterly entertained while I was learning, and learning to think of things in visionary ways. I now find myself wondering about the tipping points of current social epidemics like Facebook and bloggers (like me).

Memories from childhood: Blues Clues

It's impossible to praise all the ingenious elements in "The Tipping Point," but I will touch upon some of my favorite moments in the book. Having younger siblings, I grew up watching Blue's Clues. When Gladwell began to talk about the reasoning behind the "Blue's Clues" phenomena, it was as if he was talking about an old friend.

The Nickelodeon children's show's tipping point is explained by the stickiness factor: the idea that the show is so captivating that it makes children pay attention, and thus learn. I remember being strikingly obsessed with Blue's Clues, even though I was well passed the four and five-year-old audience age.

Gladwell also writes about the different affects of persuasion. In part one of "The Power of Context" chapter, Gladwell describes how certain situations can make people act in certain ways. He illustrates the famous 1970's psychology experiment where normal people were separated into prisoners and prison guards and within days the guards fell into the power-hungry, cruel role and the prisoners into the rebellious role.

This illustrates one idea in "The Tipping Point."
It's the idea that three specific kinds of people
bring about social epidemics.

There was almost a scary undertone to his conclusive sentence: "…there are instances where you can take normal people from good schools and happy families and good neighborhoods and powerfully affect their behavior merely by changing their immediate details of their situation."

Although it might not seem possible at first thought, there are logical reasons behind every social phenomenon. Gladwell's intriguing book illustrates the power behind good communication and ideas. This fundamental knowledge in the world where everyone is trying to create a good social epidemic of their own.