The Laws and Cases That Give Way to Contagion

The Laws and Cases That Give Way to Contagion

~written January 2019~

Since 1997 Malcolm Gladwell wrote for The New Yorker as a staff writer; writing articles such as Creation Myth (2011), and more recently How School Shootings Spread (2015). When he decided to write his debut book The Tipping Point it became an international bestseller. After publishing his book, Gladwell went on to write two more, over the span of eight years; Blink and Outliers. The latter focuses on how particular people find their success, examples include Bill Gates, The Beatles, and Canadian ice hockey players. The former, Blink, focuses on "thinking without thinking" a term used to describe the sub-mental processes that respond quickly, and efficiently, with little to no information. Blink discusses the benefits and downfalls of this adaptive unconscious. The Tipping Point focuses on how-as the tag line suggests-"little things can make a big difference." Gladwell explores this doctrine by illustrating that the minute details of the context surrounding an event, how "sticky" the content actually is ¹, and who are the people encompassing the epidemic ² in question, can determine how strongly an idea tips.

Gladwell first establishes The Law of the Few, which discusses the need for only a couple, very special people when starting an epidemic. Those people are Connectors, Mavens³, and Salesmen. To begin, connectors are people who have a food in every social circle. Doing the hokey pokey is nearly impossible for these type of people⁴. Their address books are filled with people they've met only once or twice but they aren't any less fond of than someone they've known their whole life. These people, in an extreme case, are able to send an email out to their whole contact list about a new Chinese food restaurant they found and that restaurant will see a striking boom in business. We all know someone who is like this, maybe not to the extent of altering the success of a restaurant, but someone who is charismatic and connected enough to know at least one person in every industry. This transfers into the idea that we can all be connected to each other rather easily, noting on the once viral Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, making the spread of contagion even faster due to the use of a connector. Paul Revere, a thoroughly used alluditude⁵ in the book, is a great example but he offers new light onto what makes contagion so funny. You see, William Dawes did the same thing as Revere, traveled the same distance, with the same message yet he isn’t a household name. This is because Revere didn’t just go door to door, he went in with a plan. A plan of who to talk to and when. Whereas Dawes told anybody and everybody who would listen just for the heck of sharing.

Mavens are “information stockbrokers.” Seizing new information whenever they can and giving it out to whoever will listen. They seem like they would be the kind of obnoxious, WholeFoods label starer, but they tend to be genuinely helpful people, wanting to assist with your automotive purchase. They’ll help you get a better deal on a car, or a house, or a can of soup. Gladwell points to Mark Alpert who is the quintessential maven. Following all that he can about every possible marketplace. At any given time he could tell what the best hotel is to stay at in Hengstenberg, Germany. Due to mavens’ strenuous knowledge of marketplaces and their genuine want to be helpful they often suggest new and innovative products or services with people they meet. As it states in the book, it “is not so much what they know, but how they pass it along.” People tend to leave a larger note in their memory when someone personally advocates for it. Salesmen (or women) are relatively simple. Think to yourself what comes to mind when you hear, or in this case read, the word Salesman (or woman)... Yeah, that’s pretty much it. I just saved you 18 pages of reading⁶. This is The Law of The Few. It doesn’t take everyone in the world to cause mass mania it only takes a few. These few; however, it takes not one, but all three of these types of people to start a cultural epidemic. People have to not only be convinced enough to try it for themselves but also to want to entice other people to partake.

⁷The stickiness factor can be assumed to be how addictive a piece of content is or how easily consumed and memorable it is. This assumption is correct. Gladwell brings examples like Seseme St. and Blue's Clues to demonstrate The Stickiness Factor, providing a compelling backstory for the development of both these shows. Diving deep into the small changes they made to appeal to kids and increase retainability.⁸

Gladwell introduces The Power of Context through two chapters of his book. The Power of Context is, in its purest form, the idea that only when certain criteria are met an epidemic and surge.

As exemplified by Gladwell, the crime rate in 1980 New York City was at an all-time high, panhandlers and petty criminals filled the subways during the 1980s. With a special sort of spotlight on the subway systems in place, William Bratton, the New York City police chief at the time, was quoted saying “It was like going into the transit version of Dante’s Infero." Bratton consulted criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, the brain-fathers of the Broken Windows theory⁹, for guidance on their crime problem. Using their Broken Windows theory minds they came to the conclusion that to adequately dismantle the resurgence of crime they needed to first cure the smaller things. Starting with the subway. More specifically, graffiti and fare beating¹⁰. They sought advisement with David Gunn, the newly appointed subway director. Gunn states that “the graffiti was symbolic of the collapse of the system.” Their mission was to repaint the graffitied subways in a way to deter larger crimes. The six years from 1984 to 1990 was spent cleaning every New York City subway car and maintaining that cleanliness¹¹.William Bratton, the now head of transit police, had the idea that, like graffiti, fare-beating could be the small change that makes a world of difference. Bratton started strictly enforcing the fare system and when catching fare beaters he had the on-duty officers chain them together. They deployed a mini police station in a reformed city bus so they could quickly and effortlessly process each violator. The soon got the process which would normally take a whole day, down to an hour. Bratton also insisted that every detainee have a background check. Now, one in every seven fare-beaters had an outstanding warrant for a previous crime. And soon enough one in every twenty had a weapon on them. The only thing noted in the book about how the state of New York crime changed was, “Arrests for misdemeanors, for the kind of minor offenses that had gone unnoticed in the past, went up fivefold between 1990 and 1994.” Whether or not this is progress, I’m not sure. The new mayor of New York City appointed Bratton to the head of the New York City Police Department, hoping that with the same sort of mindset Bratton could change the city as a whole. He told officers to focus on what he calls “quality of life crimes” like the “squeegee-men” who demand money after cleaning car windows. Bratton says “if you peed in the street, you were going to jail.” Again, no statistical evidence is prominent in the reading, however; it can be assumed that the crime in New York City has decreased because of the reason stated above, though not explicitly stated.

The Magic Number of 150 is a phenomenon in which, for whatever reason, after reaching that number things start to fall apart. Explained in the book to be the result of a neocortex ratio¹² for homo sapiens, this figure seems to be the ideal number to have a large group be set at. Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist states “At this size, orders can be implemented and unruly behavior controlled on the basis of personal loyalties and direct man-to-man contacts. With larger groups this becomes impossible.” Now, in an effort as to not repeat this entire section of the book, I will try my best not to indulge in the specificities and in doing so I might slip into layman's speech. Dunbar visited villages of hunter-gatherer societies and found that the average size was ~150. Neato. It’s also found that generals, when commanding fleets of men seem to have a capacity of 200 men, Dunbar informs that he believes this to not be the work of thorough investigation and experimentation but instead of plain ol’ trial and error “it is hard to get more than this number of men sufficiently familiar with each other so they can work together as a functional unit.” Numerous examples of the 150 rule are embellished throughout this portion of the text but I will only name them here¹³: military unit sizes¹⁴, primitive villages population, early Methodist churches, Hutterites’ colonies¹⁵, “develop[ing] schools in disadvantaged communities... better off building a lot of smaller schools than one or two big ones;” a super specific example of Gore Associates¹⁶, whose warehouses, factories, and offices’ populous aren’t allowed to reach 150 and if they do, just as the aforementioned Hutterites, they divide.

In conclusion¹⁷, the Power of Context¹⁸ allows for a deeper understanding of how epidemics can surge, with some extreme caveats, clear emphasis on noticing the small, insignificant details and a grasp on what it really takes for a product, service, television show, or anything for that matter, to "go" viral.

Furthermore, Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point allows for a deeper understanding of how epidemics can surge, with an extre- see preceding.

Case Studies:

To save you the grotesque details¹⁹ I will simply name the cases in which Gladwell uses to support his argument²⁰; the growth of Airwalk sneakers²¹,the spread of new hybrid corn seed²², the distortion of rumors²³, HIV infected needles²⁴, the suicide rate in Micronesian boys²⁵, and lastly, smoking²⁶.

Review:

²⁷The Tipping Point: How Small Things Can Make A Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell, a book for the curious and fascinated. If you're looking for something to be able to bring up in conversation so that people know you have at least read one book, this is a superb option. I have brought this book up countless times²⁸. It’s just so easy to relate back to, the case studies especially are easy to bring up in conversation, and if that’s the mark of a great book then kudos to you Malcolm. My gripe with this book is that I don’t ​really get it. Like I get it, I understand what it’s saying and how interesting all this stuff is but who is it for? Is it for just that? Being interesting? It comes off as a helpful resource in getting a glimpse into how the world ticks. Gaining info onto how to help your own brand. But at this, it failed. It doesn’t give any real guidelines to help in that way. It’s interesting information and cool to read about but it’s not ​useful,​ not to me anyway. Does everything have to be useful? No, and it does give some nice examples to use and be inspired by in, novellic²⁹ pursuits. Thank you for writing this book Mr. Gladwell. You have successfully taken up a part of my brain.

[1] More on the word 'sticky' and its meaning later on

[2] The usage of the word 'epidemic,' in this context, will be used in reference to how a popular trend or idea spread like a virus through a population

[3] More on the word ‘​maven​’ and its meaning later on

[4] This joke can be explained by the following: during the Hokey Pokey, one is conjured to “put” and “take” their “left” or “right” “foot” “in” or “out.” This means for the aforementioned people they would have to do this numerous times because of how many social circles they have a foot “in.”

[5] A word, a noun, one who is alluded to

[6] An important note: incase you can’t make the logical leaps being averred, a Salesman has charisma, and is enthusiastic when speaking. Salesmen are persuasive gents. They try their hardest to make whom ever they’re talking to comfortable. Gladwell indicated that when talking to Tom Gau (the example given in the book as the Type A Salesman), he almost seemed to mirror Gladwell’s body language and they at times both started to emulate each other’s speech patterns

[7] This is me getting back to what I mean by “sticky”

[8] Keep up, we’re moving along quick now

[9] Broken Windows theory is, essentially, the theory that a broken window is more likely to happen in a place where there already is one. Meaning, the influx of crime is caused by smaller crimes, almost giving the bigger criminals "permission"

[10] Fare-Beating is a term used to describe the act of not paying a subway fare

[11] While rereading the book to write this article I noticed that there didn’t seem to be any explanation as to how cleaning up the graffiti helped the situation

[12] “the size of the neocortex relative to the size of the brain”

[13] Or maybe I’ll tell their whole story and then some. Who knows at this point?

[14] See aforementioned

[15] A “religious group... who for hundreds of years have lived in self-sufficient agricultural colonies in Europe and... North America." They “came out of the same tradition as the Amish and the Mennonites... [they] have a strict policy that every time a colony approaches 150 they split it in two and start a new one”

[16] Manufacturers of such products as “the water-resistance Gore-Tex fabric, as well as Glide dental floss,”

[17] I know, an exciting transition but elementary nonetheless

[18] In case you forgot what we were talking about

[19] ‘g​rotesque,’​ not describing the details themself, but the amount

[20] More information will be in the footnotes

[21] Airwalk sneakers, if you haven’t heard of them, is a shoe company that focuses on providing trendsetting shoes for skaters. Airwalk is known to have associates whose job it is to look and find new trends that are sparking up and communicate that to the marketing team so they are always on the ‘cutting edge of fashion'

[22] ‘Hybrid corn seed’ referring to the use of genetically modified seed in order to produce a higher yield. Once farmers saw the success of such a product they hopped on board.

[23] Pretty basic stuff here. The example given in the book is, in 1945, “a Chinese teacher on holiday doing some sightseeing in rural Maine with his trusty guidebook.” This turned into, “a Japanese spy taking photos of the countryside to plan their next attack.” It’s similar to the kindergarten game ​Telephone where a message is passed down a line or circle of people and you see how distorted the message becomes by the end of the line or circle

[24] This whole situation is rather interesting. During the HIV epidemic in Baltimore, which was caused by the use of heroin and other hard drugs, the city would send out vans that would exchange dirty needles for clean ones, but this van would only come once a week and with a limited inventory. With people shooting up as often as they were the system wasn’t ideal. Drug addicts are the most organized people, they aren’t going to keep track of every dirty needles and be able to bring them to the corner where the needle van would be. So, naturally, there were some exploitative characters who would scrounge up dirty needles throughout the week and exchange them for clean ones. These types would then lounge around alleys and nightclubs, locations where druggies would be shooting up, and then sell their clean needles to the addicts. The initial response was having second thoughts but they actually relied on these “super-exchangers” to provide 24 hour service to the streets of Baltimore. They knew where to be and when, they were “the Connectors of Baltimore’s drug world.”

[25] “In the mid 1960s, suicide on the islands of Micronesia was almost unknown.” but for some unidentified reason it began to rise, fast. By the 1980s the suicide rate in Micronesia was highest per capita than anywhere else in the world. In the US at the same time, males between 15 and 24 suicide’s were about 22 in 100,000 whereas on the islands it was about 160 per 100,000. It is to be noted that some, if not most, suicides were recognized as, done arbitrarily, for any reason.

[26] Smoking, I hope I don’t have to explain its addictive qualities and how it can spread through a populous as a trend. However, there is a lot to cover in this section of the book I would recommend you read this section to gain a deeper understanding because I will have to cut some things short and exclude some others. Starting off, the different types of smokers, the hard core smoker (smokes at least a pack a day and everyday), the ‘chippers’ (smokes probably 5 times a day and around 4 days a week. The reason ‘chippers’ smoke can vary from ‘chipper’ to ‘chipper,’ one might find pleasure from smoking but can’t handle large amounts, or the opposite can handle it but doesn’t find as much pleasure from smoking. Hard core smokers find pleasure ​and have the endurance), and lastly the people who don’t smoke (but tried it) and the people who never have. Hardcore smokers tend to be extroverted, sociable creatures who never stop annoying you.
Another thing discussed is, how nicotine produces serotonin in the brain which can obviously help people get addicted to it; however, when people who smoke and have clinical depression, take Zoloft or Prozac they don’t feel the need to smoke. Which is pretty neato.

[27] This will probably be the shortest section of this paper.

[28] ...I could probably count the times. This is hyperbole

[29] A word, an adjective, of or relating to novels