Symbolic Systems 205 – Systems: Theory, Science, Metaphor

Winter 2002-2003

Stanford University

Instructor: Todd Davies, Symbolic Systems

Commentary: The Tipping Point

by Malcolm Gladwell

commentary written by Sara Wampler

In the afterword to The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell discusses what he calls “immunity”—our tendency to stop reacting to a variety of things because we have been overexposed to them. He points to the obvious example of disease outbreaks, mentioning how a disease can travel rapidly and reach epidemic proportions, but then die out because too many people in the population have achieved immunity and can no longer be infected or serve as carriers. In these cases, diseases are successful until they have grown too large; then, they run out of population members and are quickly eradicated.

Gladwell goes on from his discussion of disease to make the claim that humans can also become “immune” to various communication media, such as telephone, fax, and email. Telemarketing has lost some of its efficacy, and signs point to the similarly shrinking influence of email because people are inundated by spammers and unwanted junk. The solution to immunity, in Gladwell’s opinion, is to target the “Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen” whom he has fingered as the main influences on popular knowledge and opinion.

However, Gladwell’s attempt to overcome immunity through these key individuals ignores the types of information that are typically disseminated over email and phone. Earlier in the book he gives a nice anecdote about a woman in San Diego who spread health information through beauty salons; but, such information is perfectly suited to be passed on through mavens and salesmen. Fashion trends, technological innovations, and health advice can quite obviously benefit from endorsements by powerful, influential, well-connected, charismatic individuals. By contrast, the “information” given by telemarketers and email spammers is not really meant to lead to an epidemic-like trend. In the case of email especially, the products advertised are not accepted by the mainstream. More importantly, though, it is unlikely that they will be in the near future. Advertisements for sex enhancers and diet drugs attempt to find the few people lurking in the multitudes who are interested in these very specific products. The likelihood of someone endorsing a product such as this and bringing it up in conversation is slim at best; in many cases, repeated efforts to encourage one’s friends to try such a currently-tabooed or ridiculed product would probably result in the loss of one’s reputation and later influence.

Thus, while Gladwell’s theory of the tipping point has many interesting qualities, it is important to keep in mind that not all products, marketing schemes, and information types require “tipping” to be considered a success. While telemarketers and spammers seem almost universally hated, their business tactics are successful enough that they feel the need to protect themselves from attempts at government regulation. This success indicates that, while phone subscriptions and pornography advertisements do not use sophisticated attempts to reach influential group members, their current saturation marketing tactics do reach many of those who are interested in their products. Mavens, connectors, and salesmen probably would not want to use their social capital to encourage the purchase of these products, but their help is ultimately unnecessary. The fact that people buy things from telemarketers and spammers shows that the “key people” of Gladwell’s book are not necessarily the most important ingredient for success. One could argue that the mavens might be able to support these products’ eventual emergence in the mainstream world, and this is of course always a possibility. But, as long as societal norms judge that sex, spy cameras, and get-rich-quick schemes are unacceptable topics of conversation and development, the mavens and salesmen will not have the opportunity to push these commodities to the tipping point. The nature of a product and the ways in which it influences and is influenced by society is, in the end, perhaps just as important to its success as its use by the most influential members of society.