The Tipping Point

I recently got the opportunity to read The Tipping Point written by Malcolm Gladwell. I found the book to be super informative and also surprising. The point of the book is how little things can make a big difference. The introduction to the novel started out with a few old fashioned stories to explain what a tipping point is. There is one really that caught my attention. It was very personable and taught me about Hush Puppies, a brand of shoes. The idea of the “tipping point” was that a style of the brand of shoes that was so obviously out of fashion but was able to seamlessly make a comeback once they hit the tipping point. According to Gladwell, the shoes went from being thirty dollars and owned by a handful of downtown Manhattan hipsters to being in every mall in America in a span of only two years. The notion of a tipping point is a truly fascinating one. The introduction really set the stage for the rest of the novel by showing what can happen when a trend or idea spreads like wildfire. There is no stopping it or slowing it down… it is contagious behavior. Throughout the novel, three recurring characteristics of a tipping point are shown. One is contagiousness, another is the fact that little causes can have big effects, and the third is that change happens gradually but at one dramatic moment. According to Gladwell, “The name given to that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once is the Tipping Point”. The novel goes on to explain many epidemics and pinpoints the causes and tipping points of each of them. Reading about the past was interesting because it gives a lot of insight to history that I had not previously considered. Diseases like Syphilis, AIDS, HIV, PCP, and many more. Besides the history aspect of the book, a lot of what I read surprised me. I found myself constantly asking, “Is this really possible?”. I was also surprised that the tipping point phenomenon applied to so many stories that I have heard throughout my life but never really considered. It even applies perfectly to the story of Paul Revere and the American Revolution. I really sped through the book. It was a light and easy read, full of anecdotes and different stories to keep a reader constantly entertained. Throughout the process of reading the entire novel, I was still constantly surprised by what I read about tipping points. Gladwell kept that pace of the novel quick and lively, it was spiced up with all sorts of different fads, fashions, and epidemics that he observed and evaluated. One story that really caught my attention was the study conducted at Princeton University by Darley and Batson. The study was based on the parable of The Good Samaritan. The results of the study differed from what I expected and proved, according to Gladwell, “that the convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding your actions that the immediate context of your behavior”. The study proved that the words “Oh, you’re late” had the effect of making someone who was ordinarily compassionate into someone who was indifferent to suffering. In the chapters about smoking, Gladwell writes, “Smoking was never cool. Smokers are cool”. Gladwell explains that the smoking epidemic began in the same way that suicide epidemics or word-of-mouth epidemics began. A very small group… a select few are responsible for driving the epidemic forward. That’s all it takes and it spreads like wildfire. Gladwell explained how devastating the results can be, all due to the Law of the Few and the Stickiness Factor. Overall, I really enjoyed reading The Tipping Point. I feel that the novel did a great job informing, surprising, and entertaining the readers with a variety of content and lessons. It teaches the strength of word-of-mouth and evolving trends throughout society.