The Tipping Point

In the article "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference," Malcolm Gladwell uncovers some interesting trends in society that may been viewed as a conundrum for most people. He gives may examples throughout the article about how one person, or a small group of people can quickly and easily start an epidemic. The first example he writes about is the way Hush Puppies became so popular. It all started with a small group of maybe twenty to hundred kids in New York City who wore the Hush Puppies into clubs and bars as their own style. All it took was two designers to see the shoes, and they were a nationwide phenomenon is a very short period of time. The tipping point is just the right number of guys who wear the shoes, were the shoes rapidly become popular to everyone and start a massive trend. Other examples of tipping points he talks about are: crime in NYC, suicide in Micronesia, and even smoking in the U.S. All are similar in that, once they have a person or enough people to reach a tipping point, the trend just takes off drastically because people feel as though it is acceptable to follow other peoples' lead. Overall, this was a very interesting article, and I like how Gladwell had a lot of statistics to back up his argument.