Malcolm Gladwell (1963-present, 55 years old) is a Canadian journalist and write but he is best known for his distinctive outlook on popular culture. In 1982, apprehend at the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C. He graduated at University of Toronto Trinity College in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree in history and then moved to United States to be a part of the conservative magazine, “The American Spectator.” He was soon fired and got a position as “think tank” it was an organized group for integrative research with the objective providing advice on diverse in Washington D.C. By 1987, he was becoming a well known person who writes about business and science. After working for Washington for many years, he transferred to The New Yorker where people acknowledge his writing and gained realization on his articles. His two articles he wrote for The New Yorker built up his fame, The Tipping Point, and The Coolhunt that supported his novel. Gladwell wrote his first book called The Tipping Point in 2000 and it became the best seller, so did his other book he wrote many years after called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Blink is Gladwell second book, it illustrates the psychology of snap decisions and clever thinking. He highlights how our subconscious biases affect the way we consider and act. Gladwell proposes the concept of “thin slicing” which is using information about someone and use them to form it in a larger opinion. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference analyzes how ideas spread and what needs to be together to help find ideas. This book was his introduction book, and he sold over 1 million copies. It was originally published in 2000 and it described the three rules, “The Law of Few”, “The Stickiness factor” and “The Power of Context.” They are the rules of epidemics, it helps gain an idea to reach to the tipping point, it also shows three kinds of people who are responsible to get great ideas to tip and without stickiness there will be no ideas.
The Tipping Point is an argument that there is a number of many patterns and aspects that play in every way to influence and spread the communication problem to the uncommon popularity. Gladwell advises that you will find the process to be involved are considerably similar. Based on his research there was a spanning number on different fields of
knowledge and corporations and soon identifies the three key factors which are the three rules in the book.
In this book, chapter one “The Three Rules Of Epidemics” Gladwell uses an uprising of syphilis in Baltimore, Maryland to emphasize the Three rules in structure. He shows that ideas can show from several directions and each position it can be stronger than others. The outbreaks of diseases can often attract attention by the numbers of people who are infected and many experts wish to reduce the number. Although Gladwell does point out that there are small amount of people infected and can also spread the disease. In the 90s, hundreds of men and women were getting the disease and many researchers were blaming the epidemics on the city about crack cocaine. There was a theory that the medical services refusing treatment and the doctors were failing the syphilis problem even before it became an epidemic. In Baltimore, life changed by the three explanations for why syphilis is an epidemic problem. It’s in terms of the environment, the change in the product, the people who spread it and the changes in the environment. Gladwell reveals the second rule of social epidemics by explaining the Spanish flu epidemic in the early 20th century. It killed millions of people because of the accomplishment of the mutated influenza virus. Gladwell’s meaning to describe the different diseases that occurred is to describe social epidemics of all kinds. The third law is The Law of Context, In New York City there was a women named Kitty Genovese who was raped and killed on the street and no one did anything. Sociologist have claimed that the 38 people did nothing to help her because, they live in a big city so they are used to ignoring thousands of people mostly everyday. Gladwell’s three laws advises the balance appeal to sociological analysis.
Gladwell soons to begin to use another example on epidemics which is when Paul Revere did his midnight ride. He expresses that Paul Revere midnight ride was the most famous historian example of the word of mouth epidemic. As an example the words that Paul Revere “The British are coming!” was a sticky phrase that made people talk about and respond to it. The chapter focused on two men, Revere and Dawes, they both stated that the british are coming but only Revere got most focused on. The reasons for that is because Revere was already well known guy, and many people trusted him. The book explains that the independent variable is when people spread their personality and the dependent variable is when they are successfully social epidemic. It shows the study on how personality types are most often helpful to social epidemics. There is this theory called “Six degrees of separation” it means that humans are known to have a lot of power to spread messages. Although in the real world the analysis is a particular conclusion. It is when connect have a lot of power to spread information than other regular people.