Table Of Content

The NG POINT hings Can ifference Way ds inc in Neon do 39 dkny ia the nud-oiceuss? lew does an nainewn novelitt sad up abel: autor Way is teenage matin, uber seayoie Ha wenivekina lle What ales FV sheer she Sos ane Sereee + so ayod 2 tcachics'* {now to ead? ‘Why die Pru ever scceed wid ib fares Weer ng? dhs Wallac: and s:cundb-vaking hea, | Newlin water Mulia Glade" Ls “ay major changra mn or socery an oon ‘yet saddens end uaexpestede Ideas, Inshavion mierapes, and product, ae xuue, ‘fata spread ike sutoceals of orion seu. Just apa scale ack peti sas start am epidemie the Fan ene can Few taro-Leatere acd graf ates fac a nabway : ali coatoute the ‘new estaurunt, Thee sudafepicesucs: and the moment vhen ‘ber eke 6 ye they cece Cais aida ane, “isthe Tipsing Point ‘Gadwal: attics ut to the particular pos somaliy sige whbe are aul polis ry ideas ned teen, the pape wha croere “ae phexyymewon of posd cf mow tle ana ‘yes fashion trenda, smoing, ere seis.can deck mail. and te erly cyte? THE TreepinG Point How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference MaLcoLM GLADWELI. lle rare pata eto may be ora ins Vimy cronies evs ning farmon os ahne-ord gam eat perma w open abe, ‘Mosby cseuene wey geteli prog nei “Teun or perio ede allowing som imc 0 Maa Mee sey Lind ri awemce eck so hn Cushy Replied ems npr Dl get “Tamatne Menor Canzamgrary Ans ihe wp ak Jnr Posraiy ona Sul Pte 90 WLU 6 Repeat by person he ert on Dana Rainn “Tone ming dol: So Janie dice ie Miron Cooney Pfu Cg O79) V7 it mong Viren Awe hme ht 1 Hest xmas mon scfm a Rese Ruby vedas Taher Capi © 9% Shr Svs re Reine y prison oir be Libary of Cong Cotahying te Pablison ata ‘ladle “Topi pn hn ie ig cme i “iSeens oy Sbledm label acer ade Social gpetelogy 2 Contagion Sorel ppchlogy) 5. Comsson ‘Peon cls Pychowgy) Te Dep Mn stan ee Dig oe Prine in te ed Se Arn Joyce To my parents, and Graham Gladwell Contents Intreductioa 5 The Three Rules of Epidemics 15 The Law of the Few: Conmectors, Mavens, and Salesmes 30 The Stickiaess Factor: Sesame Street, Blue's Clues, and the Educational Virus 89 The Power of Comteat (Part One): Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime 195 THe Thcpamer ob Cagene Tipptne PoINntT (Part Two): The Magic Number One Hundred and Fifty 169 Case Study: Rumors, Sacakers, and the Power of Translation 193 Case Srady: Suicide, Smoking, and the the Unstisky Cigarette 276 Conclusion: Focus, Test, and Believe 253 Endaotes 269 Acknowledgments 271 Index 273 Introduction cor Hush Puppies —che classic American | FF tteteshecs wih eleven ere scle—the Tipping Point came somewsere hha ben al bu exc uni hae pein Sales were down 19 sly to backwoods cutlets sad Sol-tows family stores, Wolerine, the company that rakes Hush Puppies, was thinking of phasing out the shoes that sade tem famous. But then something stu Tppenes, 4a fashion shoet, wo Hush Puppies execs tives Owen Baxter and Geviliey Lewis —san ato 2 stylist fooin New Yosk who sold tsem that the elas Hush Puppies had side hecome hip inthe elubs and bss of eonstuwt Manhattan. “We were being sold” Bas ter recalls, “that these were rele shops in the Vilage, in Soko, where the shocs were being sold. People were sing 40 che Ma aad Pa stores, che lite sores that sil farced them, and buying them up.” Baster and Lewis 36,000 pairs a year ‘were balled at fires It made sense to them shar shoes tla were so obviovely our of fashion could mabe « come back “We were told tha: Isaac Mizcahi was wesring shoes himself,” Lewis says. “I shink i's fair to say chat at the time we had no idea who lst Mizrahi was.” Jy the fall of 94, things began so happen io a cwsh Pirse the designer Joha Bartlett calod. He wanted co use Hivsh Puppics in hie spring eallecion, Thes another Man- hartan designer, Anna Sut, called, wanting shoes fo her show as well Ia Los Angeles, the designer Joo! Fitzgerald puta cwenty-Fye-toor inflatable basset hound — the sym bho of the Flush Puppies brand — on the zeof of his Hol Iywood store and gutzed an adjoining arcgallery to usw 3 into.a Hush Puppies bourique, While he was stil painting and putting up shiives the actor Pee-wee Heeman walced inv and asked for + couple of pairs. “It was wal word of sou,” Firegerald remembers In 1935, fue company sold 430.009 pare ofthe cassie Tush Poppies, and the next year it sold four imes that, andi the year ye, wal Hash Puppies were ‘once again a staple of the wardrobe of the young, Atweri= ‘can male. In 1996, Hush Puppiss won the prize for best accessory atthe Couanl of Fashion Designers awards din ser at Lincoln Center, and the president ofthe firm sige up on the stage with Calvin Klein sad! Doana Karan ard red an sward for aa achievement thar — as he-wouid bye the Srseto admit — bis compeny had almost nothing 19 do with. Hush Pappies bad suddeaky exploded, ane it all srarced wah a handul of kids in the Bast Village and Sobo. How did that happ: they were, weren’s dell er tea sil "Those first few bids, whoever rately ying to promote Kush Puppies, They were wearing them precisely because 09) tne else would wear them. ‘Then the fad spread co two fashion designers who sed she shoes to peddle someching, tse haute couture. The shoes were an incidental euch, No one was crying co make Hush Puppies a wend. Yer, somehow; shar’ exactly whet happened. The shoes passed ‘eran point in popelstity and they tipped. How does 3 thirty-dollar pair of shoes go from a anche! of downtown, Marheras hipstersand designers to every mallin America inthe space o! two years? ‘These was a time, nor very long age, in she desperzely paar New York City neighborhoods uf Brownsville and East New York, when the sees would carn into ghost towns at dusk. Ordinary working people wouldatt wall, com the sdewales, Children wouldn't side their bicycles o= he streets. Old folks wouldn's sit on stoops and park benches. The deg trade ran so rampant and pan warlare ‘as ve ubiquitous in that part of Brooklyn that most people would take ro the satery oftheir aparsmene a nighifal Police aticers who served in Brownsville in the 1g8os and arly aygox say that, in Chose years a8 soon asthe sun went down their radios explodss with charter herween bear fficers and cir dispatchers aver every conceivable kind of violent and dangerous crime. In 1993, there were 2154 murders in New York City and 636.1 swith the weight of like Beowaswille and Es range happen we crimes falling hacdest i. p New York, But then something ‘Arsome mysterious and esieal point the crime rate hegen to turn, I: upped Wathia five yescs, rmucers had dropped 643 percent ‘0 779 and toteler:mes hud fallen by almost half so 595,893. In Brovensville and Fast New York, tae sidewalks filled up again, the bieycles came back, sud oid folks reappeared en the stoops, “There vasa tse when it wasn't uncommen to hear rapid fice, like you wonld hear somewhere in the juagle i Vietnam,” says Inspector Edward Messadei, who commands the police precinet in Brownsville. “I don’: ear the gunfire anymore. “The New York City police will rll you that what happened in New Yori: was that the ety’s pel pes dramaically improved. Criminologists point to the ecle ofthe erack tride and tae aging of the population: Economists, meanwhile, say dal the gradual improwe- we of the 19928 had the eect of employing those who miggit ocherwise nave keceme crimanals, These are the conventional expla nations forthe rise aad fill of social problems, but in the end none is any more saistying shan the staement that kids inthe Fast Village caused tie [Tusk Puppies revval The changes in the drug teaés, the popmlation, and the economy areal long-term tren, happening all ove> the eomnery. They don't explain why crime plunged in New York City so atch moze chan in other ees around the couatey, and they don'r explain why it all Lappened in suck an exttaocdinaily shert time. As for the improve ments made by the polics, they ars cmportant tov. But there isa przaling pap htween the scale of the changes in policing aad the size of the effect om places like Brownsville and East New York, Afterall, erime dida'e ing sate men in the eisy's evoaomay over che just slowly abb in New York as eociions gradually soved. It plumnzteted, How ca change in 3 handful of economic and social indices case murder races to fall by two-thirds in Sve years? 2 The Tipping Poives the biography of an idea, and theidea is very simple. I is thar the best way to understand the emergence of fashion tren, th -waves, on for that mater, the teanstormation of ymknown and flow of crime books into hestseliers, oF the rise of teenage smoking, oF the pheaomena of word of mouth, or zay member of she her anysterious changes that mick everyday ie is thin of them as epidemics. Idear and produets ani mes> soges and behaviors spread jast ise virases do. ‘The rise of Hush Puppies and the fall of New York's crime rare are textbook examples uf epidemics in action. ‘Alshough they may sound as iFthey don’t have very much in common, they shares sic, underlying partern. 5 all, chey are clear exanples of contagious behavior No ene took out a acvertsersent and told people that the tional Husk Puppias were coal and they should start wear cag ther, Vhose kids simply wore the lives when they went to clubs or cafes or walked the sucets of downtown New ‘York, and ie 36 doing exposed cher peooie to dei ss! senee,'They infected tein wich he Hush Puppies “virus ” "The crime decline in New York surely happened the same way. It wast chat some huge percentage of would- he murderers suddenly sat up in z993 and decided not to commit any af core crimes. Nor was it thar the police managed magically wo intervene in a luge percentage of siuuations that would otherwise have turned deadly: Whar happened is that che small sumer of people sn che small, number of situations in wich dhe polive or the new social fosces had some impsct stated chacing very different, and char behavior somenow spread wo otluer would-be srminals ia simile situations. Socishow a large namber of people in New York got “infseted” wich an anti-crime vinas i ashore time. ‘he second slstinguishing characteristic of these two examples ie shat in hots cts litle changes had big effecs AA of che possible ressons fer why New York's erime tate diogped ace changer that happened at the margin; chey sveceinecemental changes. The cvack trade leveled of. The ppopslacion gor a litle olde, The police force got 2 litte boster, Ye the elect was dramatic. So too-with Hush Pup- pies. Hew many kids are we talking shou who bey caring the shoes in dowatows Manhattan? Tee Fifty? One hundred — atthe most? Yer rheir sions seem so have single-handedly stated an internauonal fasion trend Finally, both changes hap ul steadily ane ina hoery ‘They did lowly Its insructive wo look a chart ate in New York City from, say, the mid~ 196s to the late tog. Tt looks like + giant atch. Tn 1985, there were 200,000 erimes in the city snd fromm das point gins a shacp rise, doubling in two years aad continuirg almost unbroken unel it bss 652,000 crimes year i the mid-i970 lt stays steady at that level for the neat tu devades, before plunging downward in rogeassharply abit rose thirsy years earlier Crime did not caper ote did't wendy decelerate [chit a cena poine aud jammed on the Brak. ‘These thro charastersiss — one, contagjousnss (0% fact ct lule causes can have big eects and three, that change happess not gradually bur at one dramatic smomert — are the came tee principles that defiae how measles sores dheough a grade-school classroom or the fa attacks every winter OF the three, te chid sai — the idea thar epiemics ean ese o* fallin one dramatic ‘moment —is te mest ispoctat, because iis te prin ile thas makes sense ofthe fr ren and tha: permits the retest anit into wl made change kagpens the way dedosshe name giver to that one deamatie moment i an epidemic wher everything can change all at onve isthe Tipping Poi A world that follows the rales of epidemics isa very di fereat place trom the world we think we live iv now. Thin’, fer a snoment, about the concept of comtgious ness. If say that word to yous yow thick of eos aud she fla o- perhaps something very dangerous like TIIV or bola, We have, ia our mids, a very specific, biological totion of what contagiousness means. u>if there cau be epicemics ok erime or epidemics of fashion, all kinds of things justas contagious ss viruses. Have you fever shought about yawning, for insance? Yawning is 4 surprising y powerful act. Just because you read the word “yawmg” additions! ye must be the previous two sentences — ancl che two syns” in this senence —a spo number of