Kristofer Mencák

… on customer satisfaction, word of mouth, social media, buzz, viral marketing and more…

How ideas spread and culture eventually changes

Posted on | June 4, 2009 |

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about how an bar fight might grow. Everybody has their own “tipping point” for how many people have to be fighting to engage themselves in the fight.

Something similar is seen in this video, from the Sasquatch Music Festival 2009, where this one guy just needs to dance. Two more guys come up to him, seemingly making fun of his dance moves. But then something happens (around 1.10 into the movie). More and more people join in, and all of a sudden, everybody has reached their tipping points of how many other people it takes on the “dance floor” to make them start dancing.

Take a look for yourself! This is how movements start, how ideas and phenomena spread in society, and how culture eventually changes. The more people in your surroundings that are acting in a specific way, the more legitimate it becomes to act the same. And before you know it, societal norms have changed.

Via Brains on Fire.

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About

My name is Kristofer Mencák, I've been blogging for three years and this is my new blog in english. I work for JMW Kommunikation in Stockholm, Sweden, with a focus on social media and word of mouth.

The topics on this blog are some of the things that I find most interesting.

If you would like to get in touch, my address is kristofermencak [at] gmail [dot] com.

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