#1

While the contagiousness factor of any trend is indisputable, the concept of the tipping point is a little bit more complex. He doesn't give a clear, concrete definition to the phenomena, but rather a broad and more general one. According to him, "The Tipping Point is the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point" (12). The spreading of a something that turns it into a trend makes sense, I agree with him there. Once something is done by someone and seen by others, others do it and have it seen by even more, resulting in exponential growth in how many others are exposed to it- whatever it may be. Even if the others don't copy the original and do it, they've seen it be done. That right there- just seeing it- results in acknowledging it. Acknowledgement and thinking about something can expand to talking about it or sharing it, etc. The final result is that the something became trendy, due to its exposure. On the other hand, the tipping point is a limit for that something, it seems, which I disagree with while my understanding isn't crystal clear (for now). Simply put, it's like when something is so trendy, that it's no longer trendy. Let's say an odd product started off niche. Then it caught fire and went from selling thousands of units a year to hundreds of thousands the next year. Next it, it sold tens of millions. Is it still niche? No, it's been selling exponentially more all of a sudden and proving it to be a product desired by the masses; a normal, mainstream product. Honestly, I don't think this is what Gladwell was getting at, at least not in the marketplace aspect, but I can't quite grasp what he was going for. Bear with me as I keep reading and try to get a better sense of what Gladwell's ideas all boil down to.