Scrawled in Wax

Duncan Watts’ argues that it is social conditions and not hipsters that determine trends. But despite his brilliance, Watts has yet to ask the crucial question: who or what creates ’social conditions’?

There has been a lot of buzz today surrounding the release of Fastcompany’s article on Duncan Watts and his new theory of how trends disseminate through society. It is being characterised as a sharp reaction to Gladwell’s notion of the Tipping Point and Keller’s ‘Influentials’ theory. Whereas those two argue that trends operate in society like infections that start with a few, key carriers able to influence people, Watts suggests that trends are far more random - that their success has more to do with the conditions of their spreading that who does the spreading itself. From the article:

“Perhaps the problem with viral marketing is that the disease metaphor is misleading. Watts thinks trends are more like forest fires: There are thousands a year, but only a few become roaring monsters. That’s because in those rare situations, the landscape was ripe: sparse rain, dry woods, badly equipped fire departments. If these conditions exist, any old match will do. “And nobody,” Watts says wryly, “will go around talking about the exceptional properties of the spark that started the fire.”

It’s brilliant, paradigm-shifting stuff and I love it for its refusal to deny the maddening, almost anarchic complexity of modern social systems. What Watts pays particular attention to is the lack of data on interactions between ‘influentials’ and the people they influence. When he asks how exactly do people influence others, people are left gasping for answers and I think that insistence on concrete evidence is great. But the difficulty I have with Watts is the relative fluidity of how he uses the term ’social conditions’. If Watts argues that social trends are generally quite random and respond to particular social contexts, we would do well to ask what historical, economic and social conditions produce those contexts?

It seems there is something to be said for positive feedback loops. Look at my favourite example of the iPod: how can we characterise its rise? If we take Watts to heart and diminish the idea of hipster influence, what then paved the way for the wildfire that was and is iPod-mania? Well, one factor would be the increasing cultural import placed on technology as a marker of success - the now well-known transition of tech from domain of the geek to domain of the cool kid - what I always call techno-fetishism (sorry, been reading Freud). Second was the broad proliferation of musical genres and tastes: the iPod’s massive capacity meant all of those genres that were previously distinct were now aesthetically and literally all together at the same place. Tech had created new forms of music and tech was also the new home for them. But I think the thing we need to look out is what broader systems in society disseminated these ideas through society. What is key here is not the popularity of the iPod; rather, it is the propagation of the system of values that facilitated and led to the explosion of the iPod. Hipsters may have not controlled the iPod phenomenon - but they may have had a hand in popularizing the values that made the iPod seem so cool.

So even though Watts suggests trends are too complex to pin down to a few, influential people, I still think the tipping point model has value here, specifically in why people start to desire certain things. Often it is because they are trying to either become or emulate particular models of success or savviness - I desire an iPhone or a hot body because people who appear to ‘have it all’ have those things. And who dictates those ideals? Representations of ‘ideal people’ in the public sphere - celebrities, hipsters, tastemakers - basically, people with cultural capital to burn. No, they don’t create ‘trends’ per se - what they do is encourage the value systems that allow for the dissemination of particular trends.