Tipping Point Blog Post 1

I chose to read Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point," and in this first week of reading, he explains the concept of "Epidemics." I was fascinated by the non-sickness related epidemics that he touches upon, specifically the sudden and meteoric rise if the popularity of Hush-Puppy shoes.  Gladwell hypothesizes that the reason for this unexpected increase is that a small number of highly sociable young New Yorkers started wearing them to hip clubs which made people who saw them decide to buy them too.  Those initial few Hush Puppy enthusiasts were trendsetters whose fashion choices led millions to indirectly copy them.  The reason I found this so interesting was because it is incredibly relevant to Brookline High.  You might be racking your brain to remember whether you've seen students wearing Hush Puppies recently. You may have, if you work on the 4th floor, but the more relevant products are Sperry's and Yoga Pants.  Five years ago, no the only people wearing Sperry's were grandparents with sail boats, and the only people wearing yoga pants were women doing yoga.  Today, I would hazard a guess that upwards of 1,000 BHS students wear one of these products every day.  It got me thinking about who the trendsetters and connectors were who got the fads started.  Were they BHS students or celebrities?  It seems like the latter makes more sense, since people tend to try to copy what they see on TV or whatever their favorite famous person is doing.  But I think that in Sperry's case, it was more of a local fad.  It began when Vineyard Vines became "a thing." At first it was the Vineyard Vine croakies that everyone had on the back of their Ray-bands (thats two more Gladwell-esque epidemics).  Then the male population decided that Frat culture would become the norm and every Vineyard Vines model is on a boat wearing sperry's and voila, mass culture and homogeneity comes to Brookline.  I am not as knowledgeable in the patterns of popularity of yoga pants but I conjecture it has something to do with Lulu Lemon and is more likely to be a result of celebrity influence.