Jonah Berger from the University of Pennsylvania and Gaël Le Mens from Stanford University and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona have recently published a study that examines the dynamics of unpopularity. Having myself periodically experienced unpopularity throughout my life; I am nonetheless generally clueless about its dynamics, which is perhaps why I continue to experience it. Messrs. Burger and Le Mens have ironically determined that unpopularity is the result of a rebellious streak in Homo sapiens and reflects the desire to distinguish one’s own preferences from those of the rest of the ignorant jamokes that populate the earth.
Now that I think about it, I may have completely mischaracterized the nature and findings of the study, perhaps in an effort to elicit sympathy for myself; the reality is that the study actually addresses how and why things loose popularity, which in general doesn’t apply to people like me because you usually have to have something in order to loose it, except perhaps virginity, which is another blog entirely. Burger and Le Mens postulate that there is a correlation between the process by which something gains popularity and the speed and extent to which it loses popularity.
To completely over-simplify, things which gain popularity slowly over a long period of time, like Tony Bennett for example, tend to have greater staying power. Things like Pokémon and pointy shoes, which rocket to popularity, tend to fade more quickly. This is not entirely counter-intuitive, but the interesting thing is the underlying mechanism for this loss of popularity. It appears, surprisingly, that people have a natural aversion to being “trendy”. The more something i
s perceived as being of temporary popularity, the more people will try to disassociate themselves from it. The subsequent rapid loss of popularity is the product of this self-fulfilling prophecy; if people believe something “is just a trend”, it is likely to be just a trend. Burger and Le Mens principally analyzed data for the popularity of baby names to reach their conclusions. They found that nobody names their kids Brittany and Tyler anymore, but I also notice that nobody names their kids Jebediah or Mortimer anymore either, unless they really hate them, but perhaps this just indicates that things that were never popular remain unpopular indefinitely, no matter how cool they might be in the abstract.
What this all says to me is that people tend to surf the popularity wave seeking to jump off at the apogee of public absorption, so that they can at all costs avoid being “so five minutes ago”. What I find interesting about this from a sociological perspective is that it seems that it is more of a trend sin to stick with the fading trend too long than it is to never have adopted the trend to begin with. There are apparently two choices in being cool; you can either actually be cool, in the sense that you have your own unique identity which is not subject to irrelevant social influence or you can stay absolutely current with the latest fads so long as you never ever wear your Crocs one single day too long. Unfortunately, the second method requires so much time, attention and effort that there is no time to try and utilize the first method. Poor Paris Hilton; if only there were 36 hours in a day.
Without any empirical data or supporting analysis of any kind, I would postulate that the work of Burger and Le Mens demonstrates that shallowness and vanity are integral parts of the process of establishing status in the tribe and are vestiges of the point in human societal development when social leadership was more important for what it represented than for what it did; a sense of unity and common purpose were more important than actual competence and a defined line of authority was better than brilliant, but paralyzing, debate.
Sadly, we no longer live in such times; the complexity of society’s dilemmas necessitates a triumph of substance over form and makes mindless conformity an evolutionary dead end. Simply put, human beings continue to suck because by sucking we were able to spread all over the planet, but we have reached the point in the process where continuing to suck will result in being screwed. Like Paris Hilton, sort of.
Now that I think about it, I may have completely mischaracterized the nature and findings of the study, perhaps in an effort to elicit sympathy for myself; the reality is that the study actually addresses how and why things loose popularity, which in general doesn’t apply to people like me because you usually have to have something in order to loose it, except perhaps virginity, which is another blog entirely. Burger and Le Mens postulate that there is a correlation between the process by which something gains popularity and the speed and extent to which it loses popularity.
To completely over-simplify, things which gain popularity slowly over a long period of time, like Tony Bennett for example, tend to have greater staying power. Things like Pokémon and pointy shoes, which rocket to popularity, tend to fade more quickly. This is not entirely counter-intuitive, but the interesting thing is the underlying mechanism for this loss of popularity. It appears, surprisingly, that people have a natural aversion to being “trendy”. The more something i
s perceived as being of temporary popularity, the more people will try to disassociate themselves from it. The subsequent rapid loss of popularity is the product of this self-fulfilling prophecy; if people believe something “is just a trend”, it is likely to be just a trend. Burger and Le Mens principally analyzed data for the popularity of baby names to reach their conclusions. They found that nobody names their kids Brittany and Tyler anymore, but I also notice that nobody names their kids Jebediah or Mortimer anymore either, unless they really hate them, but perhaps this just indicates that things that were never popular remain unpopular indefinitely, no matter how cool they might be in the abstract.What this all says to me is that people tend to surf the popularity wave seeking to jump off at the apogee of public absorption, so that they can at all costs avoid being “so five minutes ago”. What I find interesting about this from a sociological perspective is that it seems that it is more of a trend sin to stick with the fading trend too long than it is to never have adopted the trend to begin with. There are apparently two choices in being cool; you can either actually be cool, in the sense that you have your own unique identity which is not subject to irrelevant social influence or you can stay absolutely current with the latest fads so long as you never ever wear your Crocs one single day too long. Unfortunately, the second method requires so much time, attention and effort that there is no time to try and utilize the first method. Poor Paris Hilton; if only there were 36 hours in a day.
Without any empirical data or supporting analysis of any kind, I would postulate that the work of Burger and Le Mens demonstrates that shallowness and vanity are integral parts of the process of establishing status in the tribe and are vestiges of the point in human societal development when social leadership was more important for what it represented than for what it did; a sense of unity and common purpose were more important than actual competence and a defined line of authority was better than brilliant, but paralyzing, debate.
Sadly, we no longer live in such times; the complexity of society’s dilemmas necessitates a triumph of substance over form and makes mindless conformity an evolutionary dead end. Simply put, human beings continue to suck because by sucking we were able to spread all over the planet, but we have reached the point in the process where continuing to suck will result in being screwed. Like Paris Hilton, sort of.
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