Popularity Equals the Maximum Distribution of Familiar Surprises

Derek Thompson, a 2.0 version of Malcolm Galdwell, delves deep into what makes things popular in his 2017 book Hit Makers.

Why can't you get "Call Me Maybe" out of your head? Why are Monet's Water Lilies the ur-paintings of Impressionism? How did American political attitudes about gay marriage change so rapidly? What distinguishes a hit from a flop?

These are the questions that Derek Thompson, writer at The Atlantic and host of the Plain English podcast, tries to answer in his 2017 national bestseller Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction. His book, marketed as an update to Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, is divided into two parts, "popularity and the mind" and "popularity and the market," where as these headers suggest Thompson analyzes how human cognitive defaults and market dynamics govern what becomes a hit and what doesn't. He also works to dispel the myth and metaphor of virality. He contends there is minimal empirical evidence for such a phenomenon as there are structured and systematic forces that drive the relative prominence of cultural artifacts. The book is often …