about morality fact we share over two
point eight billion communicative nodes
a day and that’s just Facebook Twitter
Instagram and snapchat
now these communicative nodes usually
take form of a message a product an idea
a story and when these nodes spread from
person to person to person over a short
period of time they’re said to have gone
viral and the allure of going viral is
super compelling
I mean look let’s keep it real
especially if you’re our marketer an
artist or an advertiser you mean to tell
me that my ideas we get seen by a
million people then they gonna share
with people that don’t even know so like
a good deal to me but it begs the
question in today’s hyper-connected
world with things spread at a rate far
greater than ever before is there
something more powerful more compelling
than going viral
so this provocation somehow another led
me to the movie Avatar stick with me
guys I know I know an avatar avatar is
the highest-grossing movie ever made
it’s been seeing the world over one may
even say it’s gone viral now despite the
fact that I’ve seen avatar three times I
could not for the life of me remember
the lead characters name and write ask
people who seen the movie as well it’s
like y’all do own that guy’s name
they’re like Matt Kevin the guys name
either and I wouldn’t be surprised if
you’re sitting there thinking what is
that dude’s name but juxtapose the movie
avatar with the movie frozen now I’ve
never seen frozen hand to God never seen
frozen by know the lead characters named
Elsa I know the storyline I know the
words to let it go in fact listen if I’m
in a conversation with someone unrelated
to the movie and they say let it go in a
sentence in my mind all I hear is let it
go let it go it’s probably no wonder
then why the frozen soundtrack went
number one on Billboard with no radio
play or also that letting go was number
one
most requested song at karaoke 2014 oh
yeah an Elsa the number one Halloween
costume 2014 and among the top baby
names of 2014 and so on and so on and so
on and so on and so on
see while frozen went on to be the most
successful animated movie it did more
than just get seen a lot it did more
than just go viral it had an impact on
culture and this impact was contagious
much in the way that somehow another we
all just started saying on fleek or turn
up on Netflix and chill or seemingly
everybody last year was dabbing or doing
the mannequin challenge or in November
we grow mustaches see much like the
movie frozen these things not only
spread from person to person to person
but they took hold and culture they were
adopted into culture impacting our
beliefs the artifacts that we Don the
behaviors we take on and the language
that we use
they were culturally contagious and from
this perspective cultural contagion is
far far far greater than going viral
far more powerful than getting seen a
lot and this provocation set the stage
for new exploration see I found myself
being ridiculously curious about
understand the dynamics of cultural
contagion because if I can understand
whether if we can understand why things
not only spread from person to person to
person but impact our beliefs the
behaviors we take on the artifacts that
we’ve done and the language that we use
then perhaps then we can build and
design ideas that are culturally
contagious as well so my collaborator
Chaucer Barnes and I we set out to study
the world of cultural contagion we
looked at some of the biggest cultural
happenings over the course of 20 years
from 1995 to 2015 everything from
fashion to advertising to memes or to
the fact that we wore lives from
bracelets before we realized that Lance
Armstrong was a dirtbag
and the hope is that we might be able to
see some consistency some through-line
between each one of these cases each one
of these cultural happenings so that we
might be able to identify causality as
to why things not only spread from
person to person but take hold and
culture impacting our beliefs the
artifacts that we’ve done the behaviors
that we do and the language that we take
on so while this happened we end up
finding something fortunately well in
fact we found five things five
conditions that were consistent each one
of these happenings the first was the
communicative node the content the idea
and the idea was built to share the
content was communicative by design the
second not only was the idea
built to share communicated by design it
was shared by the appropriate messenger
someone with credence someone that I
trusted three the idea the content was
also enabled for thematic iterations and
that is some individual can uniquely
express the idea with some derivative
work without degradation the integrity
of the original idea we notice we think
about covers music covers right
someone remakes a song different artists
different arrangement different key but
we still know the original song my mind
goes to the Fugees and kill you softly
so we got content we had credence that
covers the fourth fertile conditions and
this speaks to the marketplace
conditions that can’t be controlled
they can’t be predicted but they can’t
be exploited by identifying someone in
the market who could benefit from your
idea winning your complement think
peanut butter and jelly
if peanut butter is having a good year
jelly is going to benefit also so
they’re both invested in each other
success the fifth was this idea
perceived ubiquity
of ubiquity in the marketplace what we
call concurrence where it seemed like
everybody was talking about it or
everybody was doing it because if
everybody’s talking about it and
everybody was doing it it lowers
resistance and we take a look to see
what is everybody talking about what’s
all the hoopla about and the alchemy of
these five conditions create the perfect
recipe for cultural contagion it
increases the likelihood ideas not only
spread from person to person to person
but catch holding culture impacting our
beliefs the artifacts that we Don the
behavior to take on in the language that
we use and collectively we call this the
contagion cookbook content credence
covers compliments and concurrence now
it’s important that I note that this was
a discovery
it wasn’t an invention as my
collaborator would say this wasn’t what
two whites blue meth we found this in
the wild right it was a discovery in
fact the closer we got to understand the
dynamics of cultural contagion the
further we dug into the conditions of
the cookbook we found that it mirrored
closely to the conditions of
epidemiological spread how pathogen
spreads from person to person to person
so the content the communicative node
the idea well that’s like the pathogen
itself and the pathogen has the
properties that are communicative that
are easily to transmit and not only does
it have communicative properties but
it’s spread by the appropriate messenger
someone I trust someone close to me in
proximity both physically and intimately
we think about thematic generations
covers and epidemiology is sort of like
strand mutation where the patterns it
takes on a different shape a different
expression a different form based on
your resistance then we think about
fertile conditions complements it’s
kinda like the right season in the fall
we call it flu season right kids are
going back to school they come home
they’re walking petri dishes right our
office places our work places are far
more dense because people are less
likely to go on vacation in the fall
right the weather is changing so our
body is allocating in
to regulate temperature which leaves our
immune system potentially compromised
these things create the perfect
conditions for pathogens to spread and
then there’s perceived ubiquity
concurrence which is sort of like
control of air spaces it’s the four
walls both figuratively and literally if
we find ourselves in an airplane our
offices our classrooms if there’s a high
incidence of the pathogen within these
closed air spaces ie they’re high
presented people who happen to have the
pathogen and they communicate it they
coughing sneeze it increases the
probability that we’ll be exposed and
the alchemy of these five conditions
create the perfect recipe but pathogens
to spread from person to person to
person and take hold much like the five
conditions of cultural contagion
increases the probability that ideas not
only spread from person to person but
take hold and from that perspective then
cultural contagious is far greater than
going viral and way more compelling than
getting seen by a whole bunch of folks
because if we can design ideas that are
culturally contagious imagine what it
means in the context of Education a
magic wouldn’t means in the context of
public health a public policy imagine
what it means for our interaction with
the environment because if we could come
up with ideas messages products
behaviors that I only spread from person
to person
but take hold and culture impacting
people’s beliefs and the behaviors they
take on we could positively impact
humanity and we all can do it the
recipes here so imagine what it means
for your idea imagine what it means for
your cause consider your blueprint
because with this idea we can literally
design messages products ideas and
behaviors that can literally change the
world and that I think is an idea worth spreading thank you so much