Analyzing the Spread of Trends and Social Movements
https://www.mrporter.com/en-us/journal/the-read/how-do-trends-happen/527?setupsession=false
Social trends are present in every individual’s daily life, yet it is rarely discussed how these trends start, then spread, and then sometimes even become social norm. For example, the ice bucket challenge was an activity in which an individual would nominate three other people they know to do the challenge, and then would proceed to dumb a bucket of cold water over their head. This challenge went viral over the internet. But how did it go viral? It is very interesting to actually dissect the process of how a trend spreads and transforms, which is exactly what Jonathan Openshaw does in his piece titled “How do Trends Happen?”
Openshaw broke down the mass movement of some trend into 5 main steps/categories. First are the innovators, or the “trendsetters,” who are the ones willing to put themselves out there and be unique. Then there are the early adopters, who are the first ones to hop on the trend. Following them are the early majority, and at this point the trends has become pretty popular and is known to most culturally up-to-date people. After the early majority are the late majority, who are the people who are very hesitant to try new things and often stick in their own ways. Lastly, there are the laggards, who either never join this trend or by the time they do it’s not even a trend anymore.
I find it very interesting to compare this process of trends spreading and mass social movements to the diffusion of networks that we examined in class. For example, we can let the innovators be the small group of nodes that initially adopt A, while every other node adopts B. Once that group of trendsetters adopt A, there will be another small group of nodes who love trying new things and whose payoff of adopting A outweighs their other option of sticking with B. Then, as the early adopters start adopting A, a cascade begins to form. That is why Openshaw describes the early adopters as the ones who make the trend – because they are the first adopters of A in the cascade. Then as the value of A is increasing, more and more people prefer A to B. Next the early majority will adopt A, and then the late majority. The laggards are the people who have very little connections and are unaware of these trends, which is why they often never switch out of their ways. It is cool that almost any trend or social movement in real life can be modeled as a cascade in a network like we have discussed. Even trends that don’t spread can be modeled by networks where people don’t value adopting A over B, and thus decide to stick with B, resulting in A not spreading.