Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders and the Rise of Social Engineering

by Malcolm Gladwell

“This isn’t really about learning about what works,” Molitor says. “It’s more about the influences of your environment.”

The overstory is specific. It is tied to a place. It is powerful. It shapes behavior. And it does not emerge out of nowhere. It happens for a reason.

there is something uniquely toxic about groups with “skewed proportions,” featuring lots of one kind of person and very few of another kind.

men tend to play “initiating, task-oriented roles . . . whereas women tend to play reactive, socioemotional roles.”

the Law of the Few: It’s a very large problem caused by a very small number of actors.

When a large group of people watch the same stories, night after night, it brings them together.

“It’s the media creating the cultural consciousness about how the world works . . . and what the rules are.”

Andrew Fletcher,” Gross said. “ ‘If I can write the songs of a nation, I don’t care who writes their laws.’ ”36

We miss the signs of change because we are looking for them in the wrong places.

Nothing happened until you got to 25 percent — and then everything happened.