Hit Makers Quotes

“The rise of the aggregators diluted the power of websites and home pages, as readers learned to go to Google or Reddit for questions previously reserved for their local newspaper. The center of power in publishing was shifting from news brands to discovery platforms,”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

“Ideas spread most reliably when they piggyback off an existing network of closely connected and interested people.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

“When you share something online, you are giving up nothing. In fact, you are gaining something quite valuable: an audience.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

“buying is entry into a popular conversation. Popularity is the product.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

“Fifty Shades story is a paradox. How could a book go viral in a world where “nothing really goes viral”?”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

“...successful creations grow most predictably when they tap into a small network of people who do not see themselves as mainstream, but rather bound by an idea or commonality that they consider special. People have all day to talk about what makes them ordinary. It turns out that they want to share what makes them weird.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction

“It would seem that the key to catchy writing is simple. Just write in pairs. Or, to honor Carnegie’s legacy: “To be remembered, be repetitive.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

“Almost every piece of media people consume, every purchase they make, every design they confront lives on a continuum between fluency and disfluency - ease of thinking and difficulty of thinking. Most people lead lives of quiet fluency. They listen to music that sounds like the music they've already heard. They look forward to movies with characters, actors, and plot that they recognize. they don't heed ideas from opposing parties, particularly if these ideas seem painfully complicated. (...) the greatest joys often come from discovering fluency in places you didn't expect.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction

“A mystery: Two rebellious painters hang their art in the same impressionist exhibit in 1876. They are considered of similar talent and promise. But one painter’s water lilies become a global cultural hit—enshrined in picture books, studied by art historians, gawked at by high school students, and highlighted in every tour of the National Gallery of Art—and the other painter is little known among casual art fans. Why?”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

“The consumer is influenced in his choice of styling by two opposing factors: (a) attraction to the new and (b) resistance to the unfamiliar,” he wrote. “When resistance to the unfamiliar reaches the threshold of a shock-zone and resistance to buying sets in, the design in question has reached its MAYA stage: Most Advanced Yet Acceptable.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction

“First, understand how people behave; second, build products that match their habits.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction

“The sentimental story says that culture is a meritocracy in which the creative spark is king, and originality conquers all. The sentimental story says that audiences are open-minded and eager to discover challenging new ideas, whether in music, movies, or politics. The sentimental story says that because there is a formula for virality, the best ideas need no marketing—they distribute themselves, like little contagions of wonder. One of my chief goals was to explode the sentimental story. There are certain rules governing cultural markets, I found. But they rarely guarantee that the most sophisticated or morally pristine ideas become the most popular. Instead, the history of cultural sensations shows that sneakily familiar ideas have far more immediate appeal than novel ones and that the battle for cultural power is principally a battle over distribution and discovery, precisely because there is no formula for virality or easy popularity.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

“His lullaby was an instant success not because it was incomparably original, but because it offered a familiar melody in an original setting.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

“The most important element in a global cascade isn’t magically viral elements or mystical influencers. Rather it is about finding a group of people who are easily influenced. It turns the influencer question on its head. Don’t ask, “Who is powerful?” Instead ask, “Who is vulnerable?” In”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

“Imitating recent successes is a game that everybody knows how to play. But seeing the next big thing before anybody else sees it is far more valuable... It means being a little bit wrong at just the right time.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction

“Posting dramatic charts or funny pictures is good and giving people smart reasons to believe what they already think is great.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction

“This sell something familiar, make it surprising. To sell something surprising, make it familiar.”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

“This might be the most important question for every creator and maker in the world: how do you make something new if most people just like what they know? Is it possible to surprise with familiarity?”
― Derek Thompson, Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular