Invisible Influence by Jonah Berger Page A

and download it. Not because they hate punk songs, but, on the margin, they prefer rap. Punk 0, Rap 1. Then the punk liker comes along, but this time they are second in line. So rather than going with their slight preference, they are influenced by others, and download a rap song as well. Punk 0, Rap 2.
    Soon, those two once-identical worlds start to look a littledifferent. One world has a punk rock song on top of the list and the other has a rap song.
    Again, one person liking a song isn’t enough to entirely change someone else’s preferences. But it’s enough to tip the scales. Songs at the top of the list got more attention, were more likely to be listened to, and as a result, more likely to be downloaded. Which made it more likely that the punk rock song would be downloaded again in the first world, and that the rap song would be downloaded in the second one. And the process repeated with the next listener.
    Slowly, but surely, just like the cars parked in the field, social influence pushed the once-identical worlds in different directions. Magnified over thousands of people making choices, it led to vastly different outcomes.
    The implications are both simple and shocking. Rather than being driven by quality, hits might sometimes just be driven by luck and the herd. If we reran the world again, Britney Spears (and J. K. Rowling, for that matter) might never have been popular. Britney’s video happened to land at the right time, some people liked it, and, because of that, others jumped on the bandwagon. But she might not be any better than thousands of aspiring musicians we’ve never heard of.
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    Does this mean that anything could be a hit? That terrible books and movies are just as likely to be popular as good ones?
    Not exactly. Even in Salganik’s experiment, quality was still correlated with success. “Better” songs, those downloaded more in the independent world, tended to get more downloads and “worse” songs tended to get fewer. The best songs never did terribly, and the worst songs never did extremely well.
    But there was still a lot of variation. And what that means is that quality alone is not always enough.
    There are thousands of books, movies, and songs vying for collective attention. And no one has the time to read every book jacket or listen to every sample clip. Most people don’t have the bandwidth to check out even a small percentage of the options.
    So we use others as a helpful shortcut. A filter. If a book is on the best-seller list, we’re more likely to skim the description. If a song is already popular, we’re more likely to give it a listen. Following others saves us time and effort and (hopefully) leads us to something we’re more likely to enjoy.
    Does that mean we’ll like all those books or songs ourselves? Not necessarily. But we’re more likely to check them out and give them a try. And given the thousands of competing options out there, this increased attention is enough to give those items a boost.
    Knowing others liked something also encourages people to give it the benefit of the doubt. Appearing on the best-seller list provides an air of credibility. 12 If that many people bought it, it must be good.
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    J. K. Rowling unintentionally tested these ideas when she released a book under a pseudonym. After her success with Harry Potter , Rowling decided to write a detective novel called The Cuckoo’s Calling . While Potter brought Rowling notoriety, reviewers were critical of later books in the series, and Rowling worried her fame would bias response to the new novel. She wanted to let the writing speak for itself. So she released The Cuckoo’s Calling as Robert Galbraith. A combination of Robert F. Kennedy and her childhood fantasy name Ella Galbraith.
    Robert Galbraith’s novel had mixed success. Almost every person who read The Cuckoo’s Calling liked it. They called it “inspired” and “an