Tip Me

‘Open Scene’,

A senior basketball player lays sick in bed with a fever of 102.7 the night before his Senior Night against none other than the team’s most hated rival school. Members of his family have flown all the way across the country just to see him play. To say the player felt a bit guilty would be a slight understatement, however his primary goal was to simply lower his temperature to 99 degrees so he could play in the coming game. To make a long, fever-plagued night short, the player somehow manages to lower his temperature and though still sick, manages to play. While it was not the most efficient performance of his career, he helped his team to a thrilling victory. However, the player is still not healthy; post game, his fever shoots up to 103.7 and he is again bedridden. He just cannot seem to break his fever. Unfortunately it wasn’t a Beiber fever (sike). He is also told to stay away from his teammates for obvious reasons – no one wants to start a mini epidemic.  After resting for another two days, the player starts to feel better and again is given limited playing time as he helps lead his team to another victory and secure a third place finish. The outcome of this game is not as favorable; the player again ends up confined to his bed for the entirety of the next day and is forced to miss one of his favorite classes. After missing almost a week’s worth of class and barely contributing on the court, the player starts to feel rested and healthy and finally gets to return to hanging out with his team. Crisis averted? False. A few days later one of the player’s teammates begins to feel sick as well.  Has a mini epidemic begun? 

            Unfortunately, the player in this story is me. I had inadvertently become an infector and a connector but hopefully not a super infector; only time will tell. Still, sicknesses are not the only thing that are picked up and transferred between people.  In Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, he explains the spread of Hush Puppies and syphilis, but fads and epidemics can run deeper and be more powerful and dangerous then these examples. Back the late 90’s, every parent on the planet wanted to be able to give his child a Tickle.Me.Elmo toy. Elmo is a loveable red Sesame Street character who is always so happy and so cute. The toy version everyone wanted would laugh, shake and giggle when squeezed. Cute, right? Of course! Who wouldn’t want one? This epidemic can be easily explained with Gladwell’s three rules of an epidemic: the Law of the Few, the Power of Context, and the Stickiness Factor. With Tickle.Me.Elmo, the Law of the Few was satisfied by the fact that one very smart man at Tyco-Toys gave a Tickle.Me.Elmo to Rosie O’Donnell’s child. This gesture was where it began. O’Donnell’s child loved the toy so much that it she promoted it on her television show. By being a mother, she became a maven. Today Show anchor Bryant Gumble ended up hosting the Today Show with one on his lap, and in doing so, he played the role of a connector. 

            Almost more important than this was the Power of Context. As both of these shows air during the time of day when expectant and stay-at-home mothers are sure to be watching television, they were the perfect channel through which to advertise the toy. The stage was set and the conditions were almost perfect for an epidemic to take off. The right people had been provided with the toy and the right people had been exposed to the toy. All that remained was the last rule of an epidemic, the Stickiness Factor. This factor is some kind of unique quality of the toy that will stick in the mind of the public consumer. Being a Sesame Street character, Elmo already was stuck in the mind of the consumer. The loveable little red guy had already taught many young children who watch sesame street valuable life lessons. Additionally, the generation that had grown up watching Sesame Street now had children of its own, and poof! Just like that the Tickle.Me.Elmo epidemic took off that holiday season.

            Parents rushed out to local toy stores to get their hands on the hottest toy of the season, and in some cases even injured themselves, store employees and anyone else who attempted to get in their way. Reports of people being trampled on, ribs being broken, pulled hamstrings, concussions, and even a report of the crotch being yanked out of an employee’s jeans showed up all over the media, all as a result of Tickle.Me.Elmo fever.  To this day the Tickle.Me.Elmo doll remains to be one of the best selling children’s toys of all time. This epidemic slash virus was definitely not the first and will definitely not be the last. Many may also remember the Furby craze which occurred just a few years after Tickle.Me.Elmo, along with Pokemon, Beanie Babies, Pogs and the almost useless Tamagotchi.  The list could go on for days. These fads all took place prior to the creation of Web 2.0 which has made the viral process of spreading ideas even easier. A prime example of this comes with the teen artist, Justin Beiber. He parlayed Youtube videos of himself singing, dancing and playing musical instruments into a full-fledged career. Who needs talent anymore? With Gladwell’s three rules of an epidemic, fame and commercial success can be achieved at least on a temporary level. These days, it is easy to place oneself in position to be discovered, but becoming anything greater falls upon one’s product or ability because if one can’t “stick” in the minds of the public, one will definitely not remain a hit. 

Better Late Than Never, Never Late is better.. Here Comes Everybody

Prior to today (Feb 11), I did not really believe the theory that social networking creates weak ties that benefit those involved. The prime example of this concept that I was familiar with came from Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody. Within the first chapter Shirky, gives the example that many east coast residents might be familiar with. A woman named Ivanna left her phone, a Sidekick, in the back of a New York City cab. This account happened during the age when not everyone had a Blackberry or iPhone. So, Ivanna contacted a tech-savvy friend and asked him to email the phone with a message offering a reward for its return. However, there was no response.  Eventually, Ivanna gave up and bought a new Sidekick. The transition was made easy because her cell phone company’s network stored all of the information on her old phone, so as soon as she activated her new phone all the data was immediately transferred.  The most significant part of the story is that Ivanna could actually see everything that the person who had stolen her sidekick was doing on her old phone. She attempted to contact this person and got no response, so she proceeded to contact the police to try to recover her stolen property. Of course, they were of no assistance. Her tech-savvy friend then made a post on his website entitled “StolenSidekick” in order to inform friends of the situation that Ivanna was in. He started to form weak ties with various people who also saw a problem with Ivanna’s experience with the police and the person who stole her phone. The blog post continued to grow and grow and was eventually picked up on Digg and gained even more notoriety. This led to the story being picked up by local media outlets. At this point, the public outrage became so great that the police were compelled to act and eventually arrested the 16-year-old girl who stole Ivanna’s phone.  

To me this, Ivanna’s situation was a heartwarming, feel good story about the wonderful power of weak ties that were created through social networking, but initially, I did not believe that I could actually gain any type of knowledge through the weak social networking ties that I have established. I quickly realized that I was very wrong.

This change in opinion came as I was strolling through the Lehigh Valley Mall with one of my teammates. We ventured to the mall for the purpose of finding some Valentine ’s Day gifts for significant others, so naturally we had to go to a candy store because what kind of woman doesn’t want some kind of chocolate for Valentine’s day ? The store contained all of the usual heart shaped boxes of chocolates, stuffed animals, balloons, and other cliché gifts.  My teammate selected a traditional white teddy bear holding a heart that said “I love you” filled with chocolate which is pretty much the standard for Valentine ’s Day. None of this was surprising, but what shocked me was once we got to the register I saw a sign for “Dipped Berries in a velvet heart box,” aka chocolate covered strawberries. The shocking part about this was that each individual strawberry was $21.99! As the ever-connected social media junkie that I am, I immediately took a picture of this and uploaded it to Twitter with the caption, “Women out there if your man get you chocolate covered strawberries you better like them.. look at that price.” I honestly wasn’t expecting any kind of response from my followers; I really just wanted to put that picture out there so people could see how outrageous the price was. However, my Professor replied to it and Retweeted it to his 733 followers. Of course, as a result of the laws of social networking one of his followers also replied to me.

A weak social networking tie had just been formed, and from this a discussion began between my professor, his follower and I.  The follower asked my professor and I if we dipped our own strawberries, and I was a bit slow to respond so naturally, my professor sassed me because that’s the kind of teacher student relationship that we have.  I finally responded “Haha, I was actually just talking to one of my teammates about doing that.” My professor responded with “I actually could dip my own strawberries. Praying we’re still talking about the same thing.” The content of the conversation is irrelevant really, but it sets up the lesson that was learned.  His follower than replied “How do you season the chocolate?” At this point I start to realize that this weak tie that I had just formed is about to give me a mini lesson on how to make homemade chocolate covered strawberries. I told the follower that I simply planned to melt either a Twix or MilkyWay in a pot and dip the strawberries in the melted candy. The follower goes on to mention that the Twix might be a bit messy and suggests that I may also want to try to simply melt a Snickers and put that on top of some ice cream.

Weak ties in social networking are real. They have a lot of power to influence and help individuals who are just looking for some guidance or suggestions from people that they are more than likely to never speak to. The fact that a random writer, translator and PR consultant would take the time out of her night to give me advice on how to make chocolate covered strawberries is amazing to me because these weak ties really have the capability to make things a lot easier for people. Simply because now we have the capability to use our biggest resource which is each other, these weak ties foster communication and, although not all of it is meaningful, it is definitely helpful.