Hit Makers

Ever wondered why some songs, stories, or designs become cultural phenomena while others fade into obscurity? "Hit Makers" dives deep into the surprising and often counterintuitive forces that shape our tastes and desires. Prepare to have your assumptions challenged as you embark on a captivating journey through the history of hits, from Monet's masterpieces to the unexpected success of "Fifty Shades of Grey." You'll gain a fresh perspective on the power of exposure, the art of storytelling, and the delicate balance between originality and familiarity. Thompson blends insightful analysis with compelling narratives, revealing the hidden mechanisms behind virality, the evolution of fashion, and the surprising role of randomness. Get ready to explore the economics of prophecy, the allure of myth, and the future of attention in an age of information overload. This book isn't just about understanding hits; it's about understanding ourselves and the forces that shape our world, delivered with an engaging blend of intellectual curiosity and captivating storytelling.

In this chapter of Hit Makers, Derek Thompson explores the subtle yet profound forces behind fame and familiarity, particularly in art and music. He begins with a seemingly simple question posed before a Monet painting: why is this so famous? The author juxtaposes Monet’s universal recognition with the relative obscurity of Gustave Caillebotte, a contemporary of similar talent, setting up a compelling mystery. Thompson introduces James Cutting's research, which suggests that Caillebotte's unexpected role as a patron and collector significantly shaped the impressionist canon. Caillebotte’s bequest to the French state, a collection of his friends' works, inadvertently spotlighted a select group of artists—Monet, Renoir, and others—simply by ensuring their repeated exhibition. This act of posthumous generosity created a frame through which future generations viewed impressionism. Cutting’s experiments further reveal the mere exposure effect: repeated exposure to art, even without inherent superiority, breeds preference. Thompson transitions to music, examining how radio airplay and, more recently, social media amplify certain songs, irrespective of their objective quality. HitPredictor and SoundOut data reveal that many hit songs barely exceed the threshold for catchiness, underscoring the power of exposure over intrinsic merit. The narrative extends to politics, where Thompson argues that in an age of fragmented media, even presidential influence wanes, and the traditional power of party endorsements diminishes. He introduces the concept of absolute value, suggesting that the internet's information flood dilutes brand power as consumers gain access to unbiased product details. Finally, Thompson delves into the psychology of fluency and disfluency, revealing how ease of processing shapes preferences. Familiarity breeds fluency, creating a sense of rightness that often conflates with goodness and truth. Yet, he acknowledges the importance of disfluency—the slight challenge that keeps us engaged. Thus, Thompson suggests, the secret to creating lasting hits lies in balancing the comfort of the familiar with the intrigue of the new. Like a gardener coaxing a rare bloom, creators must cultivate exposure, understanding that a seed of talent needs fertile ground and repeated sunlight to truly flourish.

In a narrative rich with historical context, Derek Thompson unveils the story of Raymond Loewy, the father of modern design, and his profound impact on American consumerism. Loewy, arriving in a gritty, post-war New York, saw not just the industrial age's ugliness, but the potential for beauty and efficiency to coexist. Thompson explains Loewy's core philosophy, MAYA—Most Advanced Yet Acceptable—a principle validated by modern studies on aesthetics. Loewy understood the tension between neophilia and neophobia, the love of the new versus the comfort of the familiar, and he used this understanding to design products that felt both innovative and accessible. As Thompson guides us, Loewy's success wasn't just about aesthetics; it was about ethnography, understanding consumer habits, and piggybacking off their behaviors. Thompson highlights how Loewy's firm, like a hit factory, churned out designs by immersing themselves in the lives of their consumers, from housewives to train passengers, revealing hidden needs and desires. The author then broadens the discussion, revealing how the aesthetic aha moment—the point where disfluency yields to fluency—is a crucial element in creating hits, whether in art, music, or even scientific proposals. Thompson masterfully illustrates how audiences appreciate the expectation of resolution, even if it never fully arrives, a phenomenon seen in everything from the television show Lost to the enduring appeal of Tetris. He shows how ESPN and CNN, despite criticisms, have leveraged this principle by delivering familiar stories with new angles, creating a sense of comfort and predictability for their viewers. Finally, Thompson shows how even in the age of personalized content, the tension between familiarity and surprise remains paramount, as seen in the design of Spotify's Discover Weekly playlist, where a touch of the familiar builds trust and encourages exploration. Loewy’s legacy, Thompson concludes, lies in his ability to bridge the gap between the known and the unknown, teaching consumers to embrace the new by cloaking it in the comfort of the old, a lesson that remains relevant for artists and entrepreneurs today.

In "Hit Makers," Derek Thompson explores the elusive nature of catchiness, beginning with the story of Savan Kotecha, a songwriter who faced numerous rejections before finding success in Sweden's pop music hub. Thompson reveals that Kotecha's journey underscores a central paradox: while originality is prized, repetition is the bedrock of musical appeal. He then pivots to the science of sound, recounting Walter Boyer's experiment with fifth-graders, illustrating how repetition transforms speech into song, a phenomenon psychologist Diana Deutsch calls the speech-to-song illusion. The author explains that repetition is fundamental, a God particle in music, yet habituation threatens to diminish its allure. To combat monotony, Thompson introduces David Huron's research on dishabituation, drawing a parallel between musical patterns and how scientists startle mice with alternating sounds, revealing the verse-chorus-bridge structure as a formula to balance familiarity and novelty. Thompson transitions to the Billboard charts, exposing how manipulated data gave way to a more honest reflection of American tastes, leading to increased repetition in popular music. The author suggests that the tension between wanting the familiar and craving the new drives the pop music economy. The narrative then shifts to political rhetoric, where Thompson examines how speechwriters like Jon Favreau employ repetition, rhyme, and rhetorical devices such as epistrophe and antimetabole, echoing musical structures to make their messages memorable. Obama's "Yes, we can" refrain serves as a powerful example of this technique. The author cautions that musical language, while persuasive, can obscure truth, citing the rhyme-as-reason effect and the memorability of misleading aphorisms. Ultimately, Thompson concludes that repetition doesn't create an illusion but rather clarifies the underlying melodies within language, suggesting that all speech contains undiscovered songs, waiting to be revealed through careful listening. Like memory candy, repetition helps us recall and internalize messages, making communication more impactful.

In "Hit Makers," Derek Thompson explores the genesis of cultural phenomena through the lens of storytelling, beginning with George Lucas and the Star Wars saga. Lucas, initially averse to traditional narrative structures, found himself crafting one of the most iconic stories of the 20th century, a tale deeply rooted in the myths and serials of his youth. Thompson reveals that Star Wars wasn't born from pure originality but from a masterful blend of existing narratives, like Flash Gordon, westerns, war films, and the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell. This blending of familiar themes, Thompson suggests, is key to a story's success, as audiences crave both the new and the known. Vincent Bruzzese, a Hollywood script analyst, reinforces this idea through his statistical analysis of movie scripts, identifying predictable patterns in successful storytelling. Bruzzese’s work, inspired by Isaac Asimov’s psychohistory, shows that while individual preferences are unpredictable, collective audience behavior follows discernible rules. Like a chemist predicting reactions, Bruzzese classifies stories into mini-myths, such as 'Stop the Apocalypse' versus 'Survive the Apocalypse,' each with its own set of expectations. The central tension, Thompson elucidates, lies in balancing originality with familiarity; too much novelty leads to confusion, while too much imitation results in predictability. A Hollywood producer encapsulates this balance: take twenty-five elements of a successful genre and reverse just one. Ultimately, Thompson argues that hit stories are not entirely new but rather artful recombinations of ancient archetypes. Star Wars, in this light, is a 'gathering of hundreds of clichés' that resonate because they tap into our collective unconscious, offering a sense of both discovery and recognition. And as Adam Sternbergh suggests, spoilers—or familiarity with a story’s basic plot—don't necessarily diminish enjoyment; instead, they allow audiences to appreciate the nuances and emotional depth of a narrative, much like appreciating the view from a roller coaster when you know the track. Lucas's near-death experience, a collision that could have ended his life, underscores this theme of improbable success; Star Wars itself exists by a series of cosmic coincidences, a testament to the power of remixing existing stories into something unexpectedly profound. Like Lucas assembling his desk from spare doors, great stories are built from what's already there, creating something new from familiar components.

Derek Thompson masterfully dissects the potent, often perilous, allure of stories, beginning with a macabre yet illuminating exploration of vampire myths. He reveals how, in the absence of scientific understanding, these tales served as coherent, albeit gruesome, explanations for the mysteries of death, spreading like wildfire across disparate cultures; a stark reminder that compelling narratives can powerfully fill the void of the unknown. Yet, Thompson cautions, this very power can be a double-edged sword. He transitions to the modern-day myths perpetuated by media, particularly concerning gender roles, citing the Geena Davis Institute's unsettling findings on the underrepresentation and sexualization of women in children's entertainment. Here, the narrative shifts, as Thompson unveils how unconscious bias, fueled by these cinematic stories, subtly shapes societal expectations and reinforces discriminatory patterns, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy where audiences, conditioned by Hollywood's formulas, perpetuate these very stereotypes. The author then illuminates the audience's role in maintaining these biases, highlighting research that shows how viewers often penalize female characters for behaviors they readily forgive in men, trapping storytellers in a cycle of expectation. Thompson offers a glimmer of hope, pointing to the rapid shift in attitudes toward marriage equality as evidence that cultural change is possible, particularly among younger generations who are more receptive to new social norms. Ultimately, Thompson urges critical consumption of media, suggesting that we are all susceptible to "ideological burn-in," the unfortunate imprinting of biases through repeated exposure. He introduces the concept of "disfluency" as a cognitive tool—a mental speed bump—to disrupt automatic processing and encourage deeper analysis of information. Just as the Fox News logo could sear itself onto old television screens, so too can familiar falsehoods imprint themselves upon our minds if we aren't vigilant. The chapter concludes with a call to action, urging audiences to approach even the most captivating narratives with a healthy dose of skepticism, recognizing that the very elements that make stories so seductive also make them potentially dangerous.

In this exploration of 'Hit Makers,' Derek Thompson dismantles the illusion of inherent taste, revealing how choices, economics, and marketing perpetually sculpt our preferences. He begins by illustrating how an abundance of options reshapes desires, recalling a time when the Model T's singular black hue masked latent preferences for variety. The narrative then pivots to Abercrombie & Fitch, once a teen fashion titan, humbled by economic recession, proving that 'cool' is often a reflection of financial climates. Thompson then highlights the Super Bowl, where a carefully placed Chevy commercial catapulted the band Fun's song 'We Are Young' to unprecedented success, underscoring marketing's potent influence. Shifting gears, Thompson introduces the intriguing concept of first names as a 'marketplace' devoid of economic and marketing pressures, a realm where popularity still dictates trends. He notes the transformation of names from tradition to fashion, a shift mirroring the Industrial Revolution's upheaval, which catalyzed urbanization, education, and individualism. Just as clothing styles remained static for millennia before trade and textile advancements spurred change, names, too, underwent a similar metamorphosis. Thompson introduces Laver's law, which illustrates how the perception of fashion evolves over time, cycling from 'indecent' to 'beautiful' across decades, and how this cycle influences choices. Exploring the 'taste-for-popularity' spectrum, Thompson illuminates how some embrace trends, while others, the hipsters, recoil as things gain traction. He also unpacks the concept of social proof, explaining how the perceived correctness of an idea amplifies with its popularity, but this is not without limits, as seen in the backlash against Lady Gaga's album despite heavy promotion. Finally, Thompson recounts the rise and fall of the laugh track, once a ubiquitous tool for eliciting mirth, now a relic of a bygone era, which serves as a stark reminder that even the most entrenched cultural norms are subject to the whims of fashion. The chapter closes with a reflection on the ever-evolving nature of communication, from ancient customs to the rapid-fire innovations of the digital age, suggesting that even how we converse is becoming a fleeting fashion, a river of trends, each quickly replaced by the next.

Derek Thompson, in his exploration of hit-making, turns our attention to the unlikely story of "Rock Around the Clock," a song whose ascent defies simple explanations. He introduces us to Bill Haley, a musician with humble beginnings and a persistent dream, whose journey was riddled with near-misses and outright rejections, a testament to the sheer tenacity required in creative pursuits. The author underscores that initial failure doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of merit; sometimes, the right context is everything, illustrating how the song, initially a B-side flop, found its explosive success only after being featured in the film *Blackboard Jungle*. Thompson then introduces Duncan Watts, a network theory scientist, to challenge the conventional wisdom of attributing success solely to inherent qualities, emphasizing instead the role of randomness and timing, like a butterfly flapping its wings and somehow causing a typhoon, in determining cultural phenomena. Watts's perspective shifts the focus from 'Why do we like what we like?' to 'How does what you like become what I like?', highlighting the power of social influence and information cascades. The narrative pivots to the Mona Lisa, a painting whose fame, Watts argues, wasn't always assured, its modern-day iconic status owing more to a theft and subsequent media frenzy than inherent artistic superiority, serving as a potent reminder that retrospective analyses often oversimplify complex histories. Thompson then dissects the entertainment industry through the lens of chaos theory, revealing its complex, adaptive, and semi-chaotic nature, driven by unpredictable consumer behavior and power law distributions, where a tiny fraction of products account for the vast majority of revenue. He concludes with Haley's story, a beacon of perseverance, illustrating that while luck plays an undeniable role, the willingness to endure countless failures is often the defining trait of those who ultimately break through, urging creators to embrace the chaos and keep creating.

In "Hit Makers," Derek Thompson dismantles the pervasive myth of virality, using the unlikely success story of E. L. James's "Fifty Shades of Grey" as a case study. Thompson begins by tracing the book's origins in the fan fiction community, a hidden world of amateur writers and avid readers, emphasizing how Erika Leonard, or E. L. James, cultivated a dedicated following long before mainstream recognition. The author challenges the conventional wisdom of viral marketing, revealing that ideas rarely spread like diseases, infecting one person at a time; instead, they rely on 'broadcast diffusion,' reaching vast audiences through single sources. Thompson illustrates this with the tale of John Snow and the 1854 London cholera outbreak, demonstrating how the disease spread not through miasma or person-to-person contact, but from a contaminated water pump—a stark metaphor for how information spreads through concentrated sources. He argues that the illusion of virality often masks the influence of 'dark broadcasters,' individuals or companies with significant reach whose impact is not always visible. The author points to the Kony 2012 video as an example, noting how celebrity endorsements, not organic sharing, drove its meteoric rise. Thompson emphasizes that while some ideas are indeed more infectious, they require a 'water pump'—a major broadcast event—to propel them into the mainstream. Anne Messitte's early recognition of the buzz around "Fifty Shades," coupled with Random House's marketing power, served as that pump, transforming a dark hit into a global phenomenon. Thompson highlights how the book's success wasn't solely due to its content but also to the conversation it ignited, turning popularity into a product itself. Like a pebble causing ripples in a pond, the initial broadcasts created waves of discussion that drew in even those with little prior interest in the genre, and the author notes how online rankings amplified this effect, creating cultural mega-blockbusters. Ultimately, Thompson suggests that understanding hit-making requires acknowledging the interplay between infectious ideas and the broadcast mechanisms that propel them into the collective consciousness, a blend of grassroots buzz and strategic amplification.

In "Hit Makers," Derek Thompson examines Vincent Forrest's unexpected success selling pin-back buttons with niche jokes on Etsy, revealing a core tension: the surprising power of small, tightly-knit communities versus broad, diffuse audiences. Forrest, Thompson explains, didn't aim for virality; instead, he cultivated a dedicated following by crafting jokes so specific they felt almost private, creating a "magnet of understanding." Thompson pivots to the concept of 'sharing,' noting that in the digital age, it's less about giving something away and more about self-expression and finding one's tribe. Forrest's journey highlights that specificity and familiarity matter, because detail transforms passive observations into meaningful experiences. Thompson then introduces homophily, the principle that people gravitate toward those who are like them, and propinquity, the fondness for those nearby, to explain how social networks form. These principles, though seemingly obvious, have profound implications, shaping everything from friendships to social segregation. The chapter explores how social networks, both online and offline, become echo chambers, where individuals sort themselves into like-minded groups and then socialize to become even more similar, like a drop of dye spreading in water. This convergence, Thompson argues, isn't just about individual preferences; it's about understanding the audience of your audience. To illustrate, Thompson recounts Whitney Wolfe's strategy for launching Tinder, targeting sororities and fraternities—pre-existing, densely connected networks—rather than seeking out individual influencers. Wolfe understood that the key wasn't finding the powerful, but identifying the vulnerable, those ripe for influence within their own clusters. Ultimately, Thompson resolves the initial tension by showing that successful creations don't aim for mainstream appeal; they tap into niche networks bound by a shared identity or idea, turning the focus from broadcasting to narrowcasting. The lesson: people have all day to talk about what makes them ordinary, but they want to share what makes them weird, forging connections through shared, idiosyncratic passions.

In this chapter of Hit Makers, Derek Thompson explores the unpredictable nature of predicting cultural hits, opening with the irony of experts dismissing the iPhone before its monumental success, underscoring how initial rejection doesn't preclude eventual triumph. Thompson introduces us to the concept of being a Cassandra—someone who accurately foresees the future but is disbelieved—positioning this as a valuable, albeit uncomfortable, stance in hit-making markets; the real economic advantage lies in perceiving what others discount, like Warren Buffett's contrarian investments. He illustrates this with Shazam's ability to map a song's burgeoning popularity, and Republic Records' clever use of smaller markets like Victoria, Texas, as bellwethers for broader trends, revealing how unconventional data points can be leading indicators. Shifting gears, Thompson dissects the television industry's various business models—broadcast, cable, and premium—showing how each uniquely shapes the content it produces; broadcast networks prioritize broad appeal and live viewing, while cable channels thrive on niche audiences and subscription fees, exemplified by AMC's Mad Men, a show that rescued an entire network by appealing to a critical mass, not a massive one. Subscription-based services like HBO, Thompson notes, operate on a different plane, selling a brand and the expectation of genius, which allows for riskier, more artist-driven projects, as seen with Game of Thrones. The author highlights Jeff Bezos's observation that business, unlike baseball, offers the chance to score a thousand runs with a single swing, emphasizing the importance of bold bets and recognizing that hits are outliers, not easily replicable formulas—they are like rare flowers blooming unexpectedly in a field of imitation. Thompson concludes by noting that while cable television's model may be in decline, the future likely holds a rebundling of unbundled services, compelling companies to understand what audiences truly value and are willing to pay for, and reminding us that artistic freedom relies on a functioning economic model, where someone, somewhere, foots the bill, allowing art to flourish.

In this exploration of media evolution, Derek Thompson takes us back to the 1920s, a golden age for reading, where the challenge wasn't the lack of content but the overwhelming abundance of it. He introduces George Gallup, a pioneer who dared to study readers in their natural habitat, their living rooms, moving beyond flawed metrics like circulation to understand what truly captured attention. Gallup's Iowa Method revealed a crucial tension: what people say they want and what they actually consume are often worlds apart, a gap that media companies still grapple with today. Thompson paints a vivid picture of newspapers hiring spies to peek at commuter's papers, desperate to understand readership habits. The narrative tension rises as television emerges, not as a superior product, but as an inferior one that better suited the public's evolving desires, ultimately supplanting newspapers as the primary source of news. This shift underscores a vital insight: innovation isn't always about quality; it's about adapting to how people want to experience information, be it through words, images, or sounds. The story progresses to the digital age, where Facebook, a social network, becomes an unexpected news behemoth. Adam Mosseri, Facebook's head of product management, reveals how the News Feed algorithm, like a Coca-Cola recipe, constantly evolves based on user behavior, creating a personalized, sometimes unsettling, reflection of our preferences. Thompson then introduces the concept of latent preferences – those needs we don't even know we have – and how catering to them, like Facebook's friending stories, can enhance user experience. He notes how Facebook's rise forces us to confront a critical question: Can any algorithm truly be neutral, or does human bias inevitably shape the information we consume? The chapter resolves with a challenge to Facebook and other platforms: to balance the allure of engagement with the responsibility of providing meaningful content, moving beyond merely "getting itself read" to fostering a more informed and connected society. In essence, Thompson argues, understanding audience desires is a three-dimensional puzzle involving observed behavior, stated preferences, and those hidden needs that, when met, can transform our lives.

In this exploration of hit-making, Derek Thompson invites us to consider the shifting landscape of attention, drawing a parallel between the industrial revolution and our current era of information overload. He cautions that tactics used in pop culture, like repetition and heroic myths, can be seductive and even dangerous when applied to politics or used to reinforce biases. The author highlights the tension between our desire for the new (neophilia) and our comfort with the familiar (neophobia), noting how algorithms can create echo chambers, shielding us from uncomfortable yet potentially valuable ideas. Thompson then introduces the paradox of scale, observing that the biggest hits often emerge from narrowly tailored concepts designed for specific audiences, like Star Wars' appeal to ten-year-old boys. He then discusses the concept of MAYA (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable), suggesting that true genius often arises after an artist has earned an audience's trust, allowing them to push boundaries. The narrative then pivots to the evolution of media, noting how new technologies don't necessarily kill old ones but rather reshape them, using the Disney Company, guided by Kay Kamen's merchandising genius, as an example of building an empire through total immersion and nostalgia loops. Kamen understood that the future of movies was everything outside the movie theater. Contrasting this empire model, Thompson introduces Ryan Leslie, a hip-hop artist who uses technology to connect directly with his fans, bypassing traditional gatekeepers and building a sustainable career as a "city-state." Thompson highlights Leslie's realization that success often hinges on the quality of one's network, the people who enable and support an artist's vision. He concludes by emphasizing that while technology changes rapidly, human needs remain constant: we seek both uniqueness and belonging, familiarity and novelty, expectation and surprise. The future of hits, therefore, lies in balancing these opposing forces, whether through the expansive reach of empires or the focused intensity of city-states, reminding us that a maker sacrifices certainty for love at the altar of art.

Derek Thompson's 'Hit Makers' meticulously dissects the anatomy of popularity, revealing that success isn't solely determined by inherent quality, but often by a complex interplay of exposure, familiarity, and strategic adaptation. The book underscores the 'mere exposure effect,' highlighting our inherent bias towards the familiar, and how this shapes our preferences across art, music, and even personal choices. Thompson dismantles the myth of virality, emphasizing the power of broadcast diffusion and the importance of cultivating 'dark broadcasters' to amplify ideas. He stresses the need to balance novelty with familiarity, striving for 'optimal newness' to create engaging and lasting works, and highlights the importance of deeply understanding your audience's habits through ethnographic research. Emotionally, the book teaches us to question our own tastes, recognizing that they are shaped by a confluence of choices, economic conditions, and marketing. It urges us to be skeptical of persuasive storytelling and musical rhetoric, prioritizing critical thinking over blind acceptance. Practically, 'Hit Makers' offers a roadmap for creators, emphasizing the need to build on familiarity, leverage existing archetypes, and cultivate niche audiences. It encourages embracing initial failures as learning opportunities and focusing on how social influence shapes preferences. The book ultimately advocates for a nuanced understanding of the chaotic nature of creative markets, urging perseverance and a willingness to challenge conventional wisdom. It's a powerful reminder that while hits may seem random, a strategic blend of familiarity, novelty, and audience understanding can significantly increase the odds of success, while also cautioning against the dark side of popularity and the potential for manipulation.