Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA12371 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 3 Jul 2000 21:38:10 +0100 Subject: Fwd: Herd instinct Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 16:33:01 -0400 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID: <20000703203302.AAA28736@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.145]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Herd instinct
By John Yemma
Call it Nasdaq Obsession Syndrome. Victims everywhere describe wild mood
swings, alternating euphoria and depression, depending on the apparently
random behavior of what they commonly term "the naz.'' Sometimes this
syndrome depends not on the Nasdaq but on the Dow or the S&P 500.
Sometimes it has to do with whether Alan Greenspan is smiling or
frowning. Whatever the case, the stock market is surely the obsession of
the moment.
Let a trend start, let the chat rooms spread it, let the newspapers
validate it and the networks amplify it, and suddenly all the nation goes
gaga, vacuuming up Christmas toys, loading up stocks, popping St. John's
wort, or flocking to the latest summer blockbuster.
"You get people finding their self-worth tied up with these obsessions,"
says Robert R. Butterworth, a psychologist in Los Angeles who monitors
social trends for a group called International Trauma Associates. "With
media consolidation, it doesn't take much to jump-kick a trend. Something
gets going," he says, citing Pokemon, Tickle Me Elmo, and day trading as
recent examples, "and people feel the need to get into it, too."
Robert Shiller, the Yale economist who scored a knockout earlier this
year with his cautionary book, Irrational Exuberance, has done a
masterful job of explaining the many reasons for the current
market-obsessed Zeitgeist of America. At one point, for instance, Shiller
neatly compares market mania to the Y2K bug, which got the whole world in
a lather last year before proving to be a big nothing. While government
and business experts still maintain that all the attention to the problem
prevented a millennium meltdown, Shiller and many other skeptics suspect
that this was a case of media-fostered mass obsession generated by the
public's fascination with computers and, last year at least, the
millennium.
As much as we worship individualism in this country, we can't wait to
form herds, jump on bandwagons, and run a new thing into the ground with
our collective enthusiasm for it. The golden mean, moderation in all
things - those are hopelessly passe ideas. With that in mind, I'd like to
propose 10 rules to help guide us through the next several obsessions:
1. Numbers are the path to truth. For some reason, ratings of popular TV
shows and the the weekly box office take for new movies fascinate people,
as do humidity and wind-chill indexes, opinion polls, calorie counts,
heart rates, and those ubiquitous lists of 10 best and 10 worst
everything. Numbers, of course, are the obsessed investor's idol - the
monthly consumer price index, the quarterly gross national product, and
the "whisper numbers" on corporate earnings. I keep CNN on at the office,
sound muted, and have noticed how often visitors' eyes - and my own -
dart up to check the "Dow" and "Nas" symbols in the bottom right-hand
corner of the screen. Up arrow, good; down arrow, bad. It's America's
mood ring.
2. Everything must be on the Internet. Or about the Internet, which is
our current overarching obsession. The Net is not just a place to go for
information about all the current obsessions; you also must invest in
Internet-related companies, communicate via the Internet, buy things on
the Internet, and worry about viruses that infect the Internet. A good
social crusade to join is one in which children, the poor, and the
elderly are guaranteed Internet access. When the great injustice of the
day involves Internet access, you know we live in fat times.
3. If one is good, 16 are better. Call this the "category killer" rule.
It's why there has to be a Starbucks on every corner. Every Harry Potter
book has a place on the bestsellers' list The Sopranos, Survivor, Regis,
Regis, and more Regis on TV is a rolling series of obsessions. Every
lame-brained idea must become a dot-com. Every new model year must bring
a more monstrous version of the sports utility vehicle. (Synergistic note
to Detroit: Develop a driverless, Web-accessible SUV controlled by
telecommuters. Could be big in the 2005 model year.)
4. If it was dangerous, it is interesting. This is why extreme sports
have become so popular. Take epic endeavors like the climbing of Mount
Everest. George Mallory froze to death in his Burberry. Edmund Hillary
and Tenzing Norgay nearly perished. Now every software exec from Redmond,
Washington, to Waltham seems to be planning to attack Everest,
notwithstanding - or perhaps because of - the many harrowing accounts of
privation and death in recent years. But that's not enough. To bump up
the stakes, getting to the top of the highest peak in the world now means
doing it without oxygen or racing up in record time or staying at the
pinnacle longer than anyone else. (Prediction for the 2001 season:
Ameritrade simulcasts a backward sprint up the Khumbu ice falls by the
Mountain Dew X-treme Sherpa skateboard team.)
5. The more preposterous, the better. Financial gabster James Cramer, the
jester-cap-wearing Motley Fools, Don Imus, Chris Matthews, Kid Rock - pop
culture is now populated with over-the-top characters. The most extreme
examples are histrionic beasts in pro wrestling with their steel-cage
smackdowns and trailer-park molls. So popular have they become that one
is the governor of Minnesota and others regularly show up to flex their
muscles on mainstream TV. (Fall TV idea: genius day-trading kid stuck in
pro-wrestling family.)
Did I say I had 10 rules? That seems obsessive. Let's stop at the golden
mean - 5.
©2000 Boston Globe Newspapers.
===============================This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jul 03 2000 - 21:38:54 BST