Rahman 1

Rahman, Meahzabin
Honors American Literature
Period 3
10/24/16
Non-Fiction Independent Reading Project
The Tipping Point and Impact of the Epidemics by Malcolm Gladwell

In The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm
Gladwell asserts that the sociological changes of everyday life can suddenly tip, or explode when
one small group of special people influence others that leads to the epidemics spread. Gladwell
demonstrates this fact by revealing that the factors, which are the Law of the Few, the Stickiness
Factor, and the Power of Context, are the only ways an outbreak of any type of epidemic can
occur. He discloses these points in order to inform readers that change occurs so rapidly and
unexpectedly without knowing where it originated from. Gladwell address both young adults and
adults in this book because he assess their thinking skills in order for these groups to know if
they can be responsible for, and make an impact on any epidemic.

The author provides multiple significant issues and ideas about how epidemics are caused
and who is held accountable for these beneficial or harmful actions. In the first chapter, The
Three Rules of Epidemics, Malcolm Gladwell lists the components that can trigger an epidemic,
which are the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context that can lead to
great changes, and narrates about the syphilis epidemic in Baltimore. He explicates, And when
an epidemic tips, when it is jolted out of equilibrium, it tips because something has happened,
some changes has occurred in one (or two or three) of those areas. These three agents of change I
call the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context (18-19). Also,
Gladwell states, At some point between 36,000 and 21,000 patient visits a year, according to
Zenilman, the disease erupted. It began spilling out of the inner city, up the streets and highways
that connect those neighborhoods to the rest of the city (16). He displays these facts because he
wants to show that there isnt only one way to start an epidemic, but multiple ways, which occurs
by interactions among many different types of unique people. In the next most significant
chapter, chapter three, The Stickiness Factor, the author discusses about the learning epidemic
of Sesame Street and Blues Clues, which made a huge impact in educating young children
before entering school. He declares, and the hope was that if that hour was contagious enough it
could serve as an educational Tipping Point: giving children from disadvantaged homes a leg up
once they began elementary and lingering long enough to have an impact well after the
children stopped watching the show (89). In addition, he states, They took those sticky
elements and tried to make them even stickier. The first was the idea that the more kids are
engaged in watching something the more memorable and meaningful it becomes (123). Mr.
Gladwell wants to demonstrate that in order to expose young children to education, they must be
attracted to an enjoyable activity by which they could interact and learn at once. Next, he
suggests that the crime epidemic in New York City unexpectedly decreased in the later 1900s,
but it was due to the strong enforcement rules. In the fourth chapter, The Power of Context (Part
One), he mentions, Under Bratton, the number of ejections from subway stations for
 Rahman 2

drunkenness tripled within his first few months in office. Arrest for misdemeanors, for the
kind of minor offenses that had gone unnoticed in the past went up fivefold between 1990 and
1994. Bratton turned the transit police into an organization focused on the smallest infractions,
on the details of life underground (145). He suggests that this occurred due to many of the
contagious crimes and violence happening, leaders stood up to decrease it by strict laws.
Furthermore, in the fifth chapter, The Power of Context (Part Two), claims that the book,
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood turned into an epidemic after its release due to family
bonding. He states, The book itself is heartwarming and beautifully written, compelling story of
friendship and mother-daughter relationships. It spoke to people. Its sticky (171). The author
shows that since it was effective among women, it led to the books spread and popularity, which
allowed the book to come to life in the form of a movie. Finally, Mr. Gladwell declared that the
shoe epidemic of Airwalk began due to the companys desire to make the company well-known
internationally. He divulges, They worked to get alternative rock bands to wear their shoes on
stage and, perhaps most important, they decided to hire a small advertising agency named
Lambesis to rethink their marketing campaign. Under Lambesiss direction, Airwalk exploded
(194). He wanted to show that the company did as much advertising as possible, so it could
reach heights and earn more money, become famous, and it tipped due to the hard work the
company put in.
In The Tipping Point, there were multiple issues that the author discussed about, but the
issue that struck the most was the syphilis epidemic in Baltimore. In the article, STDs surge to
20-year High, considers the general diseases that have caused a Tipping Point in America, and
have dramatically increased. Both the book and the article share statistic of how diseases spread
among the youth. He writes, from 1995 to 1996, the number of children born with the
disease increased by 500 percent (15). Similarly, the article states, Rates of Chlamydia,
gonorrhea, and syphilis increased significantly for the third year in a row, reaching a 20-year
high. This indicates that all STDs had notable increases all over the country. Also, both sources
share similar reasons how, and what type of activities, led to the outbreak of these epidemics. Mr.
Gladwell asserts, According to the Centers for Disease Control, the problem was crack cocaine.
Crack is known to cause a dramatic increase that leads to the spread of things like HIV and
syphilis (15). The secondary source writes, A woman can pass STDs on to her baby, leading to
serious disabilities or death in the infant. This supports the evidence above that epidemics are
spread from mother to child due to interactions with others. Lastly, the book and STDs surge to
20-year High compare the people who are involved in the outbreak of all diseases. The author
of the book writes, Syphilis, he was saying, was a disease carried by a certain kind of person in
Baltimore- a very poor, probably drug-using individual (18). Strikingly, the article also includes,
Young people ages 15-24 and gay men are at highest risk for STDs. Young people face
unique barriers to services, including stigma, confidentiality concerns, and limited access to
expert STD providers. This demonstrates that the targets of these diseases are the youth who are
usually involved in committing bad acts.
Malcolm Gladwell believes that America is the main country in which epidemics start
due to the trends people follow, and end up learning, and due to notable techniques and people
influencing others to spread it. He uses the example of Winston filter-tip cigarettes to represent
the Stickiness Factor. The company created the slogan Winston tastes good like a cigarette
should, which was spoken among many people and stuck onto them until today. Malcolm
 Rahman 3

Gladwell suggests, In his history of the cigarette industry the marketers at R.J. Reynolds,
which sells Winston, were delighted with the attention and made the offending slogan the lyric
of a bouncy little jingle on television and radio (25). This depicts that the cigarette and the
sentence became so popular that it led the cigarette to be the bestselling brand in the country due
to its tip. Finally, he talks about how the diseases, namely syphilis led to the death of many
people, especially women. He considers, the French Canadian flight attendant Gaetan Dugas,
who claimed to have 2,500 partners all over North America, and who was linked to at least 40 of
the earliest cases of AIDS in California and New York (21). This exhibits that many women
would suffer for life due to interacting with sick people who made the disease tip.
 Works Cited

Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston:
Little, Brown, 2000. Print.

The Associated Press, ed. "STDs Surge to 20-year High." N.p., 20 Oct. 2016. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.