Malcom Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" Summary

The word that best describes "The Tipping Point" is relatable. Malcom Gladwell gives examples of real life situations that everyone has experienced in some capacity to support his main point. The fact that he gives such common examples of everyday things makes it easier to relate to what he is saying, and draw your own ideas about his topic out of this writing piece. His main point is that sometimes little things can have a huge impact on society. His best example is yawning, and how it spreads so quickly from one person to another. By using such a simple example, he draw the reader in, and make it easy to relate to what he is saying.

In "The Tipping Point" Malcolm Gladwell argues that sometimes little things have an enormous impact on society, and that something small can often start a major change. He uses three examples to support his main idea. The first example he uses is Hush Puppy shoes. He explains that these shoes had been out of style for a long time, until people all over downtown Manhattan started to wear them again. Once the news spread that these shoes were becoming more popular, fashion stylists started to incorporate them into their designs, and soon, the company that sold the shoes started to produce more and more to meet the demand for the shoes. His second example involves crime in New York. Gladwell describes "There was a time not very long ago in the desperately poor New York City neighborhoods of Brownsville and East New York, when the streets would turn into ghost towns at dusk" (676). Gladwell says that this was all due to the crimes that were committed in the streets of New York at night. Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, the crime rate started to decrease. Gladwell argues that as economical, and social conditions started to improve, crime started to decline in the streets of New York.  Gladwell says that something as little as a change in employment rates or an improvement in the police department led to the sudden improvement in the streets of New York. The third example he provides is yawning. Gladwell describes yawning as contagious. He says that when we yawn, there is a very strong chance that whoever is around us will also yawn. Gladwell says that just by simply writing the word yawn, he can "plant a feeling in your mind" (679). He also says that our ability to recognize contagions in society can help us determine what kind of change will come from certain events. Gladwell ultimately believes that something small can often have a larger outcome, and if we as humans can recognize those small acts or changes, we can predict what kind of "epidemic" will result from the events.