An instant New York Times, USA Today, and Amazon bestseller!
A masterpiece that delves into the mechanisms of big trends in a changing world!

Malcolm Gladwell's first book, The Tipping Point, published in 2000, was a remarkable study of the point at which a word, action, idea, or product explodes into a viral phenomenon.
The Tipping Point became a huge hit, just like the subject it covers.
It has been on the New York Times bestseller list for several years, and former President Bill Clinton called The Tipping Point “the book everyone’s talking about.”
'The Tipping Point' has become a household term and a business management bible with over 10 million copies sold worldwide.
One day, as COVID-19 swept the world, Malcolm Gladwell reread The Tipping Point, which he had not been able to read for 25 years due to his busy schedule.
The world has changed, and so has his thinking.
Malcolm Gladwell decided to explore the topic of social pandemics in a new way, fitting for the current moment.
He began writing this book after discovering the newly formed laws of pandemics in the changing digital age.


In his first book, The Tipping Point, which was a global bestseller 25 years ago, he presented rules that explained the inner workings of social contagion, such as the "law of the few," the "power of circumstances," and the "stickiness factor," and argued that these could be used to promote positive changes such as reducing crime rates, teaching children to read, and curbing smoking.
In this book, "Designers of the Tipping Point," the authors present the "overstory" (a community value that governs people's behavior), "superspreaders" (spreaders with powerful influence), and "magic thirds" (the rate at which the entire group's culture or mindset changes) as new laws for trend creation.
Moreover, it was discovered that there are 'social engineers' who meticulously design and execute the process by which tipping points occur.
The author's newly discovered laws of big trends in the digital age, and the secret activities of "social engineers" who have meticulously designed the tipping points that have been invisible to us until now and have changed the world, will thrill readers.

You know that feeling when you look at old photos of yourself? Whenever I do, I can't quite recognize the person in the photo.
So, on the 25th anniversary of its publication, I thought it would be interesting to revisit The Tipping Point and look at something written so long ago through very different eyes.
In the 25th Anniversary Revised Edition of The Tipping Point, one author will return to the scene of his first success as a young man.

But as I delved back into the world of social contagion, I realized I didn't want to return to the same problems I addressed in The Tipping Point.
The world seemed so different to me back then.
In The Tipping Point, I introduce a set of principles that help us understand the rapid shifts in behavior and beliefs that shape our world.
I still think those ideas are useful.
But now I have other questions.

--- From “Author’s Note_Why I Rewrote My First Book on a Blank Sheet of Paper”

Casper and C-Dog led 175 bank robberies.
Even focusing solely on the Yankee Robber, Casper, and the Nasty Boys gives a nearly complete picture of what was happening in LA in the 1980s and early 1990s.
It was an epidemic phenomenon that grew and peaked with the extraordinary actions of a few.
“In terms of pandemics, Casper was a ‘superspreader,’” Wiley said.

--- From "Chapter 1 Casper and C-Dog"

Communities have their own stories, and those stories are contagious.

Actually, the word 'story' is not very appropriate.
The word 'overstory' is better.
The overstory refers to the upper part of the trees that make up the forest.
The size, density, and height of the overstory influence the behavior and development of all species on much lower ground.
I think the essence of the subregional differences that make Waldorf schools different from other schools, or Boulder from Buffalo, is more about the overstory than the story.
It is not something explicit that is instilled in all residents.
The overstory consists of things that are high up and often exist outside our consciousness.
So we tend to forget the existence of overstory.
Because we are so immersed in the life that is going on before our eyes and around us.
But the overstory, when you get to know it, is really, really powerful.
--- From "Chapter 2: The Miami Problem"

So far, we have explored the concept that social contagion does not spread indiscriminately and uncontrollably.
Social contagion is tied to a specific location.
The case of Philippe Espomes and Miami also shows that the power of a place comes from the stories that its community tells to the people within it.
In this chapter, we will add a third question based on these two concepts.
If the overstory created by its residents influences the spread of the disease, then isn't that community, in a sense, responsible for the disease that afflicts them?
--- From Chapter 3, Poplar Grove

In the end, everyone came to a consensus.
In any group, when the proportion of outsiders, which was initially negligible, reached between one-quarter and one-third, dramatic changes occurred.

Let's call the maximum in this range the 'Magic Third'.
--- From "Chapter 4: Magic Third"

“We cast a wide net to find students who want to come to Harvard and who are a good fit for the team, both on and off the field,” Mel Denham, head coach of the Harvard women’s rugby team, told the Harvard Crimson several years ago.
The phrase 'casting the net wide' meant selecting players from all over the world.

(...) Coach Dunham said, “We have started to contact some British players as well.
We are also in the process of building relationships with directors in the UK, New Zealand and Australia.
Our team now includes players from Scotland, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, China, Germany, and Honduras.
“It’s amazing how much diversity we can embrace in our team culture,” he said.

Why did Harvard go to such trouble?
--- From "Chapter 5: The Mystery of the Harvard Women's Rugby Team"

But if the virus is airborne, everything is explained.
All you have to do to spread COVID-19 is breathe and talk.
The man at the heart of the Biogen outbreak spoke in the Marriott's large, stuffy conference room.
“The louder you speak, the more aerosol particles are formed,” Listenpart and co-authors wrote.
A person severely infected with COVID-19 stood before an entire crowd and exhaled aerosol particles filled with the deadly virus for a full 40 minutes.
This explains the mass infection caused by superspreaders.

Or is there something that hasn't been explained yet?
If viruses could be transmitted simply by breathing and speaking in a confined space, why haven't countless incidents like the Marriott outbreak occurred? The reason we know about it is because it was a unique event.

Why was it unique?
--- From Chapter 6, Mr. Index and the Marriott Mass Infection Incident

Today, we refer to the massacre that occurred in Europe during World War II with a capital 'H': the 'Holocaust'.
This atrocity got its name.
This capital letter Holocaust is a roundabout translation of the Hebrew word 'shoah'.
(...) If you used the word 'Holocaust' in everyday conversation, no one would know what you meant.

Look at the following graph from The New Republic.
This graph shows how often "holocaust" with a lowercase "h" and "Holocaust" with a capital "H" have been used over the past 200 years.
The regular lowercase version only increases slightly at very small levels.
The uppercase version, on the other hand, was rarely used until the late 1960s.
Even in the late 1960s, it was at a minimal level.

But wait a minute.
Around 1978, something dramatic happened.

--- From "Chapter 7 LA Survivors' Meeting"

Will & Grace was actually quite subversive.
Why is that? Because it breaks every single rule of overstory proposed by Dow.
Is the gay character central to the story? Yes.
The story doesn't make sense without Will and Jack.
Doesn't homosexuality seem like a problem that needs to be solved? Yes.

This is essentially the message of Will & Grace.
“Look at Will here.
He's a fun, likable, and successful person.
He can love and be loved.
What speaks volumes about his character are the strong relationships he has with those around him.
He is an ordinary person.
“It’s just that my sexual orientation is gay.”
--- From "Chapter 8 Prison Life in Maple Drive"

Prescription forms must be printed on special paper, each form must show the serial number of the prescription bundle, and each form must be serially numbered.
Additionally, each prescription form must be printed in triplicate.
One of them should be easy to remove, and two should have perforated cut lines.
The key word here was 'three-layer'.
Every page of the special prescription had two copies attached to it.
The copy at the bottom was to be kept by the prescribing physician for at least two years.
The second copy was for the pharmacy's records.
The final copy had to be sent directly to the Drug Enforcement Administration by the end of the month.

--- From Chapter 9, "Overstories, Superspreaders, and Population Ratios"