Book Review: "Hit Makers"

“Hitmakers - The Science of Popularity in an age of Distraction” is a 2017 non-fiction book by Derek Thompson. It’s about how things become popular and why. There are a few concepts in the book that I bring up often, so I wanted to share them with you.

Good Reads: Hit Makers

Derek Thompson is also the co-author of “Abundance” which with Ezra Klein, made Obama’s 2025 Summer reading list. Derek is also my cousin, so I’m proud of the guy!

The first great concept in the book is understanding modern design, specifically the design principles of Raymond Loewy. An industrial designer notably of the Studebaker and the Greyhound bus. Loewy said things need to be new but familiar. This translates to everything from cars to songs to TV shows. A song can’t sound too new. While things can break new ground, they’re most popular when they reference something you already know, or are in a style you already know and enjoy.

When a musician diverges drastically from their previous work, I’ve heard the criticism that “it doesn’t sound like them”. It’s them making music, so it’s their sound. But, it’s not what you’re used to them sounding like. It’s too new. It doesn’t reference back to their old sound enough. Often times, you’ll see someone form a new band or go solo to explore a radical departure to their style as to side-step this criticism.

I really think about this when I hear people rightfully criticize the Tesla Cybertruck. People joke that it’s reference is a rolling garbage dumpster. But it really is guilty of not referencing other truck designs. It doesn’t feel like a truck to a lot of people. But this is also a great example that the principle doesn’t apply to everyone. Some people love the radical design of the Cybertruck.

The next concept that I really enjoyed taking from Hitmakers is the concept of the information cascade. We’re nodes on the cascade of information flow. We have sources above us on the cascade we get information from, be it news or what TV show to watch. We’re also nodes for others as we recommend things to them. We put weight on other nodes based on how reliable the information we’ve gotten in the past. I know my friend Roy has good taste in Sci-Fi TV shows, so if he is talking about a show, I take his comments seriously.

At it’s essence, this is conformation bias. We are getting our information from disparate sources. It’s become more and more common for information to be twisted, but we seek the sources that twist it in the way we prefer. It can be a great thing to get information from multiple nodes on the information cascade.

It’s easy to look at the information we’re getting and ask why others aren’t getting the information we’re getting. I think sometimes the answer is just to make sure those nodes are there and available to people in their cascade so they see them. We can’t let people curate down to the point that they can say they didn’t know any better. It doesn’t work to try and make people see things your way, but there are ways to be a node for them if they choose to see.

I love sharing the things I love with my friends. From books to music to TV and Film, I wish there were a better way to do it. If I could, I would create a social media site specifically for sharing what we’re in to. It would also have filters so you don’t see spoiler posts until you’re caught up! Someone please make this happen.