Analysis Of The Coolhunt By Malcom Gladwell

The Trendsetters and Followers
In Malcom Gladwell’s 1997 article, “The Coolhunt” published by The New Yorker, he discusses the topic of ‘cool’, and how quickly it fluctuates and transforms into something completely different and sometimes the exact opposite of what it previously was, therefor creating problems for merchandisers. Gladwell points out, “The quicker the chase, the quicker the flight. The act of discovering what's cool is what causes cool to move on, which explains the triumphant circularity of coolhunting: because we have coolhunters like DeeDee and Baysie, cool changes more quickly, and because cool changes more quickly, we need coolhunters like DeeDee and Baysie.” Throughout Gladwell’s article, he discloses the findings of DeeDee Gordon and Baysie Wightman, two

‘cool hunters’, on this very issue.

Gordon and Wightman go around looking for outcast teenage kids, in the streets of big cities to discover what is cool and upcoming. Gorgon says, “There were a lot of places could go to buy vinyl records. It was a strong place to go for looks. Then it went back to being horrible.” It just goes to show how style is always changing, and everyday new items are in demand. Gladwell uses one of the most famous diffusion studies from Bruce Ryan and Neal Gross's with their analysis of the spread of hybrid seed corn. The first to use this hybrid seed corn were “innovators”, next were “early adaptors” then came the “early majority” and “late majority”, finally there were the “laggards”. The “innovators” are the trendsetters in what is and is not cool, and everyone else are the followers. Once the laggards are doing what is deemed cool,

the innovators are on to the next.
I would not go as far as to call myself a trendsetter, in fact, I am most likely a follower when it comes to fashion. A big part of growing up is all about wanting to fit in with your peers, and trends play a huge role in that. I can vividly recall a time in 5th grade a groundbreaking, but also probably one of the most stupid trends were, a thing called silly bands. They were rubber bands in all sorts of colors and shapes. Kids were only deemed cool if they wore them on both hands, up to their elbows. If someone saw another kid wearing the knock off silly bands, they were automatically looked at differently. Now thinking back on it, they were hideous, and I feel inclined to repay my parents for spending so much money on something so pointless. I only joined along on this bandwagon to fit it, I was a laggard. At the time, I remember thinking how uncomfortable, and ugly they were. It is astonishing to think about how much merchandisers have children and teenagers wrapped around their fingers.