In talking about the "Keep Austin Weird" campaign in class, I understand the impact of the "fundamental laws governing the spread of fads, ideas, and epidemics..."(Barbasi 126) that Barbasi discusses in the course reader:
The innovators (someone or a group of people who are willing to take risks) spread the idea to hubs (a person or people with many social networks) and the idea reaches its threshold and explodes in popularity.
Given this, I wanted to explore the possibilities of what kinds of things could fall into this pattern of cool. Is it just ideas, epidemics, or fads? can it be activities or people?
I went home this weekend and, not looking for ideas that i could put in reading notes, was pleasantly surprised at the material i got from attending the musical at my high school. Now, high school is a battleground in regards to cool. People are brutal in high school when it comes to being cool. So i thought if there is any example i could use, it would be theater in high school.
When i was in high school, i was very involved in theater. when i was a freshman, the theater click was pretty small, and many of the people in the productions would not really socialize with other people outside of the theater click. Many people thought that theater was lame, boring, and something only weird outsiders did. However, a group of friends and I (who had already established many social networks through school, sports, and extracurriculars) decided to try out for the musical second semester of my freshman year. At first, people said, "You're in the musical?!" they would be surprised and come to see it because one of their friends was in it. As my four years went on, more and more people knew who would be in the musical and more and more people came to see the musicals. My senior year, the freshman class who decided to do theater was HUGE. They had a lot of talent, and they had a lot of friends. Many people, who didn't have preconceived notions about theater, came to see the shows, and some even tried out on a whim. As i went back to see the show (Little Shop of Horrors) on Saturday, i was surprised at the people in the crowd and the people in the musical. There were football players, the 'popular' people, and even families that you wouldn't expect there. What was even more shocking was that there were football players and skater kids in the cast and pit! holy cow!
so i guess what i'm getting at is that my group of friends and i were the innovators of Thomas More High School Theater. We also were the preliminary hubs, using our social networks to spread the word about shows and auditions. The freshman class (who are now juniors) were another hub who brought theater involvement to its threshold, and now the theater department is doing pretty well.
I was talking to the director, who was also the director when i was there, and she said they had an overwhelming amount of people audition this year. So it just goes to show that even activities which were once thought of as something the 'cool' people would never do can now be thought of as the thing that cool people are doing.
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2 comments:
That's really funny that you say that, because the theater department/scene at my high school was and still is viewed as pretty "cool" too. I was also involved in musicals and choir, and thought that the only people who would attend the shows would be mainly parents and friends of the people in the productions. Actually, the plays and musicals are almost as popular as the football games. People from all different crowds attend the shows because it's a fun social event. Although, I may be a little biased.
I think it is really "cool" that you were one of the people who initiated that in your school. That is a really good example of how if an idea or cool clothing style falls into the hands of the right people it will really take off. In my school there is still definitely separation between the theater and band kids and the rest of the school. I was in band and even I would refer to the kids in marching band and who were really involved as band nerds. Maybe I wasn't cool enough to make it a cool activity haha.
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