Stickiness, DIrty Jeans and the Truth

I woke up this morning remembering that I’ve been thinking about Malcom Gladwell’s stickiness. For those that haven’t read The Tipping Point, Mr. Gladwell discusses marketing and business with a somewhat enlightened view. One of his crucial points is what he calls stickiness—how long and well an item holds a person’s attention.

If you’ve read me until now you may know that I agree but with significant qualifications.

His primary example of stickiness is Sesame Street. What they did was tweak how they showed things and tested everything until they found what held children’s attention the best and longest.

While this looks like a reason to test the bejesus out of everything and support including more critical methods (fear, control, product testing) in the development of goods, services and content it is actually a pretty bad example.

First off, it’s adults making things for kids. While this may be a decent example for the material economy—people in a position of responsibility making things for addictive consumption—it works almost not at all for the spiritual or creative economy, which—if you have read me on this blog—I believe to comprise most of the significant growth of the economy for the foreseeable future.

In the spiritual economy, too much doubt (testing, editing, etc.) can very quickly kill off the sweet ether that makes something loveable in the first place. You don’t have to be in too many relationships to know that matters of the heart are best handled with kid gloves—or simply left free.

Developing and producing things in the spiritual economy is much like catching butterflies—it is almost impossible to do it without altering that which was already perfect. You have to capture the fleeting ideas or feelings to deliver them, but like bread, they are easy to over handle. My current thinking is leave it the hell alone even if it’s rough. Better that people have to see through a mistake or two than see me get uptight and crush my own shit.

One ridiculous aspect of the current material economy is that it goes to great length to feign authenticity through wear, mistake and dirtiness. This happens in movies, jeans, music and just about everywhere you find the issue of soul arising. It does this to prove that it is unafraid. Nothing, however could be further from the truth.

Cleanliness, not dirt, is what is next to godliness. The authentic isn’t afraid of getting dirty (or the dark) but it is an equal or greater mistake to insist that the truth is dirty or broken. It is more likely that authenticity in our current economy has so often been forced to address material obscurity that it has often arrived a bit tattered. And so becomes dirty or worn! But you cannot, cannot, cannot put the cart before the horse. This goes for punk rockers and filmmakers who pretend they don’t know how to light a film as much as those who have jacked up the price of jeans to $250 (because they take so long to wear out?).

Plus, now that we’re all rich, the blues—and I’ll include rock-n-roll, ripped jeans, punk rock, and square toes shoes here just to get your goat—are a pose anyway.

Luckily all things are perfect. And celebrities in their Authentic Revolution jeans will look back at photos of today as we now look back on acid wash. They are, in fact, the same thing.

Which brings me back to the blues. God bless the blues. It has brought us much of what we know of as culture in the modern day. Unfortunately, it is not long for this world. Except as a museum piece. Even if today’s career artists are, future generations will be unwilling to be unhappy simply to make money.

The culture that is emerging, I would argue, will be based on something like the pinks. A joy rooted in the friction that the material world demands instead of beholden to it. If the blues was joy springing from an empty lot (or the Mississippi Delta), then the pinks (it’ll have a better name probably), will be acres and acres of flowers with deer, dog, or moose scat here or there and some bugs—wherever is through natural processes that the creators didn’t feel like controlling. If you look at van Gogh’s “Starry Night” you can see patches of unpainted canvas. He was chewing forward—always forward. And didn’t care much about the editing the past. That’s why he painted so many masterpieces.

Another example would be a $3,000 Brioni suit with a loose button or hanging thread. It’s there because the guy who made it had to run off and see his daughter’s soccer game. Or because the owner, even though he demands the best, refuses to stop skateboarding and he forgot to unbutton before he smacked that ollie on Wabash. (On his way to a meeting about financing his film? To meet his wife?)

It may even look the same! As the material becomes less insecure about being authentic and before the spiritual has enough oomph to really believe, two items (or ideas) from distinct origins may even look identical. It will be up to the consumer to discern where the truth lies. I (heart) Huckabees and Adaptation are both examples of movies that appear “indie” but are actually informed by coming spiritual values. They still look like 90s grunge but have actually loving content if you squint. They are growing up and taking responsibility for their own happiness.

Back to stickiness—stickiness is a major factor in the emerging economy but it will be easy to understand backwards. The stickiest of all substances is unconditional love—precisely because it never sticks. And as people grow in consciousness they will demand what looks to the material economy as less and less sticky goods, services and ideas. Businesses from both sides will appear at times like the other. It could get confusing, but will ultimately sort itself out. Sticky stickiness is unsustainable.

The material economy likes sticky sticky—sugar, caffeine, crude oil, rubber, cigarettes, alcohol, addictive relationships, pornography, etc. (Kids at my school used to call good pot “The Sticky”—because it had so much THC resin on it. They’d even go so far as to stick it on the wall to prove it.) The spiritual economy rewards the unsticky sticky—inspiration, herbal tea, clear and supportive relationships, beauty, etc.

It’s interesting to note that to create the stickiness that Gladwell talks about in a relationship, the best thing would be to belittle or doubt the person (or worship them or put them on a pedestal)—and thus create inequality and dependence. I’m not surprised that all of my work experiences with managers have been dysfunctional.

And, again, the point here is not to get or be pure by some outside standard. The point here is what works. The idea of a tipping point is all about a critical mass. Once you achieve critical mass love grows on its own. What works may look different for different people in different cultures. The true test is long-term utility—true stickiness—true love if you will. In many cases, however, this will appear distinct from Gladwell’s testable, short-term stickiness.

(Although not as distinct as you’d think—factor in feelings and the entirety of the experience to get a better idea of true stickiness. The stickiness of a cup of coffee isn’t only from the fourth sip to the fifth—it’s also the high, the come down, the tired eyes the next day, the irritability, the loss of emotional self-determination. The only way any of this stuff is sticky is that we treat ourselves so poorly that we ignore the low more feverently than we pursue the high.)

If I was hiring or training managers the first thing I’d do is stick them in a room alone with a bunch of second graders. In five minutes you’ll know more about those managers than after twenty years on the job. All in terms of love and relationship. Kids know. If you look down on them they’ll ignore you. If you kiss their butts they’ll eat you alive. Only through a quantum balance can you build a genuine relationship with a child.

And I think this is why the ultimate level five leaders—Jesus, the Buddha, etc.—all suggest salvation has something to do with a childlike nature. Children have no problem either asserting themselves of expressing their vulnerability. They know what they want. Turns out that making money will require the same thing.

[A note about religion and spirituality vis-a-vis stickiness. It is my belief that all religions started off with very loving, non-sticky stickiness and that most of the challenges with and people’s disinterest in current religion is due to the surreptitious (or blatant) adding of sticky stickiness by power- or social control-minded folks along the way. (Fear creating fear to allay a fear).]