Contagious Book Report

Jonah Berger broke up this book into 6 chapters: Social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value, and stories. He created this mnemonic, STEPPS, as a way to explain why things catch on in our society. Each chapter goes deeper and gives examples to why he believes things become ‘contagious.’ The first chapter is social currency and he starts the chapter out with an example of a secret bar inside a hot dog restaurant that is extremely popular in New York City. The reason Berger states the secret bar is so popular without any advertisements of it, is because of social currency. “People share things that make them look good to others” (Berger 33). This chapter is all about how appearances do matter when it comes to how things become popular. The next chapter is about triggers. “Sights, smells, and sounds can trigger related thoughts and ideas, making them more top of mind” (Berger 70). The emotion chapter discusses how when our emotions make us interested in something we feel the need to share it with others; when we care we share. The chapter about public is next and it talks about when we see others doing something, it makes us want to do it. It uses an example about Steve Jobs and the Apple Company and talks about how it is more important that others see what you are doing, so they can imitate it. “If something is built to show, it’s built to grow” (Berger 127). The next chapter begins with talking about Ken Craig, who is 86 and does not make YouTube videos, and how his video went viral. This chapter is about practical value and about how people like to pass on useful information to others. The final chapter is about how stories make things become popular. It starts off by talking about how the Greeks ended the Trojan War and how this story has been passed on for so long. “People think in terms of narratives. But while people focus on the story itself, information comes along for the ride” (Berger 181).

I found a lot of key takeaways from this book and within each individual chapter. From the first chapter I took away that we always feel the need to share our experiences, thoughts, achievements, and opinions online, which is why social media has become so popular and continues to grow. This chapter also broke up into 3 sections about how to mint social currency. These 1st way was to find inner remarkability and was explained with an example of how Snapple made their true facts on the back of the lid popular. The 2nd way was that people care about how they do in comparison to others and used an example of airplane rewards perks. The final way was about making people feel like insiders and exclusive. A key takeaway I took away from the next chapter was about how Rebecca rose to fame for her song "Friday." It always is most popular on Friday's and even though it is not a good song, it triggers people and made its way to become popular. The emotion chapter went further into explain how awe helps things become popular, but sadness does the opposite. Emotions help people connect. A good example from the chapter about public that helped me understand it further was when he said, "look for a restaurant full of people. If lots of people are eating there, it’s probably good. If a place is empty, you should probably keep walking” (Berger 128). The practical value chapter made a lot of sense to me as well, because if you see how to do something you would want to share that with friends and family and then they share it with theirs and so on. The last chapter about stories was interesting because it said that stories are an important source of cultural learning.

I found this book very interesting and a very quick read. I was not bored with it at all and I thought all the examples he added in actually helped me understand his ideas better and that I could easily relate to them. His examples were very relevant and I actually knew of a lot of them already, which just reinforces his ideas further to how they became popular. I never really knew what made specific stories or videos go viral compared to other ones, but now I understand it so much better and think the STEPPS mnemonic is very accurate to today's society. We are a generation revolved around technology and sometimes I think that's really bad, but it is also good too. It helps us learn more and stay in contact with people, and allows us to share special moments. I would definitely recommend this book, I read it within two days. It was very easy to read and I enjoyed it too!