“Culture is cults, all the way down….”

(four quick quotes from a podcast discussion with Derek Thompson)

“A book that sells 1 million copies in a year is a runaway best-seller. But 1 million sales means that 99% of the country didn’t buy it.”

“If 10 million households watch a new show, it’s a smash hit that 90% of households never saw.”

“The point is: Trump is a cult hit, and perhaps every hit in an age of abundance is a cult hit; adored by a minority, but from a majoritarian perspective, broadly unpopular.”

“If the threshold of a hit is to get a commercially viable minority to adore you, and if the understanding is that popularity is cultish; than culture is cults, all the way down.”

— Derek Thompson in an interview on the A16z podcast: “Addiction vs Popularity in the Age of Virality”