Looks like the Malcolm Gladwell backlash has reached its tipping point. (YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?). Inspired by such weighty titles as The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers, Cory Bortnicker and Brett Molé have built a “generator” of 25 Gladwellian book covers like the above Blank, Yoga: How Hot Trends Make People Buy Books, Vague: The Power of Generalizations To Impress The Bored and (my personal favorite) Monster Cocks: The Last Book You’d Think I’d Write.
What did Gladwell do to warrant such opprobrium? He questioned the power of the Internet.
“But surely the least interesting fact about them is that some of the protesters may (or may not) have at one point or another employed some of the tools of the new media to communicate with one another.”
Gasp! Gladwell is, get this, not interested in the tools of new media, let’s make fun of him. Malcolm Gladwell, you’re old/not tech savvy!
Okay okay, so maybe I live for the day where I get paid to write shallow Gladwell-esque non-fiction about whatever pseudo-intellectual lark strikes my fancy (not). I really want to add a smiley at the end of that sentence.
In any case, Gladwell might actually be writing My Retirement: What Super-Trendy Book Buyers Like Yourself Are Paying For. I think it could really take off.