The Curse of the ‘Purple Cow’
Seth Godin is one of the most famous marketing writers out there, and I have read several of his books, although I’m not really a fan of his work. Now, that might seem odd because I would tell you that Godin is intelligent, knows marketing, and his books tend to be extremely readable.
However, what I find is that while I’m reading his work, I FEEL LIKE I’m learning something. However, after I’m done, it’s hard to come up with a single actionable thing that I learned how to do.
Perhaps the one exception to that is Godin’s most famous book, “The Purple Cow.” That book revolves around a simple but powerful concept, which is that to really be successful in the marketplace, you need to stand out.
This came to mind because there’s a clip of Mr. Beast discussing the central idea of “The Purple Cow” in an interview:
First of all, there’s no one alive who better delivers “purple cows” to the public than Mr. Beast, the man responsible for videos like “I Spent 7 Days Buried Alive,” “$10,000 Every Day You Survive In A Grocery Store,” and “I Ordered Pizza And Tipped The House.”
But first of all, how many people can pull that kind of thing off at that scale? Not very many.
Moreover, every time Mr. Beast breaks out a “purple cow,” he knows he can never really use it again. 339 million people may have tuned in to see “I Survived 7 Days In An Abandoned City,” but how many people would watch if he released, “I Survived 10 Days In An Abandoned City” next week? Half as many? One-third? One-quarter? What if someone else did it? There would be even fewer people.
For much of the history of human beings, producing “purple cows” didn’t matter very much because there were a limited number of places you could see them at all. We went from tales arounds the campfire, to cave drawings, to scrolls, to books, to radio, to TV, yet the amount of competition was still relatively small. If you came up with a handful of “purple cows,” that could be enough to carry you through an entire CAREER.
The Internet and social media have radically transformed the media landscape because now, there are MANY platforms competing for your attention and nearly an infinite number of content producers on them trying to do the same.
Facebook, X, YouTube, TikTok, TV, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Spotify, podcasts, UFC, NFL, the NBA, and a virtually unlimited number of games and influencers want EVERY SECOND OF YOUR ATTENTION because the amount of money that can be made is almost beyond comprehension.
Mr. Beast? 2.6 billion net worth. Joe Rogan? 250 million. Logan Paul? 150 million. Sean Hannity? 250 million. Taylor Swift? 1.8 billion. Lebron James? 800 million. Beyonce? 1 billion. Keanu Reeves? 380 million.
It goes on and on. Producing “purple cows” is the best way to get people to look, and if you can get people to look, the money, fame, and attention given to you as a reward are practically endless.
There’s a very fundamental problem with that, though. As one of the greatest female leaders in human history said:
“The same old story” may be the truth, but you know what it isn’t? It isn’t a, “purple cow.”
When there was less competition, this wasn’t a big problem, but now that there’s ferocious competition for every second of your time across multiple platforms, things have changed.
“Purple cows” are genuinely hard to come by because anything you can think of, somebody else has probably already thought of AND DONE, unless there’s a very good reason not to do it.
Over time, this leads people to do more and more questionable things to get attention. They fudge the truth. They make crazy claims under the rubric of “just asking questions.” They bring on nutjob guests to make claims they wouldn’t make. They hint at dark forces and conspiracies. If that’s not enough, they outright make up fake stories, often based on anonymous sources. They lie. They push increasingly outrageous conspiracy theories. They call for violence. They take ludicrous positions on issues. They endorse disgusting things. They deliberately say the most inflammatory things possible.
Why? Because they’re trying to create those “purple cows.” They need to get you looking. They need to get you talking.
Just the facts won’t do it. Just the truth won’t do it. They need those “purple cows” to suck you in. Positive, negative, it doesn’t matter, as long as it gets eyeballs. Because when people pay attention, they get paid, and when people don’t pay attention, the worst thing in the world happens – NOTHING. No money, no attention, and their audience will drift off somewhere else looking for, “purple cows.”
This is a problem because it creates legions of liars who habitually distort every story, conspiracy theorists, fake stories, and never-ending rage and outrage baiting that, almost by its very nature, gets more attention than the plain, old boring truth.
Put another way, certainly not everybody is a shameless liar who makes up whatever it takes to get attention, but the more popular people get, the more likely they are to fit that definition. The people just telling you the whole truth and nothing but the truth simply aren’t as exciting as the people explaining how what’s happening is really part of some dark conspiracy, some about to be discovered betrayal, or catastrophe or fulfillment of your wildest dreams that’s right around the corner.
The worst thing about this? There’s no real way to fix it other than to shut all of this down and move things back to a relatively small number of gatekeepers, which most people would correctly consider to be a cure worse than the disease.
So, what do you do?
Be intolerant of people who lie to you, increase your skepticism about anyone claiming to have unique knowledge or to have picked out things few other people can see, and search for the people who seem dedicated to the truth, not the ones trying to get your attention by any means necessary.
John, for me, your posts are the purple cows that get my attention.
The difference is I grew up in another generation when my experiences and learning taught me to question the claims others made. I also grew up with a father that had extremist views and I figured out early that he was full of it, his rantings did not line up with reality.
The teens I teach today are constantly searching for the new purple cow every few minutes. Things that entertained them even a few years ago are boring today. They are searching for more extreme videos and find it funny when others get hurt, or worse, killed while doing stunts. The have no sense of the value of life.
I am by the way, one who will look at the regular cows as I drive down the road. I learned from a young age that I had to make my own entertainment on family road trips. There were no DVD players or cell phones. We had to make up our own games. Of course that meant all in the car were talking and interacting with each other. What people used to do in the past.
The last time I flew, 3 years ago, every passenger around me was watching something on the airplane entertainment screen in front of them. Others were playing games on their laptops or cell phones. Everyone had earbuds in. My wife and I got some dirty looks because we carried on a conversation the entire time. We were not talking loudly, just normal low volume conversation that people used to engage in. When we flew 20 or more years ago, we would have conversations with out seat mates. We were exposed to people who lived in different parts of this country and I believe it made us realize that no matter our political views or where we were from, we were all still human and could work out our differences in a civil fashion.
Now, the purple cow is saying and doing things that are extreme to get attention. My personal priorities in life are the only ones that matter and you have to agree with me or you are an idiot to be humiliated.
The left have learned to do this well for fame and fortune.
A month ago, students in my district staged a walk-out to protest ICE. The next day, they were shocked that under state law, it was an unexcused absence and I did not allow them to make-up the work. We had a test that had been scheduled for over a week. Their grades took a major hit since test scores account for half of their overall grade.
I asked them what did you hope to change with your walk out? There was dead silence. I asked what did you accomplish, again dead silence. I said the people that promoted this had nothing to lose. They were influencers that got views and paid telling you that you needed to walkout to protest ICE. You cannot even state one thing that ICE has done that is illegal or a danger to you. You hear made-up stories from people who are after views so they can get money. You took part in an action that was being promoted by people who were rewarded with money and you suffered all the consequences.
By the way, one teacher did engage in the walkout, she was a young new teacher. She learned the hard way that her right to protest did not protect her from the consequences of her walking off the job and leaving her students unattended. It was easy, she was not tenured so the district immediately let her go. They did not have to show any cause, they only had to say we no longer need your services.
I doubt these students learned anything. They were quickly distracted by the next purple cow they found on social media.
The more clickbait-y the title, the more Purple Cow-ish the claims the less likely I am to pay any attention. Oh yeah, sometimes I’m tempted, but always resist. That old addage, if something sounds too good…crazy…outrageous to be true, it’s probably not. If someone I trust is talking about it, I’ll listen, otherwise, nope.