{"id":1255,"date":"2014-04-29T05:06:07","date_gmt":"2014-04-29T12:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2014-04-29T05:06:07","modified_gmt":"2014-04-29T12:06:07","slug":"secrets-of-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/04\/secrets-of-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Secrets of success"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"a<\/a>At Salon<\/em>, Laura Miller writes<\/a> about literary scholar Franco Moretti, and his efforts to analyze texts in order to discover what makes a success:<\/p>\n

Miller: One of the aspects of your work that\u2019s the most counterintuitive at first glance is that you\u2019re not that interested in studying literary masterpieces. You study literary works in large masses, regardless of whether they\u2019re good or not. You\u2019re not looking at \u201cMiddlemarch\u201d; you\u2019re looking at 7,000 mostly mediocre Victorian novels. Why is that interesting to you?<\/p>\n

Moretti: First of all, those novels were there, it\u2019s just that there wasn\u2019t the desire to understand what those 7,000 \u2014 or, rather, 6,900, if we don\u2019t count the ones that are still being read today \u2014 authors had in mind when they were writing. Why do so many people write things that others don\u2019t like to read in the end? What is going on?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a good question! The problem is, I don’t think it can be done. It is not that there are not patterns to be found in the texts of works that have lasted and works that have not. When you take any<\/em> large data set and look for correlation you are bound to find something of ‘statistical significance’.<\/p>\n

I see the problem as being that there is simply so much noise<\/em> in the data. What succeeds and what does not in the arts often depends on which works, in a process determined with a large degree of chance, capture enough of a small critical mass of support to launch a cascade<\/em>, where readers (or listeners) follow what the crowd has begun to follow. This isn’t to say that bad works become popular due to fads (although we all have our own examples where we think that has occurred!), but it means that out of many good works only a few will really ‘catch on’, and that there is a large degree of randomness in what those works will be. The search for phrases or structures in texts that became what we now consider classics has a high probability of finding correlations that are spurious, i.e. falsely suggesting that we have discovered the answers.<\/p>\n

A very good, not so high-tech survey of research into cascades is:<\/p>\n

Bikhchandani, Sushil, David Hirshleifer, and Ivo Welch. 1998. “Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades.”\u00a0<\/span>Journal of Economic Perspectives<\/i>, 12(3): 151-170. (free download here<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

You might also look at Duncan Watts’ 2007 article from the New York Times Magazine<\/em>, “Is Justin Timberlake a Product of Cumulative Advantage?<\/a>”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Salon, Laura Miller writes about literary scholar Franco Moretti, and his efforts to analyze texts in order to discover what makes a success: Miller: One of the aspects of your work that\u2019s the most counterintuitive at first glance is that you\u2019re not that interested in studying literary masterpieces. You study literary works in large […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/penguin-cover-george-eliot-middlemarch.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-kf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1548,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/09\/this-is-not-censorship\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":0},"title":"This is not censorship (updated, again)","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"September 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The New York Times reports on authors forming a group to back publisher Hachette in its quest to have Amazon.com charge consumers higher prices for books. A literary agent is quoted: \u201cIt\u2019s very clear to me, and to those I represent, that what Amazon is doing is very detrimental to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"this is censored","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/dream-of-ding-village.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2320,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2018\/03\/dream-academy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":1},"title":"Dream academy","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"March 16, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"What happened to the genre of academic satire? In the Chronicle Review, Andrew Kay has some ideas; I'd like to offer a different take. Disclaimer: I'm no literary critic. But (a) I am an academic, and (b) I've read all of the novels he cites, suggesting that yes, I'm something\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"how I envy him","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/lucky-jim.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1458,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/08\/amazon-and-orwell-and-penguins\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":2},"title":"Amazon and Orwell and Penguins (Updated)","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"August 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"By now most everyone who follows artsjournal.com and the Amazon dispute has heard of its strange use of George Orwell in its (shockingly mishandled) dispute with the publishing sector. The New York Times reports: The freshest part of Amazon\u2019s call to arms was the history lesson. It recounted how the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"weapons of mass destruction?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/penguin-books.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/penguin-books.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/penguin-books.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2005,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2016\/03\/selfies-in-the-museum-victorian-edition\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":3},"title":"Selfies in the museum, Victorian edition","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"March 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Pacific Standard reports that \"Surprised museum researchers find many visitors snap photographs of themselves with the masterpieces.\" I'm not sure which researchers are actually surprised by this. But by coincidence I am now reading John Carey's The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939. He\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"the end is near","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/selfies.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/selfies.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/selfies.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2910,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2023\/07\/producing-and-exhibiting-arts-as-a-nonprofit-entity-is-a-qualified-tax-exempt-activity\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":4},"title":"Producing and exhibiting arts as a nonprofit entity is a qualified tax exempt activity","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"July 18, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's what the Internal Revenue Service says: Organizations organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, educational, or other specified purposes and that meet certain other requirements are tax exempt under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3). Organizations whose primary focus is literary or educational are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4671,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2026\/03\/liberal-arts\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":5},"title":"Liberal Arts","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"March 23, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"(Kudos to the art director who chose that American flag done with handprints - it\u2019s perfect). I enjoyed reading Becca Rothfield\u2019s \u201cListless Liberalism\u201d in\u00a0The Point, in which she reviews Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson\u2019s\u00a0Abundance, and Cass Sunstein\u2019s\u00a0Liberalism, and also asks the question of why the\u00a0aesthetics\u00a0of a liberal society, barely addressed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-4.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-4.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-4.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}