CHICAGO - No movie, app or song simply goes viral, according to Derek Thompson and his new book, “Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction.”
Thompson, an alumnus of the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and senior editor at The Atlantic, will talk about the book with students at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 4, on the 16th floor of 303 E. Wacker Drive on the Chicago campus.
“Hit Makers” explores the economics of cultural markets that invisibly shape people’s lives.
Adam Grant, bestselling author of “Originals” and “Give and Take,” called the book “enthralling — full of ‘aha’ moments about why some ideas soar and others never get off the ground.”
Thompson, who has also written for Slate, BusinessWeek and The Daily Beast, recently gave the commencement speech at the sixth and largest Northwestern University in Qatar graduation ceremony in Doha.
“Everything that we do in life, ultimately serves merely as a frame — a massive arch — to make us see the things we have not yet done,” Thompson told the NU-Q class of 2017. “To live fully in this world, to be totally alive to its possibilities and its joys, you have to fall in love with the work of it. You have to learn to love the hero's journey, not only for the brief victory that may come in the end, but also all its potholes, the frustrations large and small and the friends and the nemeses along the way."