Something from my travels
Rome (2025): Sri-Lankan nuns in Rome and other marvels of a multi-cultural world
The Illusion of Quality
Way back in 2006, Duncan Watts and his colleagues at Columbia University ran an experiment with over 14,000 participants. They had them listen to previously unheard songs. Each person rated the songs and could choose to download any of them.
[This is back in a time when people owned their music, rather than renting it.]
There was just one twist. One group could see how many people had downloaded each song, and what was popular. Another group was blind to this information – judge songs.
What happened? Popular songs became even more popular and unpopular songs became less popular. Inequality accelerated with social proof.
But even more interesting: success became unpredictable (until the reviews were in). A song that ranked high when judged independently could be very unpopular in the group that saw social influence data.
The researchers concluded that whilst quality generally raised the floor of reviews—i.e., a genuinely good song wouldn’t perform terribly—beyond that, quality didn’t correlate to success.
How good’s a good story?
After Stephen King became a star, writing The Shining and Salem’s Lot, he adopted the pen name Richard Bachman. It was his solution to a silly problem. He was a prolific writer, but his publishers were adamant that releasing more than one book per year would saturate the market and dilute his brand.
Bachman was his loophole.
Under Bachman, King’s additional books did decently. He was, after all, the same writer. His book Thinner sold 28,000 copies before King was exposed as the penman.
Those numbers could be enough for a modest writing career, but they pale next to what King’s name could already generate. And hey presto – after the reveal, sales exploded!
The prose didn’t change. The quality was the same. But the author’s name changed, and suddenly the numbers did too.
JK Rowling tried the same experiment. Her first book under the male name Robert Galbraith sold roughly 8,500 copies in its first months. But as soon as she was unmasked, it became an instant bestseller overnight.
The eye of the beholder
The problem isn’t simply that good work can go under the radar. It’s the strange sense in which our ‘taste’ can be obscured. The sense in which, it seems, we often don’t know what’s ‘good’ until we’re told.
Years ago, as the cofounder of a luxury fashion platform, I’d occasionally get invited to parties thrown by major fashion houses.
These rooms typically had three cohorts: celebrities, industry people, and social climbers. But in the dim lights of the dancery, you can’t always tell who’s who – apart from the instantly recognisable supermodels, musicians, and actors.
The hangers-on train themselves to spot the important people. live up their moniker, being sycophantic and obsequious, desperately ingratiating themselves to anyone they assume is a “somebody” whilst ignoring everyone they believe beneath their station.
At one such party, I experienced both sides. A friend introduced me to a major movie star who seemed to snub me.
It was a little jarring because there was a time, years back, at some of my first fashion weeks in London and New York, that I really was just a random lout sneaking in. But times had changed, and now I was here on business. Where once I might have been invited by a PR company, I’d now been invited directly by the brand’s creative director.
To make the snub worse, they didn’t even realise we’d already met before. But I brushed it off, in understanding.
Not long afterwards, someone bumped into me over drinks and excessively endeared themselves to me because they were under the impression I was someone far more important than I actually was.
Ironically, I could only see how performative and forced their interest was because I knew how ordinary I was. If I’d actually been one of the stars in that room, I might not have easily recognised their artificiality.
I might have believed their fascination was genuine. That they were a fan of my work. That they were prostrating in response to my inherent qualities rather than in reaction to my perceived status.
And that’s when I realised how fake the whole thing was.
Whoever has ears, let them hear
In 2007, violinist Joshua Bell played incognito in a Washington DC metro station during morning rush hour.
He’s one of the world’s finest musicians. His violin was a Stradivarius worth $3.5 million. He played the same pieces he’d performed days earlier in a concert hall where people paid over $100 for tickets.
In the metro, he made $32 in 45 minutes, as people tossed change into his empty violin case.
Most people walked past without noticing. The same musician, with the same instrument. The same level of skill and objective quality. But he was taken for granted in an environment where no one was primed to hear greatness.
So the golden question:
What is quality without context?
How well can we judge, independent of social proof? And how much of the quality we purport to see is simply a social construct emergent from cumulative advantage and status signalling?
recognise excellence, or do you simply get better at social pattern recognition? At learning what you’re supposed to think is excellent?
Close your lying eyes. Don’t let your neighbours sway you. Don’t let your judgement be sullied.
Be aware of your biases and account for them. Put on your blinders to see whether the emperor is wearing clothes. Put blindfold.
“Try, as often as possible, to see things for what they are. We are easily swayed by the thoughts of others. Attune yourself to your true, independent taste – your own unique opinion.”
