Network

Speaking non-sexually about reactance and excitement

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I won’t say I’ve never been excited in my life. It’s just never lasted very long.

But let me take a step back.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post in which I agonized over the question of, why do people sometimes soak up outside influence like a sponge… while at other times they react to it like prickly porcupines prepping for a fight?

A few readers wrote in with helpful answers. But I still wasn’t 100% satisfied.

And then, while reading a book called the Catalyst, which seems to be a kind of modern-day addendum to Cialdini’s Influence, I came across the concept of “reactance.”

I’ve mentioned this also in a recent post.

Basically, if people feel like you are trying to persuade them… if they feel pushed… and in particular, if they feel you’re getting something out of it… then they have a tendency to become all stubborn and guarded. Sometimes, they will even do the exact opposite of what you want them to do.

Which is probably the most obvious observation in the history of persuasion literature. And it just goes to show what a literal-minded chimp I can be, since I didn’t think of this myself.

Reactance is why, if you got any kind of agenda, your best course is to get your prospect to persuade himself. I’ve written about this repeatedly, and I’m even putting together a book about it.

But here’s another theory I thought of yesterday:

Reactance might also be why enthusiasm works so well in sales copy.

Sure, enthusiasm makes your promises seem bigger and more urgent.

But it also tricks the reader, or allows him to trick himself, into believing he’s listening to a passionate preacher who cannot stop himself from sharing important news… rather than a sly salesman who is using facts to influence and manipulate.

The point being, reactance is another vote in support of getting excited and enthused when you write.

Because you’ve got to feel excited yourself. Enthusiasm is very hard to fake. And if your audience smells you are faking it, then then they get all stubborn and guarded again.

So how do you start feeling excited or enthusiastic for real?

Now we’re back to the beginning. Because enthusiasm is not something I’m good at, not for any length of time. Like Faye Dunaway says in the movie Network, “I arouse quickly, consummate prematurely, and can’t wait to get my clothes back on and get out of that bedroom.”

You know, speaking non-sexually.

So if you got any advice, write in and let me know.

Otherwise, if you’d like to hear more about overcoming reactance, I write about it in my daily email newsletter on occasion. And let me state for the record, I’ve got no ulterior motives in mentioning that, besides trying to persuade you to sign up. If that’s what you want to do, the place to go is here.

The bland conspiracy behind the Great Awokening

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I saw some statistics today about the use of certain phrases in the New York Times.

Woke terms and concepts such as “patriarchy,” “mansplaining,” “Islamophobia,” and “toxic masculinity.”

The trend is best illustrated by the term “racism,” which has been in widespread use for much longer than the others.

Various NYT articles referenced racism at a fairly even clip throughout the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and up to the early 2010s.

And then, there was a sharp spike.

So for comparison, in 2010, there were on average 5-6 articles in the NYT each day that mentioned racism.

Since 2016, it’s been more like 20-30.

What explains this explosion?

Well, there’s a conspiracy theory floating around that’s straight out of the 70s movie Network.

It says that the rich got nervous about all the attention being given to economic disparities in US society (remember Occupy Wall Street?). So godlike business magnates called in their big-media lackeys, and they said,

“Why do we pay you? So you can report on the growing revolt of the hundreds of millions of poor people in this country? No! Do something else and do it now. Focus on the blacks or the gays or the Mexicans, but not the poor!”

So there’s that explanation. And then there’s the much more bland non-conspiracy theory:

Throughout the 2000s, the print circulation of the NYT was steadily dropping.

At the same time, the newspaper was moving more of its content online.

But unlike a bunch of sheets of paper, a website will happily speak up and tell you what people read and what they respond to.

And just like with Faye Dunaway’s character in Network, it probably took only one intelligent, ambitious, and ruthless editor to take this information and conclude, “Give the people what they want! Give them polarizing stories. Reinforce their already-held beliefs. That’s how we’ll quadruple our digital subscribers.”

Whichever theory is true, I think there are lots of lessons here for you if you’re doing any kind of marketing online.

Particularly if you’re in anything resembling a mass or commodity market. Which is what I’ve been doing a lot of lately. And if you want my insights on how to write polarizing copy that quadruples your mass-market buyers, you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/