05 June 2022

Vocal Minority vs. Mobile Minority

Two types of minority groups could drive majority change: one that exhibits perceived change and one that creates actual change.

The Vocal Minority is the loud voice, like angry people on Twitter. They talk incessantly and pollute your feed with extremist content—making you perceive their views as commonplace when they’re mostly noise. Imagine a Vocal Minority of weirdos who claim to eat dirt. They complain incessantly about “dirtest” restaurants that don’t offer dirt-friendly dishes. These mere 600 people tweet sixty-two times per day each, yelling at McDonald’s and Wendy’s for not offering fresh dirt on their burgers, making it seem like everyone wants to buy and eat dirt burgers. Ignore these people.

The Mobile Minority is the silent few who speak with their feet. Instead of talking about their ideas, they walk the walk. Imagine discovering an online forum called the “Dirt Diet,” where crafty dirt-eaters share recipes for cooking with sand, mud, and gravel. They post pictures of well-plated dirt dishes and ask for tips about how to blend different dirt flavors. They’ve invented crude ways of grinding gravel. If you could build a durable gravel grinder, these people would buy it in a heartbeat.