The Baader-Meinhof Effect

The first time I read Paul Graham’s Age of the Essay, it turned my perception of writing on its head. Suddenly, I cared about writing. Now that I cared about writing, I started to see tons of content talking about the power of it. A year later here I am with my daily blog and an advocacy for the craft.

This is an example of the Baader-Meinhof effect. This phenomenon occurs when the thing you’ve just noticed, experienced or been told about suddenly crops up constantly. In my case, the power of writing appeared in many blogs, podcasts, and tweets I’ve come across.

Here are other scenarios I can recall:

• Book recommendations. Someone recommended me Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and now it seems like everyone is reading it.
• Phrases. Bullish and Bearish. VCs love this phrase.
• Concepts. Leverage. One of the most important concepts I learned this year that seems trivial to me now.

When was the last time this happened to you?