00:00:00
Patti Williams:And so I do think there are
organizations that understand that there's this desire for
badness, that if they
00:00:06
pitch it the right way, they can
tap into it and find consumer demand and consumer fandom and
maybe a little bit of virality too.
00:00:14
Dan Loney: But using the Labubu
doll example, when you think about retail, isn't
there kind of like a historical
00:00:21
pattern? Like, you will see
companies come up with these items that, seemingly, you would
think have no real connection,
00:00:29
but for some reason, there's a
virality to them, and it just connects with a group of
consumers. - Yeah, and I think
00:00:35
what you're also suggesting is
that sometimes so bad it's good phenomena become fads, right?
That they suddenly burst onto
00:00:43
the scene. Everybody has to have
one. They become social cultural capital as well. They create a
sense of community, or, you
00:00:50
know, sort of shared
storytelling. Those kinds of things definitely happen. But I do think sometimes, you
know, fads aren't always so bad
00:00:57
they're good, right? There are
lots of fads that are just good, not necessarily bad. And so I
do think there's a long running
00:01:03
history of these kinds of -- maybe
even going back to my childhood with the pet rock, right? Which
may be so bad it was good
00:01:10
in the same way. Loney: Welcome to
the Ripple Effect, the podcast that takes you on a journey
through the minds of Wharton
00:01:17
faculty. I'm your host, Dan
Loney, and in each episode, we'll be diving deep into the
inspiration behind the
00:01:23
groundbreaking research that
Wharton professors have conducted, and exploring how
their findings resonate with the
00:01:29
world today. - Why is it that we
tend to like things that may be perceived to be bad for us, or
maybe things that the public at
00:01:37
large don't like, whether it be
a TV show or a song that just doesn't resonate with the
public? Well, some research has
00:01:46
taken a look as to why that is,
that there aren't times when we like things that maybe aren't
the best. Patti Williams is a
00:01:54
Marketing Professor and Vice
Dean here at the Wharton School, and part of the research into
this, and she joins us here in
00:02:00
studio. This has got to be one
of those fun research topics to look at, because it's so
interesting that I think we
00:02:07
perceive everything to be, yeah,
we want to know why things are the best. This is why maybe
they're not the best. - Yeah, it's
00:02:14
such a fun project. Thank you
for having me here to talk about it, Dan. And I'm going to just
give a shout out. This work was
00:02:20
done actually with two Wharton
doctoral students who've now gone on, and they are Professors
of Marketing on their own at USC,
00:02:27
at the University of Colorado.
And this project really came about because we were
discussing, why do people like
00:02:33
things like Tommy Wiseau's The
Room? People aren't supposed to like bad things. They know it's
bad. It's not like they think
00:02:40
it's good. Everybody knows it's
bad, and yet they still like it. And so we started thinking about
this and looking into the
00:02:47
research, and what we found is
there really wasn't any research that articulated or even
discovered that people might
00:02:55
like things that they themselves
objectively find poor quality, let alone explaining why that
might happen. So we set about
00:03:04
trying to understand what might
be driving this. - So when you say bad for us, what exactly do you
mean? - Yeah, so we really mean
00:03:12
things that you yourself know
are bad. Not things that maybe you think are bad, but I think
are good, and so of course, I
00:03:20
like them. But within my own
sort of range of preferences, I could choose to, I don't know,
hear a really good joke, I could
00:03:29
choose to hear a mediocre joke,
or I could choose to hear what is a really bad womp-womp joke.
And what we find pretty
00:03:37
consistently, we find what I'm
going to call a J-shaped pattern. In general, people
prefer the best things over
00:03:43
mediocre or bad things. But what
we find also is that, in general, people prefer bad things over
mediocre things. So I'd rather
00:03:53
hear a bad joke than just an in
between joke. But of course, I'd rather hear a good joke most of
all. - So there are elements of
00:04:00
this then that you connect to
the retail sector and in things that we like or maybe we
shouldn't like? - Oh yeah,
00:04:06
absolutely. In fact, one of
the biggest trends right now I think is an example of so bad
it's good. I don't know, do
00:04:11
you have a Labubu doll?
- I do not. I do not, but I have heard about them, yes. - I don't have
one either, but I keep seeing
00:04:17
them. And now that the students
are back on campus, I've noticed several hanging from backpacks
as they're walking through
00:04:22
campus. I think Labubu is
so bad it's good, right? They're these sort of slightly
ugly, mischievous, but charming
00:04:30
little things. And why do we
like them? I don't know, just because they're a little bit
crazy and a little bit out
00:04:37
there, and they're just kind of
fun to explore their eccentricities and maybe a
little bit of the collector
00:04:44
culture that comes into it. - How do
you think then this type of attitude by the consumer
then potentially impacts the
00:04:52
companies that are involved in
either producing this product or producing the song or bringing
forth an item
00:05:00
that maybe is not perceived
by everybody to be the best? - Yeah, it's such a good
question.
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I do think there are some
organizations that understand that this is happening. I'll
give you an example. One of the
00:05:15
studies that's reported in the
paper, and we ran many, many more studies that aren't
actually reported in the paper,
00:05:21
was looking at people's
enjoyment of auditions from "So You Think You Can Dance."
00:05:27
And what we found is that people
really love the best auditions, and then they love the
worst auditions. And
00:05:33
I think shows like that really
know that that's the case. They show you some really good ones,
and they show you a few really,
00:05:40
really bad ones, where the
person who's auditioning is really trying, there's an
earnest sincerity about it, but
00:05:47
they're just not really good.
And they tend not to show us very many mediocre ones. And so
I do think there are
00:05:53
organizations that understand
that there's this desire for badness, that if they pitch it
the right way, they can tap into
00:06:00
it and find consumer demand and
consumer fandom and maybe a little bit of virality too. - But
using the Labubu doll
00:06:08
example, when you think about
retail, isn't there kind of like a historical pattern?
Like, you will see companies
00:06:16
come up with these items that,
seemingly, you would think have no real connection, but for some
reason, there's a virality to
00:06:22
them, and it just connects with
a group of consumers? - Yeah, and I think what you're also
suggesting is that sometimes so
00:06:30
bad it's good phenomena become
fads, right? That they suddenly burst onto the scene. Everybody
has to have one. They become
00:06:37
social cultural capital as well.
They create a sense of community, or, you know, sort of
shared storytelling. Those kinds
00:06:43
of things definitely happen. But
I do think sometimes, you know, fads aren't always so bad
they're good, right? There are
00:06:49
lots of fads that are just good,
not necessarily bad. And so I do think there's a long running
history of these kinds of -- maybe
00:06:56
even going back to my childhood
with the pet rock, right? Which may be so bad it was good
in the same way. - You
00:07:03
talk in the paper about the
importance of quality in making these decisions, and why that's
important. Explain that. - Yeah,
00:07:10
we really mean a couple of
things. One is that we're not looking, again, at things that you
might think are bad, but which I
00:07:20
think are good. We're looking at
my own objective sense of quality. I really am choosing
something that I think is not
00:07:27
very good, but consuming that
not very good thing is pleasurable in and of itself.
The other thing we look at in
00:07:34
the paper is, you know, when and
why might people make these kinds of choices? We don't
always choose the bad thing. We
00:07:41
often choose the good thing
instead, right? And we find that you're more likely to choose
something that's so bad it's
00:07:47
good when you're consuming for
hedonic motives, rather than utilitarian motives. You don't
want a bad vacuum, you want a
00:07:55
good vacuum, but you're willing
to watch a bad movie maybe over a mediocre movie, right? And so
a more hedonic motive, a more
00:08:02
entertainment motive lends
itself to this kind of consumption. - Is it safe to say
then that the decision to like
00:08:09
it is very individual to that
person? It may be very different, depending on who
you're talking to? - Yes and no.
00:08:16
So we definitely found some
things that we could reliably get everybody, or most
everybody in the study, to
00:08:23
think they were so bad
they were good. We could find "So You Think You Can
Dance" auditions that everybody
00:08:28
agreed were bad, but deeply
entertaining. We could find jokes that everybody said,
"Man, that's the worst dad joke
00:08:34
I've ever seen, but it still
made me laugh." But it's also the case that one of the things we
discovered is that the things
00:08:40
that you think are so bad
they're good might look different than the things that I
think are so bad they're good.
00:08:46
And so there is a lot of
heterogeneity in what counts as so bad it's good. There's also --
it's not here in the paper, but
00:08:53
we also think that there's a lot
of social capital. So subgroups might decide that this is an
example of something that's so
00:09:02
bad it's good, whereas another
subgroup really doesn't agree with that at all. "I just think
it's bad. I don't think there's
00:09:08
any goodness to it, right?" And
so it's a little bit of an individual difference and a
little bit of a sort of socio
00:09:14
cultural difference that sits
there too. - So you mentioned this in the scope of the
entertainment industry. Is there
00:09:18
something that kind of connects
us to this mindset within entertainment? Obviously, there
are other areas, but it seems
00:09:26
like entertainment would have
maybe the greatest opportunity to see this play out. - Yeah,
absolutely. And I would say
00:09:32
that's true, both intentionally
and inadvertently, right? I think some of these things, like
Rebecca Black's "Friday" was
00:09:38
intended to be good, and it
turned out that people were like, "Wow, this is bad, but I
love it, right?" So I think it
00:09:45
goes back to the motives that
people bring to so bad it's good consumption that seems to
align with entertainment related
00:09:51
consumption. People are in a
hedonic mindset versus a utilitarian mindset. Now we
actually did, and we looked at
00:09:58
this with something like a
documentary. People don't want to watch
a bad documentary. They'd rather watch
00:10:04
a mediocre documentary than a
bad one. A bad one is just bad. It's not so bad it's good for
the most part. So when I have a
00:10:11
more utilitarian motive versus a
hedonic motive, I'm just more interested in goodness than
badness. When I'm more
00:10:18
interested in just pleasure or
just having fun, and importantly, we find when the
consumption of it is pretty
00:10:25
inconsequential. It's not going
to ruin my life, it's not going to cost me a lot of money.
There's not a lot of risk
00:10:31
associated with it. So I think
that's why you see it in the realm of entertainment. It's an
hour on TV or 10 minutes on
00:10:38
YouTube, or, you know, a couple
of days of reading a book. It's costless in some way. - I was
going to say it's probably a
00:10:44
minute on like Instagram or X or
one of those platforms, because it kind of goes back to the
virality of it, with us having
00:10:51
such a connection on social
media to all of these different things and posts being up there
all the time, that it almost
00:10:59
sees -- I would think that there's
an opportunity to even see this it's so bad it's good expand
even further as we move forward
00:11:06
here. - Yeah, I think that's
right. It won't surprise me to see that a lot of so bad it's
good things are really viral,
00:11:12
and I think they're also really
relevant to the moment. I've been reading a lot about meta
modernism, and I don't know if
00:11:20
you've ever read about meta
modernism. It's sort of a response to post modernism and
sort of the cynicism of post
00:11:26
modernism, and it's really,
really relevant to our students at the moment. I find them
walking in with what I will call
00:11:31
a meta modern sort of
perspective. Meta modernism is really this
oscillation between hope and
00:11:40
irony and a recognition that
things can bring both of these things. It comes with this deep
desire for
00:11:47
authenticity, but also a little
bit of that post modern cynicism that the world really isn't all
that we thought it might have
00:11:54
been. And I think that a lot of
these so bad it's good things kind of sit right in this space,
right? There's the irony of, "This
00:12:02
thing is, man, it's terrible,"
but there's some earnest sincerity in its creation. It's
got its own charm. And so I
00:12:09
think that the idea of so
bad it's good has a lot of cultural resonance at the
moment, and is likely to be
00:12:16
associated with things that just
catch fire in culture. - I saw that you mentioned, after being
involved with the research, that
00:12:23
there were a few questions kind
of left to be answered. What areas? - Oh gosh,
many good questions.
00:12:31
And I should say, this paper,
you know, ultimately got published with just a handful of
the studies and the kinds of
00:12:37
mechanisms we looked at. Here, we
look mostly at like entertainment value. We also had some studies
where we looked at curiosity,
00:12:44
and we definitely find that
sometimes people are more curious about bad things. What
is it that makes it bad? In what
00:12:50
way is it bad? And so maybe
there's a curiosity mechanism that sits here. We think that
maybe there's some storytelling
00:12:57
value with things that are bad.
You know, what am I going to tell you a story about this
mediocre hamburger that I just
00:13:04
ate? What if there's a great
story to tell about the worst hamburger I ever ate in my life,
right? And so there might be
00:13:10
other drivers besides sort of
hedonic motives, or, you know, sort of entertainment value
that drive this kind of
00:13:18
behavior. And then I think
there's some interesting questions around the role of
irony. What does irony play
00:13:25
here? Am I consuming something
like a Labubu for its ironic factor, right? And
there is a little bit of
00:13:33
research on ironic consumption.
And so how does this differ from just consuming the irony of this
thing a little bit? So many, many
00:13:41
other things that I hope other
people might pick up and investigate. - Patti, great to see
you again. Thanks very much.
00:13:47
- Such a pleasure. - Thank you.
Patti Williams, Marketing Professor and Vice Dean here at
the Wharton School. - Thank you
00:13:53
for listening to the Ripple
Effect. We hope you found this episode informative and
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00:13:58
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