The Making Of a Fad

摘要

Elementary schools have long been the perfect place to study how contagion spreads. So let's focus our microscope on Pal-Elementary Charter School, west of Los Angeles. Last November Walker Baron, 11, became the first Palisades student to possess a lightweight, foldable scooter called the Razor, and he began riding it to school. The Razor had no marketing campaign and could be found in few stores, but word of its wonders spread, mouth to mouth, from classroom to classroom. Before long, one entire class was Razoring to school. "The trend grew at an alarming rate—the scooters started to reproduce," says Palisades principal Terri Arnold.