WA025 - 'The Birth (and Death) of the Cool' (Baltimore City Paper, 2009)

On Ted Gioia's WTF marketing treatise

A few days ago, a prompt went up on Bluesky from Bill Corbett: “Who is the Dumbest Guy That Has a Reputation for Being Smart?” I had a ready answer (provided at the end of this post, below the paywall), but then I had a better one: Ted Gioia. I did not arrive at this conclusion overnight. As I remember, it took two nights—endless, painful nights spent reading and then writing about Gioia’s 2009 book, The Birth (and Death) of the Cool, which I reviewed for Baltimore City Paper. (And as this recent post from The Booktender shows, he’s still at it.) I still can’t believe the phrase “hip Bo Bice” appeared in a book, or in a sentence, or on earth. As with all Waves Around posts, this is for my paying subscribers—believe me, I earned every penny for this one.