Rethinking the Long Tail

I'm a Seth Godin fan. I worked in marketing. So I get the long tail. But I'm starting to wonder what it's doing to our relationships.

The long tail is a statistical pattern popularized by Wired Editor Chris Anderson in 2004. Anderson's thesis was that the wave of the future is for businesses to sell more individualized products to a wider spectrum of customers, instead of the traditional mass-market pattern of selling the same "big hit" product to everyone. It means selling deep cuts, not just the hits. And in the digital age, when it doesn't cost any more to customize the customer's experience, it completely makes sense.

The long tail is revolutionizing our media and our culture. Why would I pay thousands for an ad in the Yellow Pages, when I can put my ad in front of only the very people who are looking for my service, and only pay a fee if they respond to the ad? Facebook is the holy grail for marketers.

And we're quickly growing accustomed to it. I'm miffed when I get Living Social emails for specials in Atlanta. (This continues to happen; what the heck, Living Social!?) We "customize our user experience" with what we watch, read, listen to and "like". It's individualism and consumerism mashed up and gone to seed. I can find an app, a publication, and a group of people for any interest I can dream up.

• Fiddle players in Stockholm? There's a meet-up.
• Cubs fans in Anaheim? Like our Facebook page.
• Left-handed log stretchers with one eye and a dog named Bonfire? Check out our Etsy store.

Last month, I was sitting around a table with eight other people involved in small groups ministry and one of them pointed to where this is all going. Dr. Mark Heinemann said, "It's narcissistic: everyone wants to be in a small group with himself."

He was right. Our culture is becoming increasingly ruled by the long tail and it's removing us from one another. We spend so much time "liking" that we are loosing contact with people unlike us. Evangelicals are terrible about this. We insulate under the banner of protecting our virtue. We "other" (I know that's not a verb) under the banner of "standing up for" Jesus. We should be haunted by the line from Blue Like Jazz: "You only believe that stuff because you're afraid to hang out with people who don't."

But we're not alone. Americans are all retreating, hanging out with people who like the same music, the same TV shows, the same clothes, the same games, the same mobile devices.

Our separation has been centuries in the making. The industrial revolution took Dad out of the home. Then the rise of two-income families took Mom away. Global business and air travel took Grandma and Grandpa out of state too. And the growing size of our communities meant we had to divide by age at school, church, and day care.

 Now, we grow up almost exclusively among people of matching age, race, intellect, and affluence.

And I think it might be affecting our ability to get along. According to a Public Agenda Research poll, almost 80 percent of Americans believe that lack of civility is a "serious national problem."

We don't know how to discuss or disagree. We've forgotten how to walk in one another's shoes. We just can't relate.

There is great hope for the church in this. Jesus has called us from every "tribe and language and people and nation." (Rev. 5:9) Paul has taught us that at church there should be no divisions or hierarchies based on nationality, race, ritual or social class. (Col. 3:11) Church could be the one place where we are forced to love and live with people of different generations, races, social strata, and political persuasions. We've effectively jettisoned our natural family members who aren't like us. What if we refused to do the same with our church family? What if we left the long tail to the advertisers and embraced a more diverse and holistic family? What would that look like? What would it do for our witness in the world?