Get Happy, Be Happy, Stay Happy

People want to know how to control their world so they can be happy. Period.

And a lot of people aren’t happy, and they don’t know why. They want answers. Thus the phenomenal success of The Secret, which purports to give the answers. In this WebProNews article, Jason Lee Miller calls The Secret “that marketing genius.” Others have said that many times before, of course. Hard work, hooking up with well-connected people, and the power of viral marketing aimed at easily influenced people hungry for answers is the secret to its success.

Now ideas popularized by The Secret, such as “putting energy out there,” are seamlessly woven into mainstream media stories. Some of the most unlikely of sources are using the buzz to grab attention. As I noted in an earlier post, 2008 will be a year of all-things-Secret. (You’re right, I’m capitalizing on it too with this post!)

Here’s Jason’s entire article, in which he suggests an experiment to use our thoughts to stop the recession.

Searchers Want To Know About The R Word
Jason Lee Miller | Staff Writer

It should be the Frau Blucher of words and if we believe in that marketing genius that was “The Secret” we shouldn’t dare throw it out there. Nonetheless, the braver the media gets at using the “r” word, the more people are searching for it. Thus, they’re all putting the energy out there like seeds and are waiting to reap the harvest.

Recession. There, I said it, now let’s get on with it.

Yahoo’s Molly McCall at The Buzz Log reports that Yahoo searches have spiked in the past week regarding that rather unpleasant term. See, put it out there it just grows.

She writes:

“Over the past seven days, searchers propelled queries on ‘economic recession’ and ‘recession’ upwards. Lookups like ‘last u.s. recession’ and ‘recession proof jobs’ spiked. Even ’stagflation’ - a term not normally found strolling the Buzz aisles-more than doubled its numbers.”

The phrase “definition of a recession economy” is up 500%; “what is a recession” is up 260%.

Concern, according to McCall’s color-coded map, is heaviest in places you might expect, where the real financial centers are like New York, Illinois, and California. Strangely, the recession-related searches are extra-heavy in Tennessee, too.

As the for square states, the nobody-lives-there states, and the-economy’s-always-bad-anyway states, they don’t seem to be all that alarmed.

Maybe we should try an experiment. Everybody think super hard about economic expansion, repeat the words, and then go search for it. Maybe The Secret works.

(Yes, I know he’s not being serious. I hope.)