Can you be tipped?

I was reading the article "Is the Tipping Point Toast" here:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point-toast.html

...and then I had some thoughts:

• I love when I read something like “... a growing group of marketers believes Watts is radically altering the way companies attempt to produce trends” ...when that could mean five marketers over the year and a half.
• why does it seem like it is assumed everyone is equal — where’s the passion? Could that be the third dimension no one has figured out yet?? All ideas are equal, all consumers are equal...they just happen to fall into categories like “mavens, salesmen, or connectors” ...or “influentals”...so just because you’re connected you’ll spread the word? You have to be passionate about something first.
• people get over diseases. I spread one to my daughter last month, a few weeks later she spread it back to me. But eventually, we’re all breathing again and forget about it. She still wants another Webkinz the minute a new one comes out, and no one told her she should like it.
• they talk about influence in mechanical terms. I am most influential when I am sold (tipped) — I happen to like Hush Puppies a lot and now people know about it, but there had to be a reason for me to get hooked in the first place.
• “... the cascade began with an average Joe” and “the rank-and-file citizen” was far more likely to get things moving... BECAUSE they are were all equally BORING people.
• I’d rather think of effective viral marketing as an echo in a chamber and less of a ripple in a pond — the ripple goes out and then dissipates, but the reverberating idea is what really makes brands strong. We talk about it, we agree that it’s good, we talk about it when we buy it the second, third and fourth time. That’s different than spreading an idea/trend and never hearing affirmations of your convictions from the group you infected.
• “He simply doesn't think it's possible to ‘will’ a trend into existence by recruiting highly social people.” I agree: you’re idea or product might suck.
• “When he tried to pitch ‘some company's shitty product,’ he couldn't force it to go viral.” -- really? You’re kidding.
• If you have to work so hard to get people to grab an idea and share it, maybe your idea isn’t so good in the first place.

Another idea: maybe a product/brand just makes me happy and I don’t care what your marketing says. Some consumers don’t need to be pitched...and now most won’t allow it. If companies think this first step (to pitch the influencer) is actually a good idea, I think there’s a lot of money being wasted. The brand itself needs to be a social one...people enjoy it together, give it to each other as gifts and talk about new products that come out. They experience it together...as a group...so they influence other whole groups and not just individual people.