Jeremy Lin - A Phenomenon of Talent or Lottery?

Jeremy Lin scores 38 points to lead the New York Knicks in a resounding victory over a Kobe Bryant-led LA Lakers in the NBA, leading to MVP (Most Valuable Player) chants. That is a headline one would think only appears in fantasy, especially when you realise that Jeremy Lin is a small (relatively) sized American born Taiwanese/Chinese. Even more so when he was unheard of just a few weeks ago. This recent and quite unexpected rise of a star (and still rising) then begs the (my lens) question: Is there still room for creativity, determination and talent to shine forth, or has capitalism and mass culture homogenised society to produce a formulaic route to success? Dwight Macdonald proposes just the latter in his “Theory of Mass Culture”, whilst Charlie O'Donnell, writing for the Business Insider in an article titled “Jeremy Lin is Asian”, seems to propose that sheer resilience is sufficient to overcome bias and formulas. Analyzing the claims of both authors, and relating them to the rise of Jeremy Lin, this paper seeks to show that rather than sitting on two extremes, the route to success lies in both talent and lottery.