Welcome in. It's really great to have you joining
us today. Yeah, thanks for being here with us.
So if you have ever stopped and wondered why
you naturally click with certain people. Or how
your streaming cues might actually be dictating
your social life. Right. In ways you can't even
see, honestly. Well, you are in the exact right
place for this. You really are. Because our mission
on this deep dive is to unpack the... the invisible
forces that shape our social lives. We're looking
at everything from the media we consume to the
people we ultimately choose to trust. It's a
really profound topic to explore. I mean, people
often view their social lives as just a series
of organic connections or, you know, random encounters.
Just things that happen to them. Exactly. But
there is actually a hidden architecture to all
of those interactions. And to uncover that architecture,
we're looking at a singular, richly detailed
source today. Yeah, we are diving into the Wikipedia
page of Omar Lizardo. Now, for anyone not deeply
embedded in the world of academic sociology,
that name might be new. Which is fair. But according
to the website Academic Influence, Omar Lizardo
was ranked as the most influential sociologist
from the period of 2010 to 2020. And that specific
decade saw massive shifts in how human beings
interact. Oh, yeah, the explosion of social media.
Right, the explosion of digital networks. Being
at the forefront of analyzing that shift puts
his work in a highly relevant context for anyone,
basically anyone trying to understand modern
relationships. Before we get into the heavy academic
theory, though, I want to drop a quick idea into
your mind. Consider your taste in music or your
favorite films. The common assumption is that
these preferences are just a byproduct of who
your friends are. But what if your cultural tastes
are actually the invisible architecture actively
creating your friend group in the first place?
Framing the question that way gets right to the
heart of Lizardo's work. He operates at this
incredibly specific intersection. Right. It's
cognitive science, the sociology of culture,
and social networks. Exactly. Rather than just
observing society from a detached macro perspective,
He looks at how individual human cognition and
personal cultural consumption map onto those
massive overarching networks of human connection.
I think we need to ground him as a real person
before we impact those massive networks, though.
Yeah, definitely. His background completely informs
his approach. So Omar Alcidés -Lazardo was born
in New York City in 1974. But he spent most of
his childhood and teenage years in La Romana
in the Dominican Republic. And then he came back
to New York. Right. He returned to New York to
earn a bachelor of science in psychology at Brooklyn
College in 1997. It was only later that he shifted
fully into sociology. He got his master's in
2002 and his PhD in 2006 from the University
of Arizona. And that foundational degree in psychology
is a crucial piece of the puzzle here. How so?
Well, approaching sociology with a formal background
in individual human cognition means he never
loses sight of the individual mind. Even when
he's discussing massive societal trends. Precisely.
His sociological models are fundamentally rooted
in how the human brain actually processes information.
There's also this funny, very human detail on
his Wikipedia page that highlights the reality
behind all this academic prestige. Oh, the banner.
Yes, the warning banner. Right at the top of
the article, there's a warning stating the page
is an autobiography or has been extensively edited
by the subject or by someone connected to the
subject. It's a bit ironic, isn't it? Extremely.
A sociologist who studies how we construct our
social realities is seemingly caught actively
curating his own digital presentation. The irony
is hard to miss. But it serves as a great reminder
that scholars analyzing human behavior are still
participants in it. The desire to shape our own
public narrative is universal, even for the people
who study that exact phenomenon. That grounded
humanity shows up in his own words, too. Our
source text includes a quote from a 2024 interview
that feels unusually candid for someone of his
academic stature. It really does. Discussing
his career, he states, I have recently realized
looking at my research trajectory that it is
essentially purely a function of what I'm teaching
at the moment and the collaborations I have going.
What's fascinating here is how Completely that
statement dismantles the myth of the lone genius.
The guy with the master plan. Exactly. The popular
romanticized image of a great academic involves
someone locking themselves in an office for 30
years with a rigid, predetermined agenda to decode
society. And Lizardo is just openly acknowledging
that his groundbreaking trajectory was essentially
emergent. It was born out of his immediate environment
and the people around him. Following the breadcrumbs
of whatever happens to be in front of him rather
than sticking to a rigid blueprint. Which is
incredibly validating for anyone listening who
feels like they're just figuring things out as
they go. Yeah, I think we all feel like that
sometimes. Generating profound insights does
not require a flawless 30 year plan. It requires
remaining curious, being adaptable, and maintaining
an openness to collaboration. His brilliance
lies in being highly responsive to the people
and ideas in his immediate orbit at any given
moment. Absolutely. OK, let's unpack this specific
idea that really put him on the map in that regard.
We need to look at his 2006 paper published in
the American Sociological Review. The one titled,
How Cultural Tastes Shape Social Networks. That's
the one. And this is the work that eventually
won him the Clifford Geertz Prize for best article
in 2008. Up until that paper was published, the
traditional sociological model operated on a
fairly straightforward one -way street. Which
was what? Your social networks determine your
cultural tastes. Oh, okay. The prevailing assumption
was rooted in homophily and peer pressure. If
you spend time with a certain group of people,
their influence will eventually dictate the kind
of music you listen to, the art you appreciate,
and the clothes you wear. Meaning your friends
create your tastes. Right. But Lizardo looked
at that model and proposed the reverse. He asked
if our cultural tastes have an independent effect
on our social structure. Does a person's love
for a specific genre of music actively build
the network of relations around them? To answer
that, he developed a framework that can be summarized
with two concepts, bridges and fences. It's an
elegant way to visualize the mechanics of social
dynamics. Starting with bridges, Lizardo's research
indicated that popular culture things like blockbuster
movies, Top 40 music, viral television shows,
acts as a bridge. Because pop culture has such
wide appeal and requires very little specialized
knowledge to consume. Right. It allows us to
form weak ties with acquaintances. Think about
standing in the break room at a new job. You
probably won't initiate a conversation about
a highly obscure experimental 19th century novel.
No, definitely not. You will likely ask your
new co -worker if they watched the big sporting
event or the popular streaming show that weekend.
The pop culture serves as a bridge. And it is
a low -stakes cultural artifact. It allows you
to span a gap between yourself and someone you
don't know very well. Facilitating that initial
connection without requiring deep vulnerability
or shared niche interests. On the other side
of that dynamic, we have fences. Lizardo argues
that hybrid culture, which is more exclusive,
less accessible, or requires specialized knowledge,
serves as a fence. An offense is utilized to
strengthen close, exclusive ties. If you and
three close friends share an obsession with a
very niche subgenre of independent documentary
filmmaking, that shared exclusive knowledge acts
as a boundary. It keeps the group tight -knit.
Right. It signals to each member that they belong
to the same specific tribe. If you connect this
to the bigger picture, consider how this applies
to your own life as you listen to this. This
framework transforms seemingly passive cultural
consumption into a highly active tool. How so?
When you scroll through a streaming service and
select a universally beloved sitcom, you are
effectively gathering bridge -building material
for casual conversations the next day. Oh, that
makes total sense. Conversely, when you spend
hours diving into a highly specialized podcast
or reading an obscure piece of literature, you
are stockpiling fence -building material to deepen
the bonds with your inner circle. It really reframes
how we view our entertainment choices. A Netflix
subscription is not just a source of passive
media. No, it provides the literal construction
supplies for a person's social reality. You are
actively architecting your social life through
the specific cultural tastes you choose to cultivate
and deploy. That is the core takeaway. Here's
where it gets really interesting, though. Lizardo's
work extends far beyond pop culture and immediate
friend groups. The source material outlines a
staggering breadth of research. He covers an
amazing amount of ground. In 2014, for instance,
He and Robert Fishman won the Charles Tilly Best
Article Award for a paper titled, How Macro -Historical
Change Shapes Cultural Taste, Legacies of Democratization
in Spain and Portugal. That paper perfectly demonstrates
his ability to scale his analysis. The title
sounds incredibly dense. It does, but the concept
is profound. When a country like Spain transitions
from a dictatorship to a democracy, it is not
just the voting laws that change. Right, everything
changes. The sudden influx of previously banned
international media, music, and art floods the
culture. Lizardo traces how that massive political
shockwave crickles all the way down to reorganize
how young people form their subcultures and personal
identities. He connects the macro history of
an entire nation to the micro level of a teenager's
record collection. Precisely. He also reverses
that lens entirely. Look at his 2013 paper co
-authored with Jessica Klatt titled Embarrassment
and Social Organization, a multiple identities
model. That is a fascinating one. Here he takes
something deeply intimate, the physical, internal
feeling of embarrassment, and maps out how it
dictates societal organization. The multiple
identities model suggests that we all juggle
different roles. You are professional work, a
casual friend on the weekends, maybe a parent
at home. Right. And when those worlds collide
or the wires get crossed, say, your boss runs
into you at a loud, rowdy concert embarrassment
occurs. Just thinking about it makes me cringe.
Exactly. You feel it physically. Lizardo's research
posits that embarrassment is not just a personal
failing. It is the social friction that alerts
us that a boundary has been crossed. Helping
us recalibrate and maintain those distinct social
structures. The feeling itself enforces the organization
of society. He breaks down deterministic views
in other areas as well, like in his 2005 paper
also with Collette called Why Biology is Not
Religious Destiny. He consistently challenges
the idea that human behavior is locked into a
rigid, predetermined track. But what seems to
elevate his influence is his dedication to proving
these theories with rigorous quantitative measurement.
Theoretical sociology can sometimes struggle
with empirical proof. Our sources highlight his
involvement in significant data projects to combat
exactly that. Like the National Science Foundation
-funded NetSense project. Yes, as well as the
National Institutes of Health -funded NetHealth
project. How do those projects actually capture
the data needed for these massive theories? Studying
pervasive networking sounds incredibly abstract.
Well, historically, sociologists relied heavily
on self -reported surveys to map networks. They
would simply ask people, who are your friends?
Who do you spend time with? The problem is that
people forget. They forget, or they lie, or they
present an idealized version of their social
lives. Right. Everyone wants to seem more social
than they actually might be. Exactly. Projects
like NetSense and NetHealth utilize smartphone
sensors, Bluetooth proximity logs, and communication
metadata to track who is actually spending time
together and for how long. Oh. They map the physical
and digital reality of human connection, turning
abstract behaviors into hard, trackable data
points. That desire to track the untrackable
is also the focus of his 2020 collaborative book,
Measuring Culture. Culture is notoriously nebulous.
Putting a hard metric on a cultural trend or
a shared belief seems nearly impossible. It's
a massive challenge for the field. The book provided
a methodological roadmap. Rather than just guessing
what a specific demographic value is based on
intuition, sociologists can now use computational
text analysis to process millions of public posts
or emails. They can run sentiment analysis to
see exactly how language and cultural values
shift over time. Lizardo's work in this book
helped equip the discipline with the tools to
translate subjective cultural vibes into objective,
measurable numbers. That kind of methodological
contribution really explains his massive footprint
on the institutions of sociology itself. From
2006 to 2018, he was at the University of Notre
Dame. Serving as a full professor and a key part
of their interdisciplinary center for network
science and applications. He then moved to UCLA
in 2018 to become the Leroy Nieman term chair
professor of sociology. His influence extends
into the editorial side of the sciences as well.
Serving as a co -editor of the American Sociological
Review, put him at the helm of the disciplines
flagship journal. Furthermore, joining the board
of reviewing editors for science in 2020 placed
him in a fascinating position. He is actively
helping to define the boundaries of what the
broader scientific community considers groundbreaking
research. While he's shaping the future of the
discipline, he also maintains a strong tether
to its past. In 2021, he co -edited the Handbook
of Classical Sociological Theory. Updating the
foundational theories of the field to remain
relevant for modern complexities. Having that
firm grasp on the historical giants of sociology
sets the perfect stage for his most recent conceptual
work, which directly challenges how some of those
classical theories are applied today. Yes, it
really does. Since today is March 5th, 2026,
we can look at his latest major project. The
source text mentions a book co -authored with
Michael Strand titled Orienting to Chance. The
Wikipedia page notes it was slated for publication
in the summer of 2025 by the University of Chicago
Press. So it is now out and tackling some deep
theoretical waters. The core concept of orienting
to chance is recovering the role of probabilism
in social theory. Probabilism, break that down
for us. When sociologists analyze classical figures
like Max Weber or Pierre Bourdieu, there is a
temptation to extract rigid deterministic rules
about society. Determinism operates almost like
a train schedule. If A happens, for example,
if a person grows up in a specific economic bracket,
then B must be the outcome. It treats human society
like a simple physics equation. Which is precisely
the issue Lizardo and Strand are addressing.
They argue that we need to embrace probabilism.
Think of probabilism less like a train schedule
and more like a weather forecast. Economic conditions
or social structures might make a certain outcome
highly likely. Just as certain atmospheric conditions
make rain likely. However, chance, randomness,
and unpredictable encounters are fundamental
features of the social fabric. Embracing the
role of random chance actually improves our ability
to analyze the messy, unpredictable reality of
how human lives actually unfold. Absolutely.
So what does this all mean? Taking a step back
to view the entirety of Omar Lozardo's career,
a clear narrative emerges for anyone listening.
Society is not just a rigid structure that you
are passively enduring. Through the seemingly
trivial pop culture you consume, through your
openness to chance collaborations, and even through
your internal moments of embarrassment, you are
actively participating in the construction of
your world. You are the architect of your social
reality. It shifts the perspective from passive
observation to active participation. It really
does. To build on that, I want to leave you with
one final thought to explore on your own. It
stems from a paper, Lizardo, published in 2015
called Beyond World Images, Belief as Embodied
Action in the World. That paper won an honorable
mention for the Theory Prize in 2017. Embodied
action in the world is a phrase that requires
a bit of unpacking, though. It means that a belief
is not just an invisible idea floating in your
head. If you believe in being a supportive friend,
that belief only truly exists in the physical
act of showing up for them. If you hold a belief
about environmentalism, the belief is embodied
in the physical action of recycling or conserving
resources. Lozano writes about belief as the
physical actions you take. We've learned today
that your cultural tastes build the fences and
bridges of your social life. But this raises
an important question for you to mull over. If
your deeply held beliefs are entirely defined
by the physical actions you take every single
day, what kind of social architecture are those
actions unknowingly building for your future?
That is a question worth carrying with you. Thank
you for joining us on this deep dive into the
fascinating world of Omar Lizardo and the hidden
structures of our social lives. It's been a great
conversation. Keep questioning the invisible
forces around you and we will catch you next
time.