Purple Cow

Biological Parallel

In a world of brown moths, a purple moth gets noticed—but also eaten first by predators. Extreme differentiation (aposematic coloring, bizarre mating displays) is high-risk, high-reward: you're either ignored or remembered, hunted or imitated. The purple cow strategy mirrors this: blend in and you're invisible; stand out radically and you polarize. Biology shows that moderate differentiation often fails—survival favors either crypsis (camouflage) or conspicuousness (warning colors). The middle ground is the death zone.