The Unexplainable: Why Do Virals Go Viral?
The first post, of the 'The Unexplainable' series that I am about to start, deals with the topic of Virality. Let's discuss about a certain video on Youtube which gets over a billion views within 40 days and other phenomena of Youtube virality. Also let's talk about how virality outside the Internet world affects our life on a grand scale. Let me warn you though that, this post is not about any formula that when applied will automatically generate viral content, if that is what you are looking for. This post is about my own rhetoric intrigue over the concept of virality because I haven't figured out the whole thing yet. But then again, no one else in the world has figured it out yet either.
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What Is Virality?
Virality is the phenomenon that makes any product, any piece of art, any idea or any pattern to spread wildly amongst people in a very short amount of time. We ourselves make these objects go viral. For example, if I share a photo on Facebook, all 700-800 people on my friendlist could see that photo. Then if some of my friends like the photo and decide to share that it too then another say 5000 people, i.e. my friends' friends get to see the photo too and then they share it and so on. Virality doesn't apply just to Youtube videos or Facebook photos. Any idea or real life object can go viral too. But easy sharing and a huge audience make things on Internet go viral much faster.
When I myself saw the Gangnam Style and Harlem Shake videos, my first reaction was how could something so dumb and stupid become so famous and get so many views! But during the next couple of weeks I found myself watching those videos over and over again because although stupid, they were fun and it felt good to watch them. And I guess that was the case with everyone, everyone wanted to check out what the whole buzz was and ended up watching the videos over and over again and sharing it with friends.
The Unexplainable
1. Is there only a particular type of content that goes viral?
I do not know what content every single viral product possesses but it seems a lot of them have few common aspects. Either they are feel-good, highly emotional or extremely innovative. So does it mean that only either of those three could go viral or are there other types of products that go viral that I am unaware of?
2. How do utterly dumb videos go viral?
3. Can we say by the way certain things are going viral that we already suffer an attention disorder?
We have transitioned from novels to blogs to photo blogs now. From movies to video clips. From photo albums to captioned memes. If you look at the pattern, we have transitioned to get instant dopamine rush versus enjoying quality products. With our attention span reducing to such an extent, what would be the next dopamine rush?
4. Unformulated.
No scientist or intellectual has been able to figure out and formulate why exactly certain ideas go viral nor can they predict whats going to go viral next. Or incase they have, they have certainly made it clear that they are not planning to give the secrets away.
5. Is virality a matter of luck or more than that?
So for those who haven't figured out the secret yet, I guess it means constantly producing quality work and waiting and praying for it to go viral.