Media saturation = Abundance
What does it mean to go viral?
Relies on social media and relatability on particular networks along with popularity.
What do I understand viral to mean?
A virus - a negative connotation related to the word.
Examples of things that have gone viral over the past few years:
Me too campaign which started as a Twitter phenomenon
Drake's dad dancing imitation
Michelle Obama showing her dislike at the Trump inaugurated
French man who climbed up a building to save a child
Donald Trump in general!
What is viral phenomena?
Viral phenomena are objects or patterns that are able to replicate themselves or convert other objects into copies of themselves when these objects are exposed to them. They get their name from the way that viruses spread.
Breaking the Internet: The Narrative of Viral Media
Why do things go viral? (these answers aren't clear cut, just observations)
Relatability - the narrative of rags to riches. For example, Susan Boyle and Connie Talbot
Empathy - all those 'cute' moments. For example Christian the Lion
Snark - mocking irreverence and sarcasm
Humour - from odd to annoying to everything else
Smarts - intelligence can be contagious. For example This is America
Before the Internet
Propaganda was the way to let ideas spread quickly.
The 1936 film 'Reefer Madness' was a government funded propaganda film against Marijuana usage.
The 1996 animation Dancing Baby was a 90's 3D animation of a baby that went viral via email.
This is America: Case Study
The Childish Gambino, This is America music video has 460 million views and counting but why does it have so many?
I found the video quite hard to watch because there was a lot of things that would be illegal in this country and that would just never happen. There were a lot of race relations in the video and focused on the Black Guys movement that is happening in America at the moment. I think it was a kind of protest from Childish Gambino as he can use the platform he has to express his opinion on everything that is happening in America. In the video there is a contrast between gospel and peace and quiet which as hip hop sounds which is often associated with black American's.
What is a meme?
1.
an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.
2. an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.
https://www.dictionary.com
Meme's are widely recognised images that can be repurposed and reused.
The Origin of the Meme
“Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation”
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
Hashtags ######
'Hashtags actually have the power to build communities, bring awareness to social voids, and turn ideas into massive movements'. (Fraasch, Seedspot.com)
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