If you ask a random group of people if they have ever seen the video “Charlie Bit My Finger,” there’s a good chance you will get a positive response. That’s because the video has nearly 1 billion views, equating to one-seventh of the world’s population. It’s a fairly simple, minute-long video showing two children named Harry and Charlie on a chair, and Charlie bites Harry’s finger. It sounds pretty simple, but, as you’ve learned from the previous chapter, you cannot explain the video in words and expect to get the same reaction and enjoyment as you can by viewing. You need to see this video and, once you have, you’ll feel compelled to share it—as will those who see it after you. Just like coughing on a subway car, videos can travel like a virus.
A viral video is a term used to describe a video that has been consumed and shared in an exponential manner, similar to the way an airborne virus may spread. Someone watches a video online and then shares it with a group of friends, on social media or through email. The recipients then watch and feel compelled to forward it to new viewers. It goes from discovery to group saturation fairly quickly, with a rapid view count increase and then usually a plateau, where the views no longer rise rapidly. Virals continue to be seen for a long time after the initial discovery, but are usually replaced by the next best shareable video.
The most-viewed viral video in history is Psy’s “Gangnam Style” (2012), and odds are it still is when you are reading this book. “Gangnam Style” is the first YouTube video to cross the 1 billion and 2 billion views record, and it goes without saying that Psy, the popular South Korean pop star who produced “Gangnam Style,” became a worldwide sensation after his hit was released. The video is based somewhat satirically on a posh region of South Korea called Gangnam. In the video, Psy dances along with children, models, horses, chess players, bus and subway passengers, and on a toilet. The video combines comedy, children, animals, explosions, attractive models, and an addicting electronic dance track with a lot of bass. The video literally contains all the most common content of a viral video.
Figure 5.1
Viral video sharing.
Over the course of this chapter, we are going to focus on some of the history of viral videos, as well as some sobering reality concerning the viral video industry itself. In the last part of the chapter, we will use several case studies of successful viral campaigns and reverse engineer them to see how viral videos succeed in becoming part of our collective sharing conscious. As we present the case study of the band OK Go, we hope you see how the audience has adapted and changed over the last decade. Understanding how the “KONY 2012” (2012) video became viral will enlighten you as to why we watch viral media. We will also discuss the viral advertising campaigns of Old Spice, as well as the viral masterminds who work for Jimmy Kimmel Live.
YouTube is an ever-expanding platform where web video is uploaded and shared, thousands to millions of times per day. In no way can we claim a comprehensive approach to this material. With our carefully selected examples, we aim to help you refer the models and the methods to the hundreds of different videos that occupy the online space. Check out the companion material to follow along and continue to participate in the sharing of viral content.
When you see a video posted on your social media feed, what makes you click play? Then, after viewing it, what makes you want to share the video? The most-shared videos online seem to have some significant common traits in their subject matter. Simply put, if a video contains babies, cute animals, some provocative material, an accident or blooper, some community support, and some mystery, or has a combination of several of these elements, the video could become viral. Sometimes, it also requires someone with a lot of followers to mention the video for it to have a boost in views. Viral videos are usually stand-alone pieces of material, not derived from previous memes, and ordinarily have no beginning or end. They are just pieces of visual material that seem disconnected from the context. According to Carol Vernallis, the aesthetic includes “bold graphic design and well-judged scale.”1 Vernallis explains that the viral video’s limited length and its quality help attract the attention that it gains. If the video doesn’t fit into a certain quality standard, people may not share the video as often.
Why We Watch
There are hundreds of thousands of viral videos about babies, aside from “Charlie Bit My Finger—Again!” (2007). The ones that seem to rise to the top are videos that can be remembered and described to other people outside the web’s environment. The simplest, most shared of these are “Baby Laughing Hysterically at Ripping Paper (Original)” (2011), “Kung Fu Baby” (2006), and “Talking Twin Babies—Part 2 official video” (2011). In all four of these examples, we get babies who are still unable to form full sentences, biting, laughing, making expressions, and babbling. It’s really all that babies primarily do (and not much else!). Yet, when posted online, these specific examples shine much more than the hundreds of thousands of other baby videos.
These specific examples are perfectly timed for sustaining a view and the desire to share. From the look of the thumbnail, to the timing of the content, these baby videos stand out among all the millions of videos. Watching them gives you a sense of the uncanny behavior that some infants demonstrate—but all contained in a compact, shareable video. In the video “Charlie Bit My Finger—Again!”, we see perfectly timed action. In the first few seconds, we see Charlie bite Harry’s finger and, by the seventh second, we hear “Charlie bit me!” For the next 45 or so seconds, we see Harry put his fingers in peril once again for the sake of humor, and Charlie bites him again. (“And it really hurts!”)
Beyond the fact that babies are instant Internet gold, these videos also do something that reinforces the viral quality of the content: They play to our attention span. With the incomprehensible amount of video content, our attention spans appreciate content that is less than 5 minutes, according to a ComScore study.2 Additionally, the video should grab the viewer’s attention in 8 seconds3 and it should be able to be seen clearly on a small screen.4 Babies are cute and attention-grabbing, but the video must fall into our human viewing habits and desires as well.
Speaking of small screens, a fair amount of success in the viral realm is based on the possibility of being clicked on. Whether the video is shared in an email, on a Facebook feed, or from the YouTube search, the thumbnail plays into someone’s decision to click the video. Vernallis further explains, “YouTube clips tend to feature simplistic and evocative representations of the body and shape—either as face, body part, or body whole.”5 Although no formal study has been completed to identify what thumbnails are clicked most, Ryan Broderick at BuzzFeed found that any thumbnail with a human face or body part is more likely to be clicked on if no context is provided.6
Unpredictability
Children are likely to go viral for a similar reason that animals are: They are unpredictable. In most accident virals, such as “fail” videos, you can nearly predict the outcome at the onset of the video. (A wobbly skateboarder aimed toward a jump will most likely crash and lose some teeth.) When you put a camera on a child or an animal, you are not guaranteed a fixed and predicable story. For example, “Zombie Kid Likes Turtles” (2007) and “‘Apparently’ This Kid Is Awesome, Steals the Show During Interview” (2104) show the unpredictability of children. In the first video, “Zombie Kid” Jonathan is at a state fair when a reporter comes up to him and asks him about his face paint. His smiling answer: “I like turtles!” What makes the video even funnier is the unprepared confusion of the reporter, who seems utterly bewildered. Compare Jonathan the zombie to Noah Ritter at another state fair, who must have recently learned the word “apparently.” The reporter asks Noah how he liked the ride, and he replies, “It was great! And apparently I’ve never been on live television before!” He goes on to steal the next minute of video from the overjoyed (and unprepared) reporter.
In both examples, we see the reporter wildly unprepared and caught candidly off guard for the subject’s response. This is one of the reasons to watch and share viral videos as well—they break down our expectations. We have become accustomed to reporters’ being poised and professional, so, when they react awkwardly (and you mix in an adorable child), you have yourself a viral hit.
Animal viral videos are even more likely to be expected to be unpredictable. We have no idea what animals are thinking, and, when they do weird things, especially out of context, we have a desire to watch and share. “The Sneezing Baby Panda” (2006) is pretty self-explanatory, but, even when you see it, you sense the unpredictability. The moment seems so calm, as a mother panda chews her food, and her baby sleeps—only to unexpectedly sneeze and frighten the mom. It’s jolting, unpredictable, and adorable. “Battle at Kruger” (2007), one of the most-shared viral videos of animals, is known for being one of the best “eyewitness” videos posted online.7 The video shows a dramatic fight between lions, buffalo, and crocodiles at Kruger National Park in Africa. This video is perfect for viral unpredictability, as well as the sheer odds of ever witnessing such an event. From “Thriller Cats” to strange animal encounters to dogs afraid of cats, the more cute and unpredictable the video, the more likely the view count will increase rapidly.
Shareability
After a video is watched online, the only way that it can actually become a viral video is if it is shared repeatedly. You can see that unpredictability, brevity, aesthetics, and comedy seem to do quite well with sharing, but there is one more ingredient that needs to be included: emotional impact. We have to feel for the subjects in the video in some way. As with memes, virals work by a similar method and have to relate to us in one way or another. In order for us to share the video, we have to be reasonably sure the receiver will enjoy the video as well. Just because we enjoy a viral, it does not mean everyone will. However, when you look at the list of the top virals 5 years into YouTube’s existence (the 2010 Time magazine list), the list contains pretty shareable content.8 From “Charlie Bit My Finger” to “Kittens, Inspired by Kittens” (2008) even to “Daft Hands” (2007), the videos appeal to a mass audience, which is necessary for a massive amount of views. From the millions of videos uploaded, there are only several hundred that amass enough rapid views to be considered viral.
In order to claim a viral status, viral videos must be similar to memes, attaching to our collective conscious. You have to somehow feel that, if you don’t share it, you may actually be doing someone a disservice by leaving them out of the loop. As virals and memes work primarily as visuals, the viral video requires mass insider knowledge so that it can be brought up in public. Like the example of the construction workers at the beginning of the book, we don’t want to feel left out of the shared experience. The viral video is a compact, shareable clip that sticks around and makes you feel for it every time you add a view.
There are thousands of videos online considered to be “viral,” and, as we mentioned, there is no way to create a thorough account of them. For all we know, a new “Gangnam Style” could come out tomorrow and we would have no way of catching up so rapidly.
Figure 5.2
Winnebago man.
INTERNET PEOPLE AND THE HISTORY OF THE VIRAL VIDEO
Back in the days of VHS videotape, broadcast engineers and dub (copy) room workers would clip out the bloopers from a broadcast and create a reel of the funniest moments. Long after the original material was forgotten, the blooper reels were still copied and shared and handed on from person to person. One such video that had circulated on videotape for years before it ever came close to web distribution was the outtakes of an industrial Winnebago sales video featuring a salesman named Jack Rebney. Rebney, a burned out, embittered newsman from the West Coast, was dubbed “The Angriest Man in the World” after the curse-word-laden outtakes of his video made their way online. For more than 20 years, the video went “viral” in real life, shared and seen over and over by collectors of odd video media. When YouTube opened its upload doors, one of the many owners of the tape uploaded the clip. Millions of views later, Rebney is immortalized as “Winnebago Man” and is featured in the 2009 documentary by the same name.9
THE SHORT HISTORY OF THE VIRAL VIDEO
Back in 1989, America’s Funniest Home Videos appeared on ABC Television. The show encouraged anyone with a video camera to submit their funny, homemade (amateur) video to compete for award money and vacations. The personal camcorder had only first appeared in the early 1980s, and, by the end of the decade, people had amassed hundreds of thousands of hours of inane footage. Occasionally, something cute, unexpected, shocking, or unusual was captured on camera and yearned to be shared. The broadcast model of America’s Funniest Home Videos helped encourage video-camera owners to submit their content so it could be shown, but the term “viral video” had not yet been coined. When the browser was invented, email became commonplace, and video files became shareable, the first rapidly shared videos began to appear in people’s inboxes.
In 1995, Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s short clip called “The Spirit of Christmas” started getting distributed around the web. The short was made while Stone and Parker were in college and it became the precursor to South Park. Its odd, clunky format and its story of several dirty-mouthed eighth graders watching Jesus fight Frosty the Snowman and Santa made the clip shareable to the masses. It was so amateur in style that many people shared it without knowing its origin.
The “viral” in viral media comes from a year 2000 marketing idea by Seth Godin. Godin explained his secrets of new success: the “Ideavirus.”10 In the article, the term “virus” is used more than 40 times to describe something like a meme, but more persistent over a short period of time. The idea was to turn a single online experience into something massively widespread. Godin never says “meme,” because he knows that memes are reproducible and remixable—he means viral, something that is remembered for its originality.
“The Evolution of Dance” (2006) is a 6-minute video featuring motivational performer Judson Laipply running through a veritable history of dance moves, from Elvis to André 3000. For years, Laipply’s video remained one of the most-viewed videos on YouTube and now ranks as one of the few non-music videos in the top 100 most-viewed videos ever on YouTube. Viral videos have no set standard or formula, but we’ll try to categorize some of the videos by explaining why we watch them.
We Watch Because—It’s Weird
One of our favorite viral videos to use as an example is one that we find most viewers enjoy because of its odd mimetic qualities. It pleases us, but we’re not sure why. The “Dramatic Chipmunk” (2007) is neither dramatic, nor a chipmunk, but, in 6 seconds, makes almost everyone who watches it laugh. As the prairie dog in its glass case turns, the camera zooms into its little face. The added dramatic music gives us a suspenseful feeling of anticipation. The short clip is perfectly shareable because it is so obscure. The original full-length video is from a Japanese talk show and is so out of context to a Western audience that the clip makes no sense, as itself or as the original.
Another odd and enjoyable clip, out of context, is “Leeroy Jenkins” (2006), staged inside the video game World of Warcraft. In the video, a group of friends appear to be plotting their next line of approach, taking themselves quite seriously, as they calculate numbers down to the statistics of survival and cache of weapons. All seems to be going by plan until Leeroy returns from his kitchen to his headset and controller (not featured in the video) and yells his battle cry: “Ok chums! Let’s do this! Leeeeeroyyyyy Jennnnnkiinnnsss!” He storms into the battle prematurely, and what follows is one of the funniest instances of digital character shock on YouTube. For about 1 second, no character moves or talks, until we hear, “Oh my God, he just went in.” The battle ends in terrible failure when all the teammates die once again, and, while on headset, we hear Leeroy say, “It’s not my fault” (although it is).
The odd sets of circumstances that make up these specific stories are so unique that it would be hard to replicate them any other way. The moments are authentic and original, although out of context of their actual source material. “The Dramatic Chipmunk” is pulled from an obscure Japanese show, and Leeroy Jenkins is pulled from someone’s recording of their World of Warcraft gameplay. It’s almost as if this could be presented as art, because they stand alone so well.
We Watch Because—It’s Not Us (But They Are Us)
As America’s Funniest Home Videos figured out years ago, sometimes we enjoy watching other people get hurt or embarrassed, simply because it isn’t us. As we’ll explain next chapter, we humans are an awkward bunch, and sometimes it makes it easier for us to see we are not alone. There are so many clips that fall into this category, but some that we should highlight are “Star Wars Kid” (2006), “Numa Numa” (2006), “Scarlet Takes a Tumble” (2008), “Boom Goes the Dynamite” (2005), “Miss Teen USA 2007,” Chris Crocker’s “Leave Britney Alone!” (2007), and Tay Zonday’s “Chocolate Rain” (2007).
These videos are all viral videos with millions of views and they are all very different in style and delivery. The one thing they have in common is that all the people in the video are embarrassing themselves in some way. That is not to say that they were embarrassed during the taping of the video. It’s only as we watch it that we feel empathy for their behavior. The “Star Wars Kid” is a great example, because the poor kid, Ghyslain Raza, never meant for the tape to be seen. It was posted online by his so-called friends and then viewed millions of times. It’s been remixed and referenced hundreds of other times. We feel a weird sense of comedy and laughter, but also a bit of cringeworthy enjoyment that we are fortunate enough not to be Raza.
The cringe feelings of the other videos carry them to their millions of views as well, and we can share together a moment of someone else’s misfortune. In nearly all of these examples, the Internet people have had their moment in the sun to explain themselves or own up to their oddness: some on the show Tosh.0 and some on other web outlets. Raza, who originally distanced himself from the embarrassing video, now uses his notoriety to fight cyberbullying.
The YouTube Top 100
YouTube’s Top 100 most-viewed videos are over 90 percent music videos. Just because it is heavily viewed doesn’t mean that it is a viral video. As channels such as MTV and VH1 shift away from showing music videos, the web is the primary outlet for viewing music video content. Additionally, many viewers use YouTube playlists to play music for listening, rather than videos for watching. This increases the view count, without anyone actually watching the video. This is how many videos stay on the top 100 lists.
YouTube uses the Vevo music player to show music videos, and this still counts as part of the YouTube list.
We Watch Because—They Want Us to
Sometimes, people on the Internet do stupid things that get shared wildly. We can best sum up this response with a YouTube comment from umlungu360 in their response to NovaSeraAngel’s comment on the “Leeroy Jenkins” video that people do the stupidest things to get famous: “This is the Internet. If you don’t like the fact that people find fame by doing stupid things then you might want to eat your modem.”
In the earliest days of YouTube and before, the advent of the web camera and digital video compression empowered users to express themselves in unique ways. From Andy Milonakis to ZeFrank to Liam Sullivan’s “Shoes,” the weird stuff people create can sometimes go insanely viral. Andy Milonakis, the forever young-looking prankster, made a pretty stupid music video in late 2002 called “The Superbowl Is Gay” and rants how everything is “gay,” like cologne, DVD players, DVDs, and cats. Milonakis uses “gay” the way an immature grade-schooler would, in that it means “lame.” The Washington Post reported on Milonakis in 2005 when they found the video in a pre-YouTube world.11 Andy posted the video on a site called AngryNakedPat.com, where it gained millions of views. His bold attempt at crude humor and his childish looks and behavior attracted the attention of Jimmy Kimmel, and Milonakis was hired to do some of MTV’s Jackass-style stunts.
The all-empowering camera is equal access for all, but, for those bold enough to use it, no matter how weirdly, there could be some viral fame. Some are one-off experiences such as Liam Sullivan’s “Shoes” (2007) and the “Back Dorm Boys Lip-sync of I Want it That Way” by the Backstreet Boys (2006). Although these users made additional videos, they are best known for their hits.
Some users have long used the web camera to create long-lasting viral content and happen to know the recipe well enough to produce viral content consistently. The online performance artist Ze Frank is the type of personality who understands the online audience well enough to make content that the audience loves to share. Ze Frank’s work ranges from video art projects to vlogs to a faux-documentary series called True Facts (2013–). Ze Frank got in early on the web video platforms—in 2001, he made a digital video Christmas card that went viral on his personal site. Since winning a Webby award in 2002, he has continued to create obscure and creative videos online. He isn’t just being Ze Frank on the screen: He purposely plays up some of the oddities of the web, overpronounces words, and treats his video productions as if they are live and unpredictable. Ze Frank is aware of the viral recipe and uses it in all of his work.
Saturday Night Live Becomes Viral at Age 31
As a cultural television institution, Saturday Night Live (SNL) ranks as one of the most respected productions in history. In its 31st year, executive producer and show creator Lorne Michaels knew he had to alter the show to appeal to a new generation of content viewers, and so he hired a sketch-writing trio known as the Lonely Island, made up of comedians Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer, and Andy Samberg. On Saturday, December 17, 2005, SNL aired their first digital short, “Lazy Sunday,” and by the next morning it was already a viral sensation. “Lazy Sunday” consists of Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell rapping as they spend their day walking around New York’s West Village.
The catchy rap verse in the sketch sounds like it’s about drug culture, when Samberg and Parnell rap, “It’s the Chronic-What-cles of Narnia!” The nerd rap disguised as gangster rap was exactly what SNL needed to enter the online world. Director Paul Thomas Anderson was even impressed and said, “It’s something the likes of which we haven’t seen on SNL anytime recently.”12 Over the course of the next decade, the Lonely Island made bunches of viral hits for SNL, such as “D> in a Box” (2009), “I’m on a Boat (ft. T-Pain)” (2009), and “Like a Boss” (2012). The last is a consistently used meme in pop culture.
The Lonely Island was a fixture of SNL until the end of the 38th season, when the team went independent to produce films together.
We have to appreciate and respect these viral videos, because they are the blood and veins of the web. These videos are so much part of our collective Internet unconscious that, even if you only recognize one of the aforementioned videos, you understand how it works in terms of the online environment. Weezer appreciated the Internet’s characters so much that its music video for “Pork and Beans” (2009)13 features a fair number of Internet celebrities. Viral videos are usually accidental, and your normal, awkward behavior could be the next multi-million-view video that everyone talks about.
Bear cubs. Bear cubs in a dumpster. A man named Bear losing his mind over a double rainbow in the sky. Some videos have hundreds of views; some have millions. In 2014, Bear Vasquez’s first-person video of his reaction to seeing a double rainbow in Yosemite had more than 40 million plays. How does an obscure video appear out of the ether and make its way into the viral mindset? Kevin Allocca, YouTube’s trends manager, explained at his TED Talk that Bear “just simply wanted to share a rainbow” in early 2010. It wasn’t until more than a year later that it went viral. This is because the video was mentioned on Jimmy Kimmel’s Twitter account.14
Allocca explains there are three characteristics of the viral video that cause a spontaneous and rapid growth in views and cultural experience: tastemakers, creative participating communities, and complete unexpectedness. As mentioned, a video may have unpredictability, but that doesn’t automatically make it go viral. In our chapter on memes, we recognized that community support for an idea can help boost it, but, in this section of the chapter, we’ll focus on the tastemaker effect—the results of influencers in media with large audiences mentioning a video, therefore causing the video to go viral.
Is it possible intentionally to create a viral video? We think so, and this section will focus on four case studies of viral success stories. We’ll call them professional viral videos, because they were produced in order to create an amazing shareable effect. In these examples, we hope you draw your own conclusions about how we, the audience, are willing participants who continue to increase the view count, even though we know the secret to their virality.
The videography of the band OK Go, from its 2003 music video “Get Over it” through its 2014 video for “I Won’t Let You Down,” displays how OK Go’s aesthetic and production values honor the desires of the online video audience. The “KONY 2012” video has had more than 100 million views and was made by the nonprofit Invisible Children; it is nearly 30 minutes long, a length that is almost unheard of for viral videos. “KONY 2012” has been the fodder for academics for many years, but we offer a cultural look at why you enjoyed it so much and why you can actually watch it again.
The corporate viral video advertising campaign of 2012–2014 for Old Spice with the Old Spice Guy uses advertising techniques to create viral experiences that are, without a doubt, some of the most successful corporate models to be used for brand awareness. From avant-garde commercials, to social media blitz campaigns, to trolling websites, the Old Spice campaign continues to break new ground in viral technique. With that in mind, we’ll discuss Jimmy Kimmel’s “Twerking Fail” video. The video is a perfect simulacrum of the world of viral content, and we will talk about how it was done in detail. Many YouTube users have attempted fake virals, and some have succeeded to an extent, but Jimmy Kimmel’s team used some of the best ethnographic research on viral content ever produced. From the room, to the quality, to the style, a lot of thought goes into the faux authenticity of a fake viral. You can’t fake real—but you may get away with it for a while.
From the early 1990s through the early 2000s, music video production was a competition. From Madonna to Michael Jackson to Backstreet Boys, music video costs were in the millions, as they competed for the attention of the album- and ticket-buying audience. By the early part of the twenty-first century, it was expected that a large part of a band’s budget would be for music video production. Music videos sold the image of the band, and the record company would get a solid return on its investment if a band sold out a concert as a result. Even independent labels were expected to create big-budget videos. In 2001, the indie band OK Go signed with Capitol Records and it released its first album in 2002.
Capitol gave OK Go nearly half a million dollars to produce its music video for the single “Get Over it.” The music video was highly produced, with hundreds of edits and visual tricks. It competed in the same visual space as all the top 20 Billboard bands, and the video paid off. The band toured for more than a year and half on its newfound fame. Damian Kulash, the lead singer of OK Go, had an idea to keep the audience excited at the concerts: a choreographed dance to end all their encore performances. Damian’s sister, Trish Sie, is a choreographer and she helped the band create a niche performance. They danced to the song “A Millions Ways.”
In 2005, the world of visual media shifted drastically. (We go much more in depth in the following chapter.) Music was becoming digital, and distributors were turning toward digital rights management (DRM) to manage their downloads. Damian took a stance against this tactic, saying that the audience didn’t want to be regulated, and that fans wouldn’t opt for “strings attached” music if they can find the file for free.15 His point of view attracted the attention of the audience of music lovers who enjoyed the web for its freedom. Although OK Go wasn’t the most popular mainstream band, its desire to go against the system made its members folk heroes of the web.
Oh No
OK Go’s next album came out at just the right (or wrong) moment, near the onset of YouTube and web video distribution. Damian’s own stance on DRM came back to bite him when his record company agreed that the audience would rather find free material than pay. The aptly named album Oh No came out to average reviews and became buried in the mix of other college radio music. Damian asked his sister to help them make a cheap, low-budget, entertaining music video. Capitol gave the band almost nothing in the form of budget for this new album’s videos. The band put together the music video for “A Million Ways” for about $15 (about $484,985 cheaper than the last video).16
The video shows a static camera shot set up in a backyard. The band’s members, dressed in their performance clothes and shoes, stand awkwardly as the previous track on the CD ends. A simple title card appears on screen: “OK GO in the backyard dancing.” Then it happens, a three-and-a-half-minute choreographed experience of the band doing one of the oddest dances performed by any band. Somewhere between synchronized swimming and performance art, the band sways, dips, and shuffles around the screen until the track ends. And the camera never moves, and the video never cuts. The aesthetic is like the early web video itself, of static camera shots of vloggers and odd awkward moments and raw video. Damian, the band, and Trish Sie understood the web’s viewers and presented directly to them.
Figure 5.3
OK Go “A Million Ways.”
The band uploaded the video on a standalone website called 1000000ways.com, and it was getting 250,000 views per week—more than the album’s sales in total. Damian and the band knew this was the right move to connect to the audience on their level, but Capitol didn’t agree. Damian explained at The Open Video Conference in 2010 that one of the Capitol Records executives told the band that, if this news “gets out, you’re sunk!” And the video was pulled from the web.
Open Minds
This moment in viral history is something to be noted. Even in the earliest days of the video-sharing sites, virality could be achieved by understanding the style the audience appreciated. In many ways, that style is instinctual. OK Go had been doing its silly dance for “A Million Ways” since the late 1990s, when they had just formed in Chicago. The real, in-person audience loved it, so why wouldn’t the online audience? And, in fact, the online audience really enjoyed the style, as it was real and authentic and awkward and a bit absurd—just like everything else online!
The next single, “Here it Goes Again,” needed a video. Damian immediately called his sister. He wanted something similar, but bigger and better. The next video cost nearly $10,000, of which $8,000 was spent on treadmills. Again, a static camera was used, in what is clearly a dance studio, with a tarp draped over the large mirror behind them. The band once again does a choreographed dance, this time assisted by the well-rehearsed, smooth motor movement of two rows of four treadmills, all operating simultaneously, and the video is again performed in one take. The label had no idea what to do with it, because it didn’t fit in the MTV space or any conventional music video style; Capitol posted it on StupidVideos.com. The band took matters into its own hands and posted it on YouTube a few weeks later. It immediately went viral, scoring between 600,000 and 800,000 views per day and over 2 million views by the end of the week. The indie band OK Go was asked to perform at the Video Music Awards (on treadmills) and featured in USA Today talking about new techniques. In a twist of pure, corporate irony, Capitol Records’ executive vice president, Ted Mico said, “We learned there’s no substitute for an open mind.”17
Henry Jenkins considers “Here it Goes Again” to be a perfect fit for YouTube. He told USA Today, in 2006, that the video is “a visual spectacle that you want to show to someone else.”18 Jenkins explains that true authenticity is hard to pull off. Damian agreed and felt that the web gives the band a direct connection with the fans. And this is really what it’s all about—connecting to the fans and the audience. If you can master that, you have the potential for sharing content rapidly. The media are already viral; it just takes the right moment to fulfill their path.
Over the last decade, OK Go has produced more than three-dozen music videos, and all have fit directly into the current trend of similar video aesthetics. The band even decided to make a video for every track on the album Of the Blue Colour of the Sky (2008). The aesthetic varies per track, but all fit into a YouTube environment. The song “WTF” is filmed in front of a green screen and takes advantage of digital artifacts and video trails. “End Love” is a single-take video, shot in a park over the course of 4 days, using new camera timelapse technology. (Yes—4 days! Uncut!) “White Knuckles” features dog tricks and IKEA containers, all choreographed to make a visually stimulating dance (dogs and dancing—viral recipe).
Independence and Support
The most impressive videos from that album mark the band’s split from EMI/Capitol Records. The band decided to become independent and start its own record company, called Paracadute.19 Although being independent has its benefits of keeping more profits, it also has the downside of lack of funding. The video for “All Is Not Lost” was combined with a Google Experiment, like The Arcade Fire’s “The Wilderness Downtown” project we talked about in Chapter 3. But what solidified OK Go as a viral powerhouse was the video for “This Too Shall Pass.” While on tour, the band recorded a one-take version of this video with the Notre Dame marching band, with live audio from the marching band. It was a throwback to the band’s origin—simple, rough, low-res, and uncut. Soon after it released this version of the video, it released the Rube Goldberg machine version of the video—an intense, single-take, huge-machine, timed experience.
The Rube Goldberg machine version of “This Too Shall Pass” changed the way we understand video funding and execution. It cost several hundred thousand dollars to make and required 89 takes and three “full machine takes” to record and dozens of staff members to create. And it required knowledge of how to fund it. Taking a tip from “Where the Hell Is Matt” (2008), the band realized it could ask a company to sponsor the video. “Where the Hell Is Matt” is a video about Matt Harding in an around-the-world experiment to document people dancing in all regions on Earth, from Saigon to New Guinea to Seattle. Matt was seen on the web, and Matt Lauer invited him on the Today show. The Today show acted as the tastemaker, encouraging others to see the video. When Matt got the attention he needed, he matched up with Stride Gum to sponsor his video. With 50 million views, Stride Gum’s investment paid off.
OK Go was offered support from State Farm for the production of the huge “This Too Shall Pass” video, and now the video is one of the best-known productions from the band. It has mastered the idea of branded content without losing authenticity. In a music video called “Needing/Getting,” the band made a music video using live audio and the Chevy Cruze car. Thirty seconds from the video were extracted and used as a commercial during the 2012 Super Bowl. This authentic approach to branded content is not easy. You have to build your audience first, and then gain monetary support. You cannot start with money in mind.
OK Go’s album Hungry Ghosts (2014) was supported by its fans using a crowd-funding platform called PledgeMusic, and the band promises to continue to break ground with original and creative videos. The video for “The Writing’s on the Wall” (2014) features a single-take, trompe l’oeil visual effect that required a large, choreographed crew and impeccable timing and framing. The video “I Won’t Let You Down” (2014) represents the capabilities of video production in the viral age. The band dances on high-tech scooters, while hundreds of umbrella-wielding backup dancers open and close in a synchronized art display—while being recorded by a drone that eventually flies above the clouds.
Figure 5.4
OK Go “I Won’t Let You Down” (2014) music video.
“I Won’t Let You Down” is sponsored by Honda, who supplied the scooters, but no one will care about the brand—they’ll watch the video over and over and share it because it displays the coolest possible evolution of web video available. OK Go, as a band, goes to great lengths to balance its corporate sponsorship and dedication to its fans. In order to focus on its artistic work, without exploiting its audience, the band maintains consistent communication with its fans in the digital space and remains as transparent as possible. OK Go’s videos, in order from 2003 to the present, display not only the current technical prowess of video production, but also a keen attention to what the audience wants to see. As you’ve read, viral videos usually happen by accident, and views are driven by tastemakers, unpredictability, and community support. OK Go has become a tastemaker with vast community support, and it is always coming up with new and unexpected projects. And we’ll continue watching and sharing.
Virals Out of Context
OK Go’s “Needing/Getting” used the Chevy Cruze compact car in the video, and then Chevy used the first 30 seconds of the video as one of its 2012 Super Bowl commercials. To air the commercial during the Super Bowl cost Chevy several million dollars, much more than it paid OK Go to produce the video. It paid off for both Chevy and the band.
This method of viral appropriation doesn’t always succeed as well. Take, for example, the honey badger Pistachio commercial. The viral video “The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger (Original Narration by Randall)” (2011) is a viral sensation as a quirky remix of a National Geographic special about the angry little badgers, produced in 2007. The “Nastyass Honey Badger” remix is along the lines of other National Geographic-style remixes, with voice dubs over the animals on screen—this one happened to go more viral than most because of the narration. The video became a meme and has been referenced widely. On September 30, 2011, Pistachio aired a commercial during Dancing With the Stars featuring the Randall narration and a similar script to the viral video.
If you were to have seen the commercial on Dancing With the Stars that night, along with 13 million other people, you might have been confused, if you didn’t know the origin video. If you aren’t web savvy, you may not actually understand many of the references Pistachio’s commercials make in reference to viral videos. It didn’t hurt Pistachio one bit, but it does help as a great example of how memes require time to enter our common consciousness and to be seen by a mass audience.
“KONY 2012”—THE 30-MINUTE VIRAL VIDEO
There’s no set rule for how long a viral video should be to become viral, and there’s also no set, standard recipe, but, when a 30-minute video gets 43 million views in 2 days, you should be interested in how that happened. On March 5, 2012, the “KONY 2012” video went live on YouTube, and, by the end of the first night, every single box that the organization Invisible Children made for the campaign to stop the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) warlord Joseph Kony had sold out. The video was made by Invisible Children, an organization whose goal it was to bring Joseph Kony to justice, and it did a far better job on the video production than it originally thought. Jason Russell, the CEO and protagonist of the video, assumed that virality meant getting maybe between 500,000 and a million views in a year and would be successful. They had 120 million in 5 days.20
How could this happen? Well, according to Kevin Allocca’s breakdown of how videos go viral, it contains all the necessary elements: tastemakers in the form of stars such as Angelina Jolie backing the project;21 the unexpectedness of the contents of the film—many people had never heard of Kony or the conflict in Africa; and it had a large community of supporters, including the US Congress. But still, at 30 minutes, there must be something else as part of the success. And there definitely is. We are going to break down the film into its major elements, to explain how, sometimes, virality isn’t determined by videos shared on the Internet, but by the collective conscious of viewers in the form of tropes.
The Experiment
In the video “Kony 2012,” we aren’t introduced to the enemy of the film until nearly 9 minutes into the production. The first few minutes are vital to grabbing the attention of the audience. For the opening sequence, a calm Jason Russell sets the mood for the next few minutes by explaining that more people are on Facebook now than the world’s total population 200 years ago. In framing the story, the video shows positive viral videos in a montage, such as “Thumbs Up for Rock and Roll” (2011) and “29 Years Old and Hearing Myself for the 1st Time!” (2011). By adding these positive images and a deep piano track, Russell sets the mood for something we want to watch. He then explains how to watch the video: “The game has new rules. The next twenty-seven minutes are an experiment. But in order for it to work, you have to pay attention.” As you’ll find out more next chapter, if you want the web audience to do something, you just have to ask them. In the case of “Kony 2012,” it’s an experiment: What do you have to lose?
In any good story, there are storytelling elements that are pretty standard in order to carry us through the plot. It has to have a beginning, middle, and an end, character development, rising action and falling action, and exposition. At the onset of this video, the audience has no idea who Jason Russell is, and so the first object of this video is to help the audience get over their collective doubt of the protagonist, our hero Jason Russell. The first few minutes give a backstory to Russell (family man, caring father, activist) and then introduce a supporting character, Jacob, a victim of the LRA abuses in Uganda. The images used in this first part are both supportive of, and positive for, Jason, and equally horrifying when it comes to Jacob and the other refugees sleeping in a camp (5:36).
Jacob’s story is heartbreaking. The emotional impact of his testimony is an incredible and authentic sadness that we, as an audience, wish never happened to him. Eight-and-half minutes in, Jason Russell explains that 2012 is the year we can catch Kony, our antagonist, “and change the course of human history.” And Kony is then introduced, with an expiration date at the end of 2012. To get the full sense of how to understand who Joseph Kony is, we are introduced to the next supporting actor, Gavin Russell, Jason’s son.
Gavin’s part is simple: He is us, the viewer. While we are not aware of the issues beyond what we’ve been told thus far, Jason asks the boy who the bad guys are, and we are given an insight to how the project was written. Jason asks Gavin if he knows what his dad does for a living, and Gavin answers that he “stops the bad guys” who happen to be “Star Wars people.” Gavin goes directly to the biggest, baddest bad guys he knows, and they happen to be Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers. This analogy makes sense, as you will see in a bit. Gavin is shown images of Joseph Kony and Jacob, and then Jason explains to his son the horrors of what Kony does. At 10:17 into the film, the boy is dismayed by the news and does a subtle shake of his head. He’s hurt, and so are we. We are now invested—we will watch the rest of the film!
Make Him Famous
Over the course of the next 10 minutes, the exposition of the film explains all the efforts Invisible Children is making to stop Kony, and the progress it has made. The film asks the viewers to pressure famous people (tastemakers) such as Rihanna and Justin Bieber to support the cause. The goal is set in place: Make him famous—as famous as other terrible humans, such as Hitler and Osama bin Laden. The video shows rallies and protests, and, just when the audience feels nearly empowered, it employs Shepard Fairey, the viral-esque street art remixer.
Fairey is best known for his Obey street signs and his Obama “Hope” poster, which many believe helped Obama in his polls.22 His skill set is remixing other work to be visually stimulating. He says, “I’m not a corporation or own a news station, I just don’t have any say. But see what I’ve done and I think it’s empowered a lot of people to realize that one individual can make an impact.”
In the 25th minute (25:23), the deep bass “I Can’t Stop” by Flux Pavilion plays, and we are in! Let’s light a flare, run around, and catch Kony!
But instead—we shared the video and believed we did our part.
The Magic of Storytelling—Peeling away the structure
At the Northeast Media Literacy Conference in 2012, the “KONY 2012” phenomenon dominated the conversation of more than half the panels, as it probably did at any media literacy function. The video felt like an anomaly, as it debuted on YouTube to a viral boost so rapid that it beat the previous record holder, “Susan Boyle’s First Audition” (2009). It wasn’t a hard stretch to make a very similar comparison between the “KONY 2012” video and the Susan Boyle video, because, perhaps, they are the same video.
In traditional storytelling, the elements are nearly universal to any good story. As mentioned previously, the elements exist to keep the viewers’ attention and to move the plot along. But, if you strip out all the elements, what do you have? A protagonist we don’t know and we must learn to trust. An antagonist that, through elements involved in the story, we learn to hate. Supporting characters help us trust the protagonist and support the plot. And a quality exposition leads to a climax that creates an emotional impact to remember our hero and support the cause.
In the first few seconds of the Susan Boyle video, we get a close-up of her face and we, the audience, immediately judge her, before the actual game show judges of Britain’s Got Talent even see her. Susan walks out onto the stage and faces her enemies: Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan, and Amanda Holden. You can see from their faces that Susan is already at a disadvantage and she’ll have to fight to survive. In this video, the supporting characters are very literal: The judges are judges, the supporting characters are the emcees, and the audience (like Gavin Russell) is actually, well, an audience. And they all play their parts perfectly. Simon asks Susan what she wants to be, and she replies: “Like Elaine Paige!” This is met with rolling eyes and our collective agreement that this’ll be tough. Then she sings, “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables, and the battle begins. Our jaws drop, because she sings it beautifully, and, over the next 4 minutes, we’re treated to a story plot that takes James Cameron 3 hours to complete in his movies.
And that’s where it starts to make sense: Simon Cowell is the “Star Wars People,” because the bad guys are always the “Star Wars People.” Star Wars: The Empire strikes back is the same plot as “KONY 2012” and “Susan Boyle’s First Audition,” and the same as Avatar and Titanic. It is the one story that is so consistently found in popular films, and it’s called the monomyth, or the hero’s journey. Joseph Campbell borrowed the term from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake to describe the story that we seem to share most often.23 It is a storytelling trope that describes easy-to-carry storylines, from some of the oldest stories we’ve ever heard to the most sci-fi plotlines we know. When people are asked what Avatar is about, some of the responses are “Pocahontas (in space)” or “Dances With Wolves (in Space),” and that’s because those films are also the monomyth. It’s no wonder that Avatar is the highest-grossing film of all time, if “KONY 2012” and “Susan Boyle” are the fastest-growth videos—people love that story.
As a good reader of new and digital media, you should ask questions about why something can go viral. It may fall into Kevin Allocca’s recipe of tastemakers, active community, and unpredictability; or it may fall into the shock and awe and cuteness category; or it just may be a story that we like to hear over and over.
Figure 5.5
The hero’s journey.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Viral Activism
The “KONY 2012” video obviously received a fair amount of criticism of its campaign because it so quickly rose into the cultural commentary. Anything that gains a quick rise, such as a viral video, will attract attention and commentary. In the case of “KONY 2012,” the nonprofit Invisible Children was targeted, because, when people looked into how much of the money raised went directly to stopping Joseph Kony, it turned out to be less than people originally believed. Many felt the funds were better spent on supporting aid groups in Africa. (The film alone cost $3.8 million.)24
The “KONY 2012” video allows us to have a discussion about “clicktivism” versus actual activism. Clicktivism, also known as armchair activism, is a form of viral sharing that convinces the user that they have made a difference, simply by sharing the content. In reality, that just raises the brand awareness, rather than making a difference. In the summer of 2014, a viral meme appeared called “The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge,” which acted as both a fundraiser and a viral activist campaign. The campaign was designed to raise awareness and attract donations for research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a disease that causes nerve cells to break down and die, with no known cure. The viral campaign, which started in the Boston area in the summer of 2014, was a success.25 It raised over $100 million for ALS research. Although many criticized the ice bucket challenge for misused funds, as with KONY, in both situations awareness of an issue was raised.
Ultimately, the best campaign is a campaign that causes awareness and funding and support. This is incredibly hard to do, but the video method of virality seems to be the most powerful method.
RESELLING DEODORANT THROUGH VIRALS
The Old Spice brand of deodorant, anti-perspirant, and body spray used to have an image issue. Once used primarily by an older male crowd (see: elderly), it wasn’t viewed as an appealing product by young men at all. That all changed when the ad agency Wieden+Kennedy hired former football player turned actor Isaiah Mustafa to play “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” in 2010. Through a brilliant gamble, savvy writing, and playing on a recent advertising trend of “you” campaigns, Old Spice completely changed its image, and a primarily younger male crowd purchases today.
“You” Campaigns
In 2009, just 3 years after Time magazine named “You” person of the year, ad agencies worldwide started thinking about how to attract “you” to their products. “You,” here, is defined as the overall you, not the personal you, as in the you of YouTube. Yahoo! rebranded in 2009 to a you-type style with its “It’s You” anthem commercial,26 and the now defunct Flip camera ran a similar campaign. The most effective of these campaigns was the HTC “Quietly Brilliant” advertising campaign, by Deutsch LA Inc. The mobile phone maker HTC has tough competition, with Apple dominating the market, and the campaign exploits “the emotional connection now common between man and phone,”27 found the rhetoric and civic life course at Penn State. HTC’s campaign keeps the pronouns simple and speaks in second person, making you feel as if you need this phone because it gets you better than anything else. Rhetorically, it works in an eerily similar way to a fortune cookie, in that it always feels directed to you personally.
“The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
In the following year, Old Spice utilized the same methods of attracting viewers to its brand. It starts as a standard cologne commercial would, with a shirtless man in a towel. But it’s different, because the Old Spice guy isn’t talking to men–he’s talking to women. It’s a completely unpredictable commercial shot in one take (see: OK Go), where the scene around the Old Spice guy rapidly shifts from a shower scene to boat to a beach, on a horse. His rhetoric is that of the fortune cookie, where he holds open a clam filled with “two tickets to that thing you love—look again! The tickets are now diamonds! Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady.”
In 2 weeks, the commercial on YouTube had more than 3 million views, and now, over 50 million. The oddness of the commercial and the frank “you” rhetoric make the video shareable, even if you don’t want to purchase Old Spice products. Over the next few years, Old Spice pushed the boundaries of odd campaigns by downplaying the specific details of their product and selling the image of “you.” Old Spice stays with the trends of virality over time to sell to the present audience. Hiring Terry Crews, another actor and former football player, Old Spice increased the weirdness of its ads to continue with unpredictability.
“Interneterventions”
In 2013, Old Spice’s parent company Procter & Gamble took advantage of the gullibility of social media users by creating a prank viral campaign that looked like odd products that people would click on out of curiosity, such as solid-gold headsets, cologne with protein, and black-leather sheets. The Old Spice “Interneterventions” campaign disguised amusing commercials starring Isaiah Mustafa behind odd websites. In order to attract a younger crowd, the brand aimed directly at guys who may click on competing products.28 The campaign brings the user to a realistic-looking website, which sounds an alarm, and the commercial begins. At the end, users are encouraged to prank another friend who may be making “embarrassing life mistakes.”
If a company that is three-fourths of a century old can change its image using viral campaigns, there’s hope for any brand. It just has to be weird and unpredictable and shareable. The weirdness of the campaign put it in meme territory, making it something that makes you feel that you have to see to believe. And, in doing so, Old Spice shaved 50 years off its aftershave audience.
The term “broadcasting” takes its name from a piece of farm equipment that cast seeds in a broad throw. In terms of video placement, another term that comes from farming is “seeding.” If you need an immense number of views of your video in a short length of time, there are seeding companies that exist to help you increase your play count.
If you want to see how viral videos are ranked, you can check the Viral Video Chart,29 run by Unruly Media. The chart tracks viral movement of content through a combination of view count, shares, and mentions. Virality isn’t just about how many times a video is seen; it is also about how much the video embeds itself in our digital culture. Unruly Media operates the chart because it needs the data to gauge its viral success. “Unruly is the leading programmatic platform for social video advertising,” its website states. Social video advertising means that, sometimes, the reason you are stumbling across a viral video is because it was actually planted there—or “seeded” on your feed. For a somewhat pricey fee, you can pay companies such as Unruly Media or the social video agency the Viral Factory to “deliver online engagement through compelling content.”30
Unruly Media’s work has ranged from Cadbury (the parent company of Stride Gum) to the Old Spice campaign. Sometimes, you need to ask yourself how you are coming across that viral commercial—is it by chance, or did a company seed it there to grow into a beautiful cultural flower?
Corporate video seeding is relegated to viral video distribution; it can be used to spread videos for any campaign. The online audience often overlooks the reasons as to why a video is placed on its feed or in its advertising line of sight, unaware that the video was placed there intentionally. The same tools used to make you laugh at a new campaign may also be used to spread a message that may not be in your best interest. Seeding companies are getting better at making video placement look “organic” or placed for natural user reasons, but you should keep a skeptical eye on why a video gains so many views so quickly.
We end this chapter with one of the biggest misconceptions about viral videos: that they can be easily made. Very often, we hear students or consultants complain to us that they’ve been asked to “make something go viral.” The term is thrown around widely after several advertising campaigns successfully “went viral,” and now others would like to appear savvy and part of the growing trend. Our advice is not to try to go viral, because that isn’t always a good thing. Sometimes, videos go viral for the exact opposite reason someone would want. The Missouri East Hills Mall commercial is so poorly made that it went viral. The Reddit community found the ad and posted it as “Terrible Mall Commercial” (2014), and it now has more than 2 million views. The producer of the video set out to make a “viral” video in a serious manner, but director Chris Fleck’s best intentions went viral because it was so bad.31
It is possible to make a viral video; it requires an extreme attention to detail and authenticity. It also requires timing, trend watching, and placement. On August 25, 2013, Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke performed together at the MTV Video Music Awards, to a medley of their songs (“We Can’t Stop” and “Blurred Lines”), and the performance ended with Miley giving Robin Thicke “an up close and personal private twerk show as the song climaxed.”32 For the next week, the odd, risqué, bottom-bouncing dance dominated the pop-culture news and reporting. On September 3, a little over a week later, the video “Worst Twerk Fail EVER—Girl catches fire!” (2013) was uploaded on YouTube. The video shows a young woman seemingly home alone, creating a web video showing off her twerking skills. She props herself on the door, dancing away, until her roommate comes home, knocking the dancer down onto a coffee table, and she catches fire. The video ends abruptly in the middle of the screaming aftermath. It gained millions of views in a week—and it was fake.
Attention to Detail and Research
Making a viral video requires watching lots of viral videos and studying all aspects of them—from the timing to the camera moves to the reactions of the people involved. If you want to trick people, you have to assume that the viral audience may be cynical and looking for potential flaws. When G4BreakingNews posted “Eagle Picks up a Baby” (2012), so many people watched it that the Montreal’s National Animation and Design Center (Centre NAD) had to post a notice assuring people that their babies are safe from being snatched by an eagle.33 The video has rawness, authenticity, and unpredictable timing that make the viewer want to believe it, but, on multiple views, the CGI is evident. Art students created the effect in computer graphics in their simulation workshop production class at Centre NAD and most likely got a high passing grade.
Jimmy Kimmel understands that late-night television needs the boost of online video to support its viewership, as the late-night audience may not be his target audience. Kimmel consistently makes web videos that go viral, with America’s Funniest Home Videos-type audience dares such as his “YouTube Challenges,” “I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy” (2011), and “I Gave My Kids a Terrible Present” (2012). Kimmel encourages the viewers to tape their kids’ reactions to devastating news and send the videos in to Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he reedits them into a compilation.
When Jimmy Kimmel wanted to experiment with original viral material, he hired Brad Morrison of Slim Pictures to create a viral sensation. Morrison admits to watching lots of twerking videos and all the details: “who was in them, where they were shot, what was in the background, what the lighting was like, etc.”34 After doing a fair amount of research, Kimmel’s staff built a set to mimic a dorm room, because fire wouldn’t be permitted on an actual college campus. The details were down to the molding and light switches. Because of copyright, they couldn’t use just any track, so they used something from their music library called “Grind Games.” They then hired Daphne Avalon, a stuntwoman, to play the role of the doomed twerker. She wore common yoga pants, and Brad Morrison even left her tag out as an added detail. Morrison hired Daphne because he needed someone who wouldn’t be recognizable but also was willing to take a fall and catch on fire. Lastly, they shot the viral with a MacBook Pro computer to create full authenticity.
Riding on the wave of the twerking news, the video blew up and gained millions of views, until Jimmy Kimmel announced on his show that he would be inviting poor Caitlin Heller from Kansas City, Missouri, onto his show to talk about her incident. Caitlin/Daphne was Skyped in on her web camera (the offending capture device!), and then, while Caitlin was explaining “her accident,” Jimmy appeared next to her at her dorm and then, through the magic of television, revealed Daphne as an actress on live TV. The reveal has more views than the original twerking fail video, because it truly is an unpredictable event. In the “uncut” version of the video, Jimmy shows up to put Caitlin’s fire out and turns off the web camera.
Viral Videos With an Asterisk
The effect of a viral video is not only momentary visual enjoyment, but could also potentially be making you complicit in societal issues that require community attention. The video “Star Wars Kid” is a great example of virals we shouldn’t watch and share. Ghyslain Raza did not intend for that video to get out to the public. When his classmates placed the video online, the video went viral, and Raza fell victim to immense amounts of cyberbullying. Watching and sharing the video make us complicit in Raza’s pain. In the present, Raza is now a lawyer and has utilized the video to bring awareness to cyberbullying.
“Star Wars Kid” isn’t the only video we should talk about in this manner. The very viral remix videos such as “The Bed Intruder Song” (2010) by schmoyoho and “Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That!” (2012) by parodyfactory1 allow us to have a conversation about exploitation. In both videos, the viral fame comes from the remixer, not the original content, and, in both examples, the video is a remix of an interview of a black American from a seemingly lower socioeconomic region. This type of viral is exploitive, as it popularizes black culture without confronting the issue of how the reporter originally came across the interview and why the news agency allowed the interview to go on air as is. Additionally, in both situations, the subject is a victim of unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances that were out of the interviewees’ control, and we, the viewers of the viral video, seem to ignore the potential setback to both Antoine Dodson and Kimberly “Sweet Brown” Wilkins. By watching the videos, we are making light of the issues of attempted rape and property destruction that are harmful to communities.
This type of exploitation for entertainment has always occurred and can be seen even in happy videos such as “29 Years Old and Hearing Myself for the 1st Time!” (2011), which shows the joy in a woman’s face as her cochlear implants are turned on. This video tells the viewer to watch the woman objectively and unfortunately sidesteps what it means to truly understand and appreciate deaf culture and the significance of being hearing impaired. Sarah Churman was born deaf, and we celebrate the feat of her hearing for the first time, rather than celebrate her for who she is naturally.
To be a savvy user of the web means to be considerate of larger societal issues and understand the power we, the viewers, have in the act of viewing and sharing. We are capable of increasing awareness for issues that are often ignored and we are equally capable of ignoring issues embedded in the content. Be aware of what you watch and you will be a smarter viewer and online participant.
For videos to go viral, they may need tastemakers such as Jimmy Kimmel; they may need the unpredictability of a single-take, quirky ad campaign; they may need a supportive community willing to drive up views and continue to share new and original music videos; and, sometimes, it just needs the same story retold in a new and interesting way. But the only way a video goes viral is if you watch and share the video, over and over and over and over and over …
NOTES
1 Vernallis, C. (2013). Unruly Media: YouTube, music video, and the new digital cinema. New York: Oxford University Press.
2 Greenfield, R. (2013, August 8). “The Internet’s Attention Span for Video Is Quickly Shrinking.” Retrieved from www.thewire.com/technology/2013/08/internets-attention-span-video-quickly-shrinking/68114/ (accessed May 6, 2015).
3 Statistic Brain. (2014). Attention span statistics. Retrieved from www.statisticbrain.com/attention-span-statistics/ (accessed May 6, 2015).
4 Greenfield, R. (2014, September 18). “How Big Does a Screen Need to Be to Watch a Film?” Retrieved from www.thewire.com/technology/2012/09/how-big-does-screen-need-be-watch-film/56971/ (accessed May 6, 2015).
5 Vernallis, C. (2013). Unruly Media: YouTube, music video, and the new digital cinema. New York: Oxford University Press.
6 As told to the Molloy College New Media program, October 2013.
7 Carlson, E. (2008, March 24). “YouTube Awards ‘Chocolate Rain,’ Other Top Videos.” Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4502057 (accessed May 6, 2015).
8 Time (2009, September 9). “YouTube’s 50 Best Videos.” Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1974961,00.html (accessed May 6, 2015).
9 Winnebago man. Retrieved from http://winnebagoman.com/ (accessed May 6, 2015).
10 Godin, S. (2000 August). “Unleash Your Idea Virus.” Retrieved from www.fastcompany.com/40104/unleash-your-ideavirus (accessed May 6, 2015).
11 Segal, D. (2005 August 11). “Who’s the Comedian?” Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081002371.html (accessed May 6, 2015).
12 Itzkoff, D. (2005, December 27). “Nerds in the Hood, Stars on the Web.” Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/arts/television/27samb.html?_r=0 (accessed May 6, 2015).
13 Weezer (2009). “Pork and Beans.” Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQHPYelqr0E (accessed May 6, 2015).
14 Allocca, K. (2012, February). “Why Videos Go Viral [transcript].” Retrieved from www.ted.com/talks/kevin_allocca_why_videos_go_viral/transcript?language=en (accessed May 6, 2015).
15 Kulash, D. (2005, December 6). “Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat.” Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/06kulash.html?_r=0/ (accessed May 6, 2015).
16 According to Damian—Presented at the Open Video Conference, October 1, 2010.
17 Maney, K. (2006 November 28). “Blend of Old, New Media Launched OK Go.” Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-11-27-ok-go_x.htm (accessed May 6, 2015).
18 Ibid.
19 OK Go (2010, March 9). “OK Go Announces New Label.” Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdyb_Ip_R8w (accessed May 6, 2015).
20 Sanders, S. (2014, June 14). “The ‘Kony 2012’ Effect: Recovering from a viral sensation.” Retrieved from www.npr.org/2014/06/14/321853244/the-kony-2012-effect-recovering-from-a-viral-sensation (accessed May 6, 2015).
21 Child, B. (2012, March 12). “Kony 2012: Angelina Jolie calls for Ugandan warlord’s arrest.” Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/film/2012/mar/12/kony-2012-angelina-jolie?INTCMP=SRCH%20back%20the%20campaign (accessed May 6, 2015).
22 Arnon, B. (2008, November 13). “How the Obama ‘Hope’ Poster Reached a Tipping Point and Became a Cultural Phenomenon: An interview with the artist Shepard Fairey.” Retrieved from www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-arnon/how-the-obama-hope-poster_b_133874.html (accessed May 6, 2015).
23 Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero With a Thousand Faces. New York: Pantheon Books.
24 Curran, K. (2012, March 8). “Donating to Kony 2012: Where does the money go?” Retrieved from http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/03/08/donating-to-kony-2012-where-does-the-money-go/ (accessed May 6, 2015).
25 Reddy, S. (2014, August 14). “How the Ice-Bucket Challenge Got Its Start.” Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/articles/how-the-ice-bucket-challenge-got-its-start-1408049557 (accessed May 6, 2015).
26 Yahoo! (2009, September 28). “Anthem (It’s You).” Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0tukrdXz-Q (accessed May 6, 2015).
27 Randclife (2013, October 10). “HTC ‘You’ Campaign.” Retrieved from https://sites.psu.edu/randclife/2013/10/10/htc-you-campaign/ (accessed May 6, 2015).
28 Thornton, M. (2014, January 22). “This New Old Spice Video Is the Most Hilarious Internet Ad so far This Year.” Retrieved from www.buzzfeed.com/maycie/is-this-new-old-spice-video-the-most-hilarious-internet-ad-s#.gr4Q6mJeJ5 (accessed May 6, 2015).
29 Viral Video Chart. Unruly Media. Retrieved from http://viralvideochart.unrulymedia.com/all (accessed May 6, 2015).
30 The Viral Factory. Retrieved from www.theviralfactory.com/#!/agency (accessed May 6, 2015).
31 Carbone, G. (2014, August 19). “The East Hills Mall’s Back-to-School Commercial Goes Viral for All the Wrong Reasons [video].” Retrieved from http://news.moviefone.com/2014/08/19/mall-back-to-school-commercial-viral/ (accessed May 6, 2015).
32 Mlynar, P. (2013, August 25). “Miley Cyrus Twerks, Gives Robin Thicke Some Tongue at VMAs.” Retrieved from www.mtv.com/news/1713017/miley-cyrus-robin-thicke-vma-twerk/ (accessed May 6, 2015).
33 Centre NAD. Retrieved from http://blogue.centrenad.com/2012/12/19/centre-nad-reassures-montrealers-no-danger-of-being-snatched-by-a-royal-eagle/?lang=en (accessed May 6, 2015).
34 Ferra, A. (2014, October). “Director Brad Morrison Reveals How He and Jimmy Kimmel Made the Best Twerk Fail Video. Ever.” Retrieved from www.fastcocreate.com/3017194/director-brad-morrison-reveals-how-he-and-jimmy-kimmel-made-the-best-twerk-fail-video-ever (accessed May 6, 2015).