Going Viral

The Ted talks videos that we watched were quite insightful.  It definitely gave a new perspective on how to look at where current media and entertainment trends are heading.  Despite the quality difference for video entertainment with regards to film making compared to YouTube video making, there is definitely a demand for both in our current state.  I never really thought that YouTube videos could really be studied and looked at the way they are now, but the points that were brought up are absolutely true.  The tribes, taste makers, community participation and unexpectedness are very good ways to either evaluate a current viral video or to anticipate one.  And when I look at what makes a viral video now, I cannot help but wonder that even with these qualities being recognized, it is still difficult to have a video go viral intentionally, even if you have the entire formula needed to make one fall within the requirements.  I am curious now to see how many of the student videos may actually end up going viral, or what I am expecting is to see how many of us realize how random and difficult it is to make one viral.  Another aspect that could speed up the process on YouTube would be to pay the extra money so that the video is played and advertised more frequently.  I wonder how much of it comes down to money as well.  In a sense, money to fund the advertising to spread the video faster may in part act as a taste maker when one may not be supporting your video.  This then comes down to marketing.  All the different ways that have been discussed as to what the qualities are to for a viral video are surprisingly true though.  When I started to think about all the videos that I have seen go viral, they all met that category.  But there is one quality that I noticed was most present in all the viral videos and that is the unexpectedness.  Often we are so surprised as to what we see in the videos that we feel a need to immediately share what we have seen with our friends and family.  This then continues the surprise to a larger audience which in turn shares it and so on.  Making our own video go viral will be a challenging task, but an interesting experiment.