Viral phenomena or viral sensations are objects or
pattern
A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated l ...
s that are able to
replicate themselves or convert other objects into copies of themselves when these objects are exposed to them. Analogous to
the way in which viruses propagate, the term ''viral'' pertains to a video, image, or written content spreading to numerous online users within a short time period.
This concept has become a common way to describe how thoughts, information, and trends move into and through a human population.
The popularity of viral media has been fueled by the rapid rise of social network sites,
wherein audiences—who are metaphorically described as experiencing "infection" and "contamination"—play as passive carriers rather than an active role to 'spread' content, making such content "go viral".
The term ''viral media'' differs from ''
spreadable media'' as the latter refers to the ''potential'' of content to become viral.
Meme
A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that Mimesis, spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying c ...
s are one known example of informational viral patterns.
History
Terminology
Meme
The word
meme
A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that Mimesis, spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying c ...
was coined by
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...
in his 1976 book ''
The Selfish Gene
''The Selfish Gene'' is a 1976 book on evolution by ethologist Richard Dawkins that promotes the gene-centred view of evolution, as opposed to views focused on the organism and the group. The book builds upon the thesis of George C. Willia ...
'' as an attempt to explain
memetics
Memetics is a theory of the evolution of culture based on Darwinian principles with the meme as the unit of culture. The term "meme" was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book '' The Selfish Gene'', to illustrate the principle that h ...
; or, how ideas replicate, mutate, and evolve.
When asked to assess this comparison,
Lauren Ancel Meyers, a biology professor at the University of Texas, stated that "memes spread through online social networks similarly to the way diseases do through offline populations." This dispersion of cultural movements is shown through the spread of memes online, especially when seemingly innocuous or trivial trends spread and die in rapid fashion.
For example, multiple viral videos featuring
Vince McMahon
Vincent Kennedy McMahon ( ; born August 24, 1945) is an American businessman and former professional wrestling promoter. McMahon, along with his later-estranged wife Linda McMahon, Linda, is a co-founder of the modern WWE, the world's largest ...
promoted misogynistic messages and hate against Jewish people, women, and the LGBTQ+ community. The video depicted McMahon throwing money into the ring at a
WWE
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is an American professional wrestling promotion. It is owned and operated by TKO Group Holdings, a majority-owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. A global integrated media and entertainment company, ...
event. This video was taken out of context to support misogynistic views for the Men Going Their Own Way Movement to gain attention according to research led by
the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
This example demonstrates how public figures are turned into viral phenomena. Popular audio and video content on apps like
TikTok
TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
are also used as memes of public figures.
Viral
The term ''viral'' pertains to a video, image, or written content spreading to numerous online users within a short time period.
If something goes viral, many people discuss it. Accordingly,
Tony D. Sampson defines ''viral phenomena'' as spreadable accumulations of events, objects, and affects that are overall content built up by popular discourses surrounding network culture.
There is also a relationship to the biological notion of disease spread and epidemiology. In this context, "going viral" is similar to an epidemic spread, which occurs if more than one person is infected by a pathogen for every person infected. Thus, if a piece of content is shared with more than one person every time it is seen, then this will result in viral growth.
In ''
Understanding Media
''Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man'' is a 1964 book by Marshall McLuhan, in which the author proposes that the media, not the content that they carry, should be the focus of study. He suggests that the medium affects the society in whi ...
'' (1964), philosopher
Marshall McLuhan
Herbert Marshall McLuhan (, ; July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media studies, media theory. Raised in Winnipeg, McLuhan studied at the University of Manitoba a ...
describes photography in particular, and technology in general, as having a potentially "virulent nature." In
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard (, ; ; – 6 March 2007) was a French sociology, sociologist and philosopher with an interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as hi ...
's 1981 treatise ''
Simulacra and Simulation
''Simulacra and Simulation'' () is a 1981 philosophical treatise by the philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard, in which he seeks to examine the relationships between reality, symbols, and society, in particular the significations ...
'', the philosopher describes ''
An American Family'', arguably the first "reality" television series, as a marker of a new age in which the medium of television has a "viral, endemic, chronic, alarming presence."
Another formulation of the 'viral' concept includes the term ''media virus'', or ''viral media'', coined by
Douglas Rushkoff, who defines it as a type of
Trojan horse
In Greek mythology, the Trojan Horse () was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer, Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending ...
: "People are duped into passing a hidden agenda while circulating compelling content."
Mosotho South-African media theorist Thomas Mofolo uses Rushkoff's idea to define ''viral'' as a type of virtual
collective consciousness
Collective consciousness, collective conscience, or collective conscious () is the set of shared beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.''Collins Dictionary of Sociology'', p93. In general, it doe ...
that primarily manifests via
digital media
In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...
networks and evolves into offline actions to produce a new social reality. Mofolo bases this definition on a study about how internet users involved in the Tunisian Arab Spring perceived the value of Facebook towards their revolution. Mofolo's understanding of the viral was first developed in a study on
Global Citizen's #TogetherAtHome campaign and used to formulate a new theoretical framework called ''Hivemind Impact''. Hivemind impact is a specific type of virality that is simulated via digital media networks with the goal of harnessing the virtual collective consciousness to take action on a social issue. For Mofolo, the viral eventually evolves into McLuhan's '
global village' when the virtual collective consciousness reaches a point of noogenesis that then becomes the noosphere.
Content is more likely to reach this point, however, if it embodies certain characteristics that drive consumers to share. Research conducted by Dr. Jonah Berger at The University of Pennsylvania, summarized in his book ''Contagious: Why Things Catch On,'' suggests that content’s shareability can be increased by activating six key S.T.E.P.P.S. (i.e., Social currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical value, and Stories).
Social currency refers to the fact that people are more likely to share things that make them look good, rather than bad. Consequently, the more sharing something makes people look smart, special, or in the know, the more likely they are to pass it on.
Triggers – top of mind means tip of tongue. Sharing something requires thinking about it first, so the more people are reminded about a particular thing, the more likely they are to share it. Rebecca Black’s viral hit “Friday” gained traction from the built-in trigger of the end of the week.
Emotion – when we care, we share. The more something activates emotion, particularly high arousal ones, the more likely people are to pass it on. An advertisement that tugs on heartstrings is more likely to be shared than an unemotional one.
Public – built to show, built to grow. People tend to imitate others. But they can only imitate what others are doing if they can see it. So the easier it is to see what others are doing, the easier it is to imitate. Visible colors, patterns, or logos as well as things like "I voted" stickers facilitate imitation.
Practical value – news you can use. People want to help others, so the more useful something is, the more likely people are to share it. Ways to save time and money, or useful advice, are all examples of this.
Stories are vessels, or carriers of information. They bring products, services, and ideas along for the ride. So building a Trojan Horse Story can be a helpful way to encourage something to spread.
Content sharing
Early history
Before writing and while most people were illiterate, the dominant means of spreading memes was
oral culture
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985), reporte ...
like
folk tales,
folk song
Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...
s, and
oral poetry
Oral poetry is a form of poetry that is composed and transmitted without the aid of writing. The complex relationships between written and spoken literature in some societies can make this definition hard to maintain.
Background
Oral poetry is ...
, which mutated over time as each retelling presented an opportunity for change. The
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in whi ...
provided an easy way to copy written texts instead of handwritten
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...
s. In particular, pamphlets could be published in only a day or two, unlike books which took longer. For example,
Martin Luther
Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...
's ''
Ninety-five Theses'' took only two months to spread throughout Europe. A study of United States newspapers in the 1800s found
human-interest, "news you can use" stories and
list-focused articles circulated nationally as local papers mailed copies to each other and selected content for reprinting.
Chain letter
A chain letter is a message that attempts to convince the recipient to make a number of copies and pass them on to a certain number of recipients. The "chain" is an exponentially growing pyramid (a tree graph) that cannot be sustained indefini ...
s spread by
postal mail throughout the 1900s.
Urban legends
Urban legend (sometimes modern legend, urban myth, or simply legend) is a genre of folklore concerning stories about an unusual (usually scary) or humorous event that many people believe to be true but largely are not.
These legends can be e ...
also began as word-of-mouth memes. Like hoaxes, they are examples of falsehoods that people swallow, and, like them, often achieve broad public notoriety.
CompuServ
Beyond vocal sharing, the 20th century made huge strides in the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...
and the ability to content share. In 1979,
dial-up internet service provided by the company
CompuServ was a key player in online communications and how information began spreading beyond the print. Those with access to a computer in the earliest of stages could not comprehend the full effect that public access to the internet could or would create. It is hard to remember the times of newspapers being delivered to households across the country in order to receive their news for the day, and it was when ''
The Columbus Dispatch
''The Columbus Dispatch'' is a daily newspaper based in Columbus, Ohio. Its first issue was published on July 1, 1871, and it has been the only mainstream daily newspaper in the city since ''The Columbus Citizen-Journal'' ceased publication in ...
'' out of Columbus, Ohio broke barriers when it was first to publish in online format. The success that was predicted by CompuServe and the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
led to some of the largest newspapers to become part of the movement to publish the news via online format. Content sharing in the journalism world brings new advances to viral aspects of how news is spread in a matter of seconds.
Internet memes
The creation of the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
enabled users to select and share content with each other electronically, providing new, faster, and more decentralized controlled channels for spreading memes.
Email forwards are essentially text memes, often including jokes, hoaxes,
email scams, written versions of urban legends, political messages, and digital chain letters; if widely forwarded they might be called '
viral email
A viral email (also known as a "pass-along email") is an email which rapidly propagates from person to person, generally in a word-of-mouth manner. It is an example of a viral phenomenon, which is used for profit in viral marketing, but can also ...
s'. User-friendly consumer photo editing tools like
Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe for Windows and macOS. It was created in 1987 by Thomas and John Knoll. It is the most used tool for professional digital art, especially in raster graphics editin ...
and image-editing websites have facilitated the creation of the genre of the
image macro, where a popular image is overlaid with different humorous text phrases. These memes are typically created with
Impact font. The growth of video-sharing websites like
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
made
viral video
Viral videos are video, videos that become popular through viral phenomenon, a viral process of Internet sharing, primarily through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhon ...
s possible.
It is sometimes difficult to predict which images and videos will "go viral"; sometimes the creation of a new
Internet celebrity
An Internet celebrity, also referred to as an Internet personality, is an individual who has acquired or developed their fame and notability on the Internet. The growing popularity of social media provides a means for people to reach a large ...
is a sudden surprise. One of the first documented viral videos is "
Numa Numa", a webcam video of then-19-year-old Gary Brolsma
lip-syncing
Lip sync or lip synch (pronounced , like the word ''sink'', despite the spelling of the participial forms ''synced'' and ''syncing''), short for lip synchronization, is a technical term for matching a speaking or singing person's lip movements ...
and dancing to the Romanian pop song "
Dragostea Din Tei
"Dragostea din tei" (; Romanian: "Love From the Linden Tree") is a song recorded by Moldovan group O-Zone, released around July 2003 in Romania by Media Services as the lead single from their third studio album '' DiscO-Zone'' (2003). It was ...
".
The sharing of text, images, videos, or links to this content have been greatly facilitated by
social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
such as
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
and
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
. Other mimicry memes carried by Internet media include
hashtag
A hashtag is a metadata tag operator that is prefaced by the hash symbol, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services–especially Twitter and Tumblr–as a form of user-generated tagging that enable ...
s, language variations like intentional misspellings, and fads like
planking. The popularity and widespread distribution of Internet memes have gotten the attention of advertisers, creating the field of
viral marketing
Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way th ...
. A person, group, or company desiring much fast, cheap publicity might create a hashtag, image, or video designed to go viral; many such attempts are unsuccessful, but the few posts that "go viral" generate much publicity.
Types
Viral videos
Viral videos are among the most common type of viral phenomena. A viral video is any clip of animation or film that is spread rapidly through online sharing. Viral videos can receive millions of views as they are shared on social media sites, reposted to blogs, sent in emails and so on. When a video goes viral it has become very popular. Its exposure on the Internet grows exponentially as more and more people discover it and share it with others. An article or an image can also become viral.
The classification is probably assigned more as a result of intensive activity and the rate of growth among users in a relatively short amount of time than of simply how many hits something receives. Most viral videos contain humor and fall into broad categories:
* Unintentional: Videos that the creators never intended to go viral. These videos may have been posted by the creator or shared with friends, who then spread the content.
* Humorous: Videos that have been created specifically to
entertain people. If a video is funny enough, it will spread.
*

Musical: Since the introduction of viral phenomena on the internet, it has served as a means of not only skyrocketing independent tracks onto the music charts, but some artists have had their entire career rooted in an introduction to the
music industry
The music industry are individuals and organizations that earn money by Songwriter, writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling Sound recording and reproduction, recorded music and sheet music, presenting live music, concerts, ...
via viral content. Perhaps the most notable of these artists being
Justin Bieber
Justin Drew Bieber ( ; born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer. Regarded as a pop icon, he is recognized for his multi-genre musical performances. He was discovered by record executive Scooter Braun in 2008 and subsequently brought to the U ...
, whose career was launched following his talent being showcased over his YouTube channel in the late 2000s. Today, platforms such as
TikTok
TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
, cater to independent musical talent and consistently spearhead the rise of new artists in music. In the early 2020s this has brought about the rise of acts such as
Flyana Boss and
Tom Rosenthal.
* Promotional: Videos that are designed to go viral with a
marketing
Marketing is the act of acquiring, satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of Business administration, business management and commerce.
Marketing is usually conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or ma ...
message to raise
brand awareness
Brand awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand under different conditions. Brand awareness is one of the two key components of brand knowledge, as defined by the associative network memory model. It plays ...
. Promotional viral videos fall under viral marketing practices.
* Charity: Videos created and spread in order to collect donations. For instance,
Ice Bucket challenge was a hit on social networks in the summer of 2014.
* Art performances: a video created by artists to raise the problem, express ideas and the freedom of creativity.
* Political: Viral videos are powerful tools for politicians to boost their popularity.
Barack Obama campaign launched Yes We Can slogan as a viral video on YouTube. "The Obama campaign posted almost 800 videos on YouTube, and the McCain campaign posted just over 100. The pro-Obama video "Yes we can" went viral after being uploaded to YouTube in February 2008." Other political viral videos served not as a promotion but as an agent for support and unification. Social media was actively employed in the
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia ...
. "The Tunisian uprising had special resonance in Egypt because it was prompted by incidents of police corruption and viral social media condemnation of them."
YouTube effect
With the creation of
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
, a video-sharing website, there has been a huge surge in the number of viral videos on the Internet. This is primarily due to the ease of access to these videos and the ease of sharing them via
social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
websites. The ability to share videos from one person to another with ease means there are many cases of 'overnight' viral videos. "YouTube, which makes it easy to embed its content elsewhere have the freedom and mobility once ascribed to papyrus, enabling their rapid circulation across a range of social networks."
YouTube has overtaken television in terms of the size of audience. As one example, ''
American Idol
''American Idol'' is an American Music competition, singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle (company), Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It a ...
'' was the most viewable TV show in 2009 in the U.S. while "a video of Scottish woman
Susan Boyle
Susan Magdalane Boyle (born 1 April 1961) is a Scottish singer who rose to fame in 2009 after appearing as a contestant on the third series of '' Britain's Got Talent'', singing " I Dreamed a Dream" from '. As of 2021, Boyle has sold 25 ...
auditioning for ''
Britain's Got Talent'' with her singing was viewed more than 77 million times on YouTube". The capacity to attract an enormous audience on a user-friendly platform is one of the leading factors why YouTube generates viral videos. YouTube contributes to viral phenomenon spreadability since the idea of the platform is based on sharing and contribution. "Sites such as YouTube, eBay, Facebook, Flickr, Craigslist, and Wikipedia, only exist and have value because people use and contribute to them, and they are clearly better the more people are using and contributing to them. This is the essence of Web 2.0."
An example of one of the most prolific viral YouTube videos that fall into the promotional viral videos category is
Kony 2012
''Kony 2012'' is a 2012 American Short film, short documentary film produced by Invisible Children, Inc. The film's purpose was to make Ugandan cult leader, war criminal, and International Criminal Court, ICC fugitive Joseph Kony globally know ...
. On March 5, 2012, the charity organization Invisible Children Inc. posted a short film about the atrocities committed in Uganda by
Joseph Kony
Joseph Rao Kony (born September 1961) is a Ugandan militant and warlord who founded the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), designated as a terrorist group by the MONUSCO, United Nations Peacekeepers, the European Union, and various other governments ...
and his rebel army. Artists use YouTube as their one of the main branding and communication platform to spread videos and make them viral. YouTube viral videos make stars. As an example,
Justin Bieber
Justin Drew Bieber ( ; born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer. Regarded as a pop icon, he is recognized for his multi-genre musical performances. He was discovered by record executive Scooter Braun in 2008 and subsequently brought to the U ...
who was discovered since his video on YouTube Chris Brown's song "With You" went viral. Since its launch in 2005, YouTube has become a hub for aspiring singers and musicians. Talent managers look to it to find budding pop stars.
According to Visible Measures, the original "Kony 2012" video documentary, and the hundreds of excerpts and responses uploaded by audiences across the Web, collectively garnered 100 million views in a record six days. This example of how quickly the video spread emphasizes how YouTube acts as a catalyst in the spread of viral media. YouTube is considered as "multiple existing forms of participatory culture" and that trend is useful for the sake of business. "The discourse of Web 2.0 its power has been its erasure of this larger history of participatory practices, with companies acting as if they were "bestowing" agency onto audiences, making their creative output meaningful by valuing it within the logics of commodity culture."
Viral disinformation and harmful content
Viral social media platforms such as TikTok have been using algorithms in their websites to recommend content that they feel their users will enjoy. Videos that go viral on these platforms could include a range of content that can be helpful or hurtful. Social platforms such as TikTok give people a "stage" to spread information at an accelerated rate, this may or may not expose people to subjective information with no screening from actual humans. This can involve
disinformation
Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic dece ...
,
misinformation
Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. Misinformation and disinformation are not interchangeable terms: misinformation can exist with or without specific malicious intent, whereas disinformation is distinct in that the information ...
, and
malinformation
Malinformation is information which is based on fact, but removed from its original context in order to mislead, harm, or manipulate. Whether something should be considered malinformation can therefore contain an element of subjectivity, and it is ...
. In some cases, the algorithms used by social media platforms fail to realize the content it is pushing is false or harmful and may continue to market the content even though it is against the platform's terms and conditions.
In other cases, the algorithms actively push this content to increase their
engagement
An engagement or betrothal is the period of time between the declaration of acceptance of a marriage proposal and the marriage itself (which is typically but not always commenced with a wedding). During this period, a couple is said to be ''f ...
to capture
online advertising
Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...
revenue. This means that ideologies such as
fascism
Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...
,
white supremacy
White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine ...
, and
misogyny
Misogyny () is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against Woman, women or girls. It is a form of sexism that can keep women at a lower social status than Man, men, thus maintaining the social roles of patriarchy. Misogyny has been wide ...
may be easily accessed and sometimes forced into users feeds.
Other content being promoted on platforms that may be harmful include; anti-LGBTQ, anti- Black, antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Asian, anti-migrant and refugees viewpoints.
Users who spread
disinformation
Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic dece ...
use the
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...
s of video platforms, like
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
or
TikTok
TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
, exploit engagement tools in order to get their content viral.
Users employ
hashtag
A hashtag is a metadata tag operator that is prefaced by the hash symbol, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services–especially Twitter and Tumblr–as a form of user-generated tagging that enable ...
s that influence the recommendation algorithm: generic hashtags (#foryou; #fyp; etc.) as well as the hashtags of trending topics.
Users who want to spread disinformation also intentionally use variations of banned terms to evade content moderation. These misspelled terms have the same meaning and influence as the original terms. Users who want to spread disinformation use other tools that allow their videos to get viral: content elements such as point of view, scale, style, text, as well as the time their content is more likely to get viral. Also, the more emotion the content raises, the more chance the content has to get viral.
Users who spread disinformation that violates TikTok's terms and conditions have multiple methods of getting around these rules. One way that a user can do this is by respawned accounts, to do this a user will create a new account after they have been banned they use a similar user name to their previous one so they can easily be found again. Another way users can get around terms and conditions is by a multiple part video series on their account where they often spell out racial slurs and hate speech. This not only gets a users account more views which could result in the algorithm pushing their content more but also evades the rules set by the developers as the algorithm has trouble flagging these multiple part videos.
Viral marketing
Viral marketing is the phenomenon in which people actively assess media or content and decide to spread to others such as making a
word-of-mouth
Word of mouth is the passing of information from person to person using oral communication, which could be as simple as telling someone the time of day. Storytelling is a common form of word-of-mouth communication where one person tells others a ...
recommendation, passing content through social media, posting a video to
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
. The term was first popularized in 1995, after
Hotmail
Outlook.com, formerly Hotmail, is a free personal email service offered by Microsoft. It also provides a webmail interface accessible via web browser or mobile apps featuring mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and ...
spreading their service offer "Get your free web-base email at Hotmail."
Viral marketing has become important in the business field in building brand recognition, with companies trying to get their customers and other audiences involved in circulating and sharing their content on social media both in voluntary and involuntary ways. Many brands undertake
guerrilla marketing
Guerrilla marketing is an Advertising, advertisement strategy in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a Product (business), product or Service (business), service. It is a type of publicity. The ...
or
buzz marketing to gain public attention. Some marketing campaigns seek to engage an audience to unwittingly pass along their campaign message.
The use of viral marketing is shifting from the concept that the content drives its own attention to the intended attempt to draw the attention. The companies are worried about making their content 'go viral' and how their customers' communication has the potential to circulate it widely. There has been much discussion about morality in doing viral marketing. Iain Short (2010) points out that many applications on
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
and
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
generates automated marketing message and update it on the audience's personal timelines without users personally pass it along.
Stacy Wood from
North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University (NC State, North Carolina State, NC State University, or NCSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1887 and p ...
has conducted research and found that the value of recommendations from ''everyday people'' has a potential impact on the brands. Consumers have been bombarded by thousands of messages every day which makes ''authenticity'' and ''credibility'' of marketing message been questioned; word of mouth from 'everyday people' therefore becomes an incredibly important source of credible information. If a company sees that the word-of-mouth from "''the average person''" is crucial for the greater opportunity for influencing others, many questions remain. "What implicit contracts exist between brands and those recommenders? What moral codes and guidelines should brands respect when encouraging, soliciting, or reacting to comments from those audiences they wish to reach? What types of compensation, if any, do audience members deserve for their promotional labor when they provide a testimonial."
An example of effective viral marketing can be the unprecedented boost in sales of the
Popeyes chicken sandwich. After the
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
account for
Chick-fil-A
Chick-fil-A, Inc. ( , a Word play, play on the American English pronunciation of "wikt:filet#Pronunciation, filet") is an American fast food restaurant chain and the largest chain specializing in Chicken burger, chicken sandwiches. Headquarter ...
attempted to undercut Popeyes by suggesting that Popeyes' chicken sandwich was not the "original chicken sandwich", Popeyes responded with a tweet that would end up going viral. After the response had amassed 85,000 retweets and 300,000 likes, Popeyes chains began to sell many more sandwiches to the point where many locations sold all of their stock of chicken sandwiches. This prompted other chicken chains to tweet about their chicken sandwiches, but none of these efforts became as widespread as it was for Popeyes.
Financial contagion
In
macroeconomics
Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. This includes regional, national, and global economies. Macroeconomists study topics such as output (econ ...
, "financial contagion" is a proposed socially-viral phenomenon wherein disturbances quickly spread across
global financial markets.
Evaluation by commentators
Some social commentators have a negative view of "viral" content, though others are neutral or celebrate the democratization of content as compared to the
gatekeepers
A gatekeeper is a person who controls access to something, for example via a city gate or bouncer, or more abstractly, controls who is granted access to a category or status. Gatekeepers assess who is "in or out", in the classic words of manage ...
of older media. According to the authors of ''Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture'': "Ideas are transmitted, often without critical assessment, across a broad array of minds and this uncoordinated flow of information is associated with "bad ideas" or "ruinous fads and foolish fashions."
Science fiction sometimes discusses 'viral' content "describing (generally bad) ideas that spread like germs."
For example, the 1992 novel ''
Snow Crash
''Snow Crash'' is a science fiction novel by the American writer Neal Stephenson, published in 1992. Like many of Stephenson's novels, its themes include history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryp ...
'' explores the implications of an ancient
memetic
Memetics is a theory of the evolution of culture based on Darwinian principles with the meme as the unit of culture. The term "meme" was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book ''The Selfish Gene'', to illustrate the principle that he ...
meta-virus and its modern-day computer virus equivalent:
The spread of viral phenomena is also regarded as part of the cultural politics of network culture or the virality of the age of networks.
Network culture enables the audience to create and spread viral content. "Audiences play an active role in 'spreading' content rather than serving as passive carriers of viral media: their choices, investments, agendas, and actions determine what gets valued."
Various authors have pointed to the intensification in connectivity brought about by network technologies as a possible trigger for increased chances of infection from wide-ranging social, cultural, political, and economic contagions. For example, the social scientist
Jan van Dijk warns of new vulnerabilities that arise when
network society
Network society is the set of social, political, economic, and cultural changes brought about by the widespread use of networked digital information and communication technologies.
The intellectual origins of the idea can be traced back to the wo ...
encounters "too much connectivity." The proliferation of global transport networks makes this model of society susceptible to the spreading of biological diseases. Digital networks become volatile under the destructive potential of computer viruses and worms. Enhanced by the rapidity and extensiveness of technological networks, the spread of social conformity, political rumor, fads, fashions, gossip, and hype threatens to destabilize established political order.
Links between viral phenomena that spread on digital networks and the early sociological theories of
Gabriel Tarde have been made in digital media theory by
Tony D Sampson (2012; 2016).
In this context, Tarde's social imitation thesis is used to argue against the
biological deterministic theories of cultural contagion forwarded in
memetics
Memetics is a theory of the evolution of culture based on Darwinian principles with the meme as the unit of culture. The term "meme" was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book '' The Selfish Gene'', to illustrate the principle that h ...
. In its place,
Sampson proposes a Tarde-inspired
somnambulist media theory of the viral.
See also
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List of Internet phenomena
Internet phenomena are social and cultural phenomena specific to the Internet, such as Internet memes, which include popular catchphrases, images, viral videos, and jokes. When such fads and sensations occur online, they tend to grow rapidly ...
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References
Further reading
* {{cite book, title=Contagious: Why Things Catch On , first=Jonah , last=Berger , year=2016 , publisher=Simon & Schuster , isbn=978-1451686586
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Internet terminology
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Social influence
Cultural trends
Popular psychology
Information society
Mass media issues
Influence of mass media