Since the conception of the germ theory of disease, people have understood contagion. Getting close to someone with a cold means the viruses that cause it will likely have a new host who then spreads the illness to others. Viral videos get their name because they propagate in the same way, moving from viewer to viewer as each person who sees the video sends it along via e-mail and phone. The more exposure the video gets, the faster it spreads, potentially reaching billions of viewers. Viral videos can be humorous, frightening, amazing or bizarre, but they all carry the same fundamental message to each new host: "You've got to see this!"
Viral videos are distinct from mass-marketed videos. While millions might view the latest pop single or movie trailer as soon as it's released, these releases are highly publicized events; they reach that audience of millions in a stroke. By contrast, a viral video has no associated fanfare. It may have few initial viewers. It may have no viewers at all aside from its creator who must then send links to friends. Those first viewers are the benign equivalent of the index case that spawns an epidemic, the patient zero from whom all other cases spread.
If a video's sufficiently contagious, exposure to it becomes an exponential progression just as with actual viruses. Assuming the initial viewer sends the video to only a couple of friends, each of whom likewise sends it to two friends, it will reach over a thousand people by the tenth generation. In ten more generations, the video receives over a million hits. That's a conservative estimate, given that most people want to show that crazy thing they saw on the internet to more than just two friends.
No definition of viral video defines preci...
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...en make much sense – a flying animated cat that has a breakfast pastry for a body and streams pixelated rainbows as it flies through space is anything but logical, yet Nyan Cat has hundreds of millions of views – but it does have to feel authentic. Viewers who suspect they're the object of an advertiser's subtle condescension or ridicule may make the video viral, but not in a manner any company would want.
Leaving room for the viral video to “mutate” – that is, to spawn imitators and parodies that link to the original – can enhance the progenitor's contagiousness. The original Nyan Cat video was simple, but lent itself to extensive parody and imitation. Nyan Cat Man, Nyan Cat Army and Nyan Cat at various speeds encourage viewers to seek the original video to understand the joke. Encouraging imitation encourages sharing, and sharing is the essence of viral video.
For most everybody in the world, people tend to have two identities: one in reality and one online. Andrew Lam wrote an essay, called “I Tweet, Therefore I am: Life in the Hall of Mirrors”, in which he described how people are posting videos or statuses which is making social media take a turn. Instead of social media being a place to share very little information, people are now tending to post weird updates. Lam was describing an example where a boy that was going to surgery asked to have his picture taken because his arm got taken off by an alligator. Another example is when Bill Nye was speaking and collapsed from exhaustion. Most of the crowd took their phones out and recorded videos instead of helping Bill Nye out (540-541). With the power of the internet at everyone’s fingertips, most everyone is trying to make the most of it. With all
To understand how things reach a tipping point, you must first understand the three rules of epidemics. Gladwell defines the three rules of epidemics as the law of the few, the stickiness factor, and the power of context. The first rule, the law of the few, explains how individuals with the gift of connections and persuasion make a difference in pushing epidemics to the limit and spreading a useful message wide and far. It most certainly takes talent to be that person or persons to make something reach its peak. The ...
The question often is what makes a good advertisement? The answer is simple, it should be able to grab the attention of the targeted audience, and even better it should be able to make the targeted audience fall in love with the advertisement so that they can be persuaded to achieve the desired results. Of all the forms of advertisement, TV commercials always are the best considered effective way to pass the message to the targets. I believe that the combination of audio-visual effects can engrave the commercial into the hearts and minds of the viewers and that is why I have chosen to analyse a TV commercial by Weetabix: Weetabix Chocolate Dubstep Cereal Commercial.
Your professor wants to upload a video of talking horses, and he wants it to go “viral” (i.e., spread very quickly to many people). Based on the different factors that cause ideas to spread, give examples of what the video would need to include for it to have the highest likelihood of spreading.
Throughout the entire commercial, pathos is executed to have a lasting effect on the audience. As shown, the young Olmypians in this video undergo many hardships such as: being startled in
In the summer of 2012, the full music video of “Gangnam Style” was uploaded onto YouTube and was immediately a sensation, receiving over 500,000 hits on its first day and racking up millions of more hits in a matter of a week. By the end of the year 2012, the song had topped the music charts of more than thirty countries including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Being the first ever YouTube video to reach the milestone of one billion hits, the song took the social media by storm. These staggering statistics indicate how “Gangnam Style” was able to achieve a tipping point, thus igniting an epidemic. What made it go viral? The two main reasons responsible for the cause are the Power of Context and the Stickiness Factor.
Gladwell introduces us to three essential rules of epidemics: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. The Law of the Few says a key factor in epidemics is the role of the messenger: it spreads through word-of-mouth transmission. Gladwell explains this theory with an example of how Paul Revere managed to spread the news of the British invasion overnight. Gladwell continues to explain that there are several types of people that create these types of epidemics. They are called Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen.
Using leaders of YouTube with a large subscriber base and grouping them together for a joint effort media campaign, is proving itself very innovative. An excellent example is Hannah Hart, DailyGrace and Mamrie Hart collaborating for ‘movie night” where they get together and watch a movie on Netflix and discuss, they ask you to get a membership with Netflix (using offering a coupon code to get a free month upon subscribing to their youtube channel) and everyone watches together in real time, their request reaches around 670,000 views. This also leads to a discussion on Facebook and Twitter about what they just did. It’s like having a personal movie theatre with all of your online friends.
Stampler, L. (2013, May 23). How Dove's 'Real Beauty Sketches' Became The Most Viral Video Ad Of All Time | Business Insider. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-doves-real-beauty-sketches-became-the-most-viral-ad-video-of-all-time-2013-5
Over the years video has evolved from a slideshow on a screen to an emotion reality wrapped up into a 2 hour blockbuster film. Watching a movie today you would never think or imagine that it was once silent, or it was once told that film was pointless and would never last. And you could never think that it was done by take strips of pictures cutting those pictures, over lapping the pictures, and gluing a reel together just for a 15 minute side show in a theater that seat 100. Film is a big part of society now. It has become into something that most can’t live without. The history of film is captivating and full of surprises. Starting in 1900 and ending to where we are now is a big topic to go over, but it really has developed into three steps, pictures, Audio, and people.
Viral marketing is a form of word-of-mouth marketing that aims to result in a message spreading exponentially and campaigns work when a message is spread exponentially and it results in a desired outcome for a brand (Stokes, R., 2010). Viral marketing uses the internet to disclose and spread the company’s products or services. It harnesses the electronic connectivity of individuals to ensure marketing messages are referred from one person to another (Stokes, R., 2010). There are two types of viral marketing. Organic viral campaigns spread with no input from the company who wants to advertise. The message or product/ service being sold by the merchant are passed around in a viral nature without any intention from the marketer (Stokes, R., 2010). In organic viral marketing, no planning was done on how to broadcast the products or services and those who expose the products or services made a choice just to pass it around by word of mouth in the internet. Amplified viral marketing on the other hand have been strategically planned, have defined goals for the brand being marketed, and usually have a distinct method of passing on the message (that can be tracked and quantified by the marketer) (Stokes , R.,2010). To go viral, sellers or services provider have to define the aims of the campaign. Sellers or service providers have to decide if the company wants brand awareness, drive traffic or make sure customers avail of the products or services. Secondly, the company should plan the message it wants to go viral. The message has to be unique and easily noticeable by consumers. Third, the message you want to convey must be passed on to others efficiently. The company has to provide incentives for sharing. The greatest ince...
While watching the video “Video Killed the Radio Star”, I utilized a variety of these skills but two particularly stood alone. The video encoded a message that can only be decoded by close observation, the music paired with the slideshow of events that have occurred over the past century, demands an ability of high understanding to comprehend. The message this video offers is that times have changed as technology progresses, new strides and events will continue to make history. Some of the scenes portrayed in the video require an ability to critically think about the media message and what it was say. When the video introduces a family at the beginning of the video it is paired with a song that explains the changing in history due to the invention of video. Understanding the content and being able to think critically about what the video is saying allows me to dissect the meaning of what the video is trying to get across to the viewer. By learning different skills and developing on these skills we as people can better understand the meaning of what is portrayed through
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary a meme is “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.” Memes create a way for people to interact without necessarily interacting, primarily because there is a common theme between people. Thus providing a means of communication and connection. For example, dancers connect online through the common understanding of how difficult it is to seem effortless. In general they enjoy making sure that no one mistakes their talent as a simplistic art form. Therefore the usage of memes allow dancers online to communicate or simply enjoy laughing at their common struggles. Memes develop their appeal through their ability to convey ideas, themes, as well as practices
If you ever thought about influencers ' social media success, you 've probably noticed a number of factors that are involved in the influencers popularity. There are certain common things which take their personal brands to the next level such as a huge number of followers, a dedicated audience, and the regular re-sharing of their content.
One aspect of the creative industry that has remained the same throughout generations is the difficulty for artists to inject their work into popular culture. Utopian Plagiarism, Hypertextuality, and Electronic Cultural Production by Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) written in 1991 argues that “The Video revolution failed for two reasons – a lack of access and an absence of desire” (99) while artists from the documentary Press. Pause. Play. point out how easy access is to creative technology. The artists from PPP point out that it is much more difficult for good work to breakthrough into popular culture because there is so much of it. Comparing the arguments by CAE with the ideas in PPP reveals that artists breaking through into popular culture has always been difficult, but it is difficult today for different reasons than it used to be. For this reason, quality plagiarism is essential in the creative industry.