I was thinking about videos that people love to share, and wondered what is it that gives a video that “viral” quality… There are plenty of dumb videos out there- what makes the viral ones stand out?
The only things I can think of fall into 3 general categories:
1.) Something outrageous, over the top.
2.) Something involving animals
3.) Something that engages the viewer (“scare” videos") see #1.
If it is popular enough that your mother has heard of it. “Why” is a marketing / fad question. I do not believe it can be quantified.
Well the really widespread ones contain something that perhaps almost everybody is somehow able to relate to or get a thrill out of. People have a lot of niche interests, but some things seem to be nearly universal, as the OP’s list shows. Part of it of course is the marketing and the obvious human desire to know what the fuss is about and not be the only guy who HASNT seen something.
A viral video is one that becomes wildly popular purely by word of mouth, with no active promotion. It spreads like a virus.
It has nothing to do with marketing. In fact, if a video has been actively promoted/marketed by its creator or owner then by definition it is not viral. There are marketing people who will insist otherwise, but that’s no different than the recent trend of misusing the term “flash mob” (hint: if anyone other than the planner knows about it more than 30 minutes in advance, it’s not a flash mob.)
Although it won’t answer the OP’s question(s) directly, there are quite a few things in common between “viral videos” and other shared information that are being addressed at Know Your Meme and other sites.
It might be a fun project for this thread to enumerate the types of rhings that we consider worthy “viral” topics that we send along to our own email groups.
When it comes to the attention of a TV personality and they like it well enough to show to someone else. Every video on they see on the internet is “viral” in that instant.
As a general rule viral videos don’t show up on TV (or on any mainstream news websites for that matter) until long after they’ve gone viral.
“Marketing” may be to loaded a word for what I meant. I was going more for a word-of-mouth situation than a coordinated campaign to promote a video.
Viral is definitely defined by the way it is spread rather than the content. The content of a viral video can be literally anything and to my mind that can include a video created by a marketing department with the intention of having it go viral. Although such attempts usually fail.
Thats what I’m talking about. I’ve heard of marketing folks tout themselves as viral market specialists, somehow knowing what makes a video go viral and fabricating one to get buzz about some product.
Utterly misunderstanding what marketers mean. If a video becomes popular purely by word of mouth with no active promotion then it’s viral. If it was created with that purpose by a marketing dept then it has to do with marketing. If it’s a video that’s actively promoted then it’s not viral. Either way it’s marketing.
Sooo, when I go to a video hosting site and all the top viewed videos of the week or whatever are prominently displayed along with the number of views, or when its shoved in my face on FB, thats not marketing?
There are marketers who claim that you can create and promote viral videos. Not all, certainly, but there are some.
How about new VW super bowl ads that get 35 million clicks in two days? Are they viral? People (myself included) willingly watch these works of art and share them on their Facebook wall - even though they’re ads for a multi-billion-dollar company. Is there an element of virality in that (even if planned)?
I think shiftless meant a video mentioned by a celebrity, not necessarily shown on tv. The Walk Off The Earth cover of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” played on a single guitar went viral after Russell Crowe mentioned it on his Twitter feed. I think something similar happened with “A Conversation With My 12 Year-Old Self” - some celeb tweeted about it and the creator had millions of hits by the time he got home from work and was doing tv interviews within a week.