the.com/viral
named after viruses because the best ideas spread like a polite infection.
means Describing content—a video, post, or meme—that spreads rapidly and widely across the internet through people sharing it, as if by contagion.
from From "virus," Latin for "poison" or "slimy liquid," once used by Romans for venoms and noxious fluids. Science later borrowed it for the tiny infectious agents that hijack cells to copy themselves. The adjective "viral" followed in the 20th century, and by the late 1990s marketers and the web had seized the metaphor: ideas, like infections, replicate by passing from host to host.
- origin
- borrowed from epidemiology, where things actually kill you
- math
- each share must infect more than one person
- half-life
- most trends die faster than fruit flies
- irony
- trying to go viral almost guarantees you won't
- oldest case
- chain letters were viral before the internet existed
gangnam style — psy's 2012 music video with 4.9 billion youtube views, spawned global dance phenomenon
charlie bit my finger — 2007 home video of toddler biting brother's finger, 880 million views, sold as nft for $760k in 2021
slap — will smith hitting chris rock at 2022 oscars ceremony, instantly spread across all platforms within minutes
ok hand emoji trial — zoe quinn's 2014 gamergate harassment campaign starting on 4chan, became first major internet mob phenomenon