Viral
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Hitting the Books: The dangerous real-world consequences of our online attention economy
If reality television has taught us anything, it's there's not much people won't do if offered enough money and attention. Sometimes, even just the latter.
'Charlie Bit My Finger' NFT buyer decides to leave the original on YouTube
Viral YouTube video "Charlie Bit My Finger" won't disappear from YouTube.
‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ sold as an NFT, could vanish from YouTube forever
Collector 3F Music spent $761,000 to possibly ruin a slice of internet history.
Peacock is turning a viral ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ trailer into a series
Peacock signed a two-season deal for a modern-day version of 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.'
Facebook is reportedly testing a ‘virality circuit breaker’ to stop misinformation
Facebook is reportedly piloting a new way to check viral posts for misinformation before they spread too far.
Why are we obsessed with Instagram's ‘What are you?’ filters?
We're barely one month into 2020, and one social media trend has truly taken the definition of 'viral' and rammed it down our collective throat: Instagram's "What X are you?" story filters.
An old Instagram hoax is back, and it's duping celebrities
An Instagram hoax that first circulated in 2012 is back, and celebrities from Usher to Waka Flocka Flame, Julianne Moore, Julia Roberts and Rob Lowe have allegedly fallen for it. The post claims Instagram is changing its rules and everything you've ever posted will become public, NBC News reports.
'Baby Shark' has gone so viral it's now a Billboard Top 40 song
Unless you spent the latter half of 2018 on the moon with your hands over your ears, it's highly likely you're at least aware of Baby Shark, the infectious kids' song and scourge of parents everywhere. So popular is this viral sensation that it's now entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart, meaning it's not going away any time soon. Sorry.
Creator of viral glitter bomb video admits parts of it were staged
This week, it seemed the entire Internet rejoiced after a former NASA engineer created a custom glitter bomb designed to strike back against package thieves. His impressive invention resulted in a hilarious video of would-be criminals being coated in glitter and having their nostrils assaulted with a fart spray. But it seems the clip, which racked up more than 42 million views in just a few days, was a little too good to be true -- its creator admits parts of it were staged, seemingly without his knowledge.
Why are people pretending to be dead on Instagram?
Ahmed Simrin, 15, is one of the millions of teenagers who uses Instagram. He doesn't post pictures on his page every day (there are two total), yet somehow he's managed to get nearly 3,000 people to follow it. That doesn't make him a social media influencer, by any means, but his Instagram page quickly stands out when you realize one of the photos has over 22,000 comments and 4,000 likes. This type of engagement is typically only seen on accounts from celebrities. His viral picture, posted in October 2017, isn't anything out of the ordinary, either: It's Simrin simply standing next to his friend, each staring directly into the camera, with a caption that reads "Fresh out the oven." But then you look at the comments, and it would appear that poor Simrin is no longer with us. There are thousands of users telling him to rest in peace. "RIP, you'll be missed." "RIP, bro." "You died way too young." "I can't believe you're gone." The list goes on and on.
Drake is the king of memes
Drake has done it again. And no, we're not talking about him repeatedly smashing Apple Music and Spotify streaming records. We're talking about one of his tracks being turned into meme gold. This time it's the track "In My Feelings" from his new record, Scorpion. The internet has taken the lyrics and turned them into a dance that's about to conquer social media. What seems to resonate with his fans the most is the chorus, in which Drake asks, "Kiki, do you love me? Are you riding? Say you'll never ever leave from beside me. 'Cause I want ya and I need ya." Anyone who listens to Drake regularly knows he's always been an unapologetic emotional dude, and people love to turn his brooding and confessionals into viral fodder.
Why we care whether everyone heard ‘laurel’ or ‘yanny’
Earlier this week, the internet erupted around a new obsession tailor-made to go viral. It started with a one-word snippet of recorded audio that had actually been circling the web for awhile, but unclear pronunciation made it an aural Rorschach. The question 'Do you hear 'laurel' or 'yanny?'' rallied everyone to pick a side. But why do stories like this, reminiscent of the great dress color debacle of 2015, captivate the internet?
Twitter tries to explain how it fights breaking news hoaxes
During the minutes and hours after shots rang out at YouTube's headquarters in San Bruno, many people used Twitter just as they have after other high-profile events: to spread fake information and hoaxes. In response to reports about how bad its "fake news" problem is (as a Buzzfeed reporter maintained a live thread collecting hoaxes, trolls started using an image of her in their fakes) Twitter published a post about "Serving the Public Conversation During Breaking Events." It didn't mention hoaxes like the infamous "Sam Hyde" images by name, or the hacking of YouTube's Vadim Lavrusk, but more broadly outlined its policies and aims for moderating posts during this type of event.
The top Twitch clip involves a horror game and Jack Daniels
Tom Wheldon started streaming on Twitch as JurassicJunkieLive two months ago. He was an intrepid tinkerer and a veteran video creator who started making YouTube videos before it was the cool kids' multi-million-dollar industry. Wheldon regularly discussed video games, so Twitch felt like a natural evolution of his online presence -- his channel quickly earned a following of about 100 folks, some of them tuning in every Friday to watch Wheldon scream his way through a horror game. Last week, Wheldon booted up Outlast 2 for his regular "Frightday" stream, and he became Twitch legend.
Memes made the presidential debate great again
There's something magical about an inside joke. A good inside joke reminds friends that no matter what happens, you'll always have that moment when you were completely in sync, united by laughter and happy tears. Memes, meanwhile, are inside jokes on a massive scale. Memes remind the people involved of happier times, when an entire country or group of disparate people shared a moment of levity, something to laugh about, something adorable to bond over. Throughout the cutthroat 2016 presidential election, citizens of the United States have been in dire need of a uniting force. And, during last night's second presidential debate, the people found their common ground in an affable, red-sweatered meme named Ken Bone.
Mom behind most-watched Facebook Live video visits its HQ
It's only been a few months since Facebook opened up live video streaming to everyone, but with over a billion daily users the emergence of a massive hit was inevitable. Late last week an odd yet charming video stream of Candace Payne amusing herself by trying on a Chewbacca mask went viral, and currently stands at 143 million views with more than 3 million reshares. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg that makes her video the most-watched Facebook Live video ever, and just that quickly, she's on the company campus riding bikes with guess who -- Chewbacca.
YouTube helps advertisers jump on viral content
With YouTube's Google Preferred program, advertisers can target the most popular channels and categories, so that kitchen brands don't end up on, say, a tractor parts channel. Now, the site will let companies catch viral trends with Google's Preferred Breakout Videos. "Our new breakout videos offering lets them advertise on the hottest and fastest-rising videos on YouTube ... so brands can be there alongside the next breakout star," the company blogged.
Microsoft ViralSearch project visualizes content as it spreads across Twitter
It's not a new component of Bing (not yet, anyway), but Microsoft has taken the wraps off a new small-scale search project at its TechFest event this week -- one with a particular focus on so-called viral content. Appropriately dubbed ViralSearch, the effort from Microsoft Research currently uses Twitter as a source for all its data, and offers a variety of ways to track and visualize how a story, photo or video spreads from one outlet or individual to hundreds or thousands of others. That includes a profile view of sorts, which lets you see how influential a particular person was in spreading an item, and how prolific they are in general. Unfortunately, it is still just a research project so you can't try it out yourself just yet, and there's no word on any plans for it to become a commercial product. In the meantime, you can get a quick overview of how it works in the video after the break.
Blizzard's Project Blackstone is a Heart of the Swarm viral campaign
Blizzard Entertainment registered a site called ProjectBlackstone.com late last year, and fans wondered if maybe it might be related to the mysterious upcoming Blizzard project code-named Titan. But no such luck, it seems: The domain went live this week and, soon after that, some crafty Redditors found the password. (It's "Y7_$0>0k_3<$m," if you want to try it yourself). The whole campaign has been revealed as a Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm tie-in.Opening the site up reveals emails between various Terran characters talking about experimenting on Zerg lifeforms and presumably we'll see updates in the future that will fill out the story heading into the new game. Heart of the Swarm, the second part of the trilogy that Blizzard's Starcraft 2 has become, is due out on March 12.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Grand Theft Auto 5 marketing kicks off with viral 'Epsilon Program' site
A Twitter account for something called the "Epsilon Program" has materialized in the past few days, linking off to a freaky (and annoying) website for a pseudo-religion called "KIFFLOM", registered by Take Two Software.The site features a thinly-veiled parody of the real-life Scientology organization and includes such hilarious "facts" as: "If you have a birth mark, you may be descended from Kraff, the famous Emperor of the 4th Paradigm." Considering that the next iteration of GTA is set in a faux Los Angeles and that the Epsilon Program was featured in a gags found within GTA: San Andreas, odds are good that we're looking at an early viral campaign for Grand Theft Auto 5. Good timing, since only yesterday investors were asking why the hype train for GTA 5 had not yet left the station.What does it tell us about the game? Nothing at all. But investors were wondering where the marketing was, and Take Two appears to have answered right away.
