By Tee Morris
Online Career Tips Staff
If you are hearing friends talking about going “Gangnam Style”, but not sure what to make of it, allow me to hip you on to what people are talking about. It’s the latest viral video to sweep the Internet:
Love it or hate it, this satire on South Korean lifestyle has been viewed over 480 million (yes, you read that right) times since it went live this summer. That’s over 30 million views a week over its 16 weeks online. This K-Pop (short for Korean Pop) hit has spawned many internet parodies, including one last week from members of the 22nd Company at the United States Naval Academy. In one month, it’s received nearly 6 million views.
This current popularity K-Pop star Psy is enjoying reminds me of my time with another company that invested in a “viral video package.” The marketing firm behind this scheme actually promised the video they produced for us would go viral. I went to my boss and told her “You know there’s no way they make a video go viral, right?” The answer I got from this V.P. was “Don’t worry. They know what they’re doing.”
That video has been for a year now, and racked up just under 350,000 views. Not so much “viral” as it is a “scratchy throat and a slight headache” video.
Anyone who claims they can make a viral video misses the point of a viral video. While a video with several thousand or tens of thousands views behind would be regarded as a success, a viral video’s viewings number in the millions. Adding to a viral video’s popularity are other ambitious Internet filmmakers who spawn parodies or variations on a theme. What social media gurus and marketing mavens avoid telling potential clients and lead them into making promises impossible to keep is that what makes a viral video go viral remains a mystery. A video’s viral popularity (or an image’s popularity, as Facebook can make still shots go viral, like this one from the set of The Avengers) comes completely unexpected. Trying to capture such popularity is about as easy as capturing lightning in a teacup, not to say there are constant traits to viral videos:
- Sense of humor. Many of the viral videos online involve a sense of humor. In the case of “Gangnam Style” the humor is over-the-top funny between the confetti blowing, the gyrating in an elevator, and (of course) the horse dance. There is also the funniest aspect of the video – Psy himself, who is selling every minute of this over-the-top humor. He believes it, and is running with it. Others of this ilk would include “Sh*T [Insert Various Professionals] Say” videos and the Ask a Ninja video podcast.
- Media coverage. We have all seen in recent weeks with the reaction to the Innocence of Muslimsshort film, but remember around Christmas last year when a closed circuit security camera clip of a FedEx delivery man tossing a flat-screen television callously over a fence also went viral? What the fourteen minute short film and the thirty second video clip have in common is mainstream media coverage which only fueled the viral flames. Another example of videos garnering media attention was Rebecca Black’s “Friday” music video.And speaking of Rebecca Black…
- Figurative Train wrecks. Rebecca Black’s video “Friday” propelled the young tween (and her awkward, ill-produced song) into the public eye with nearly 40 million views. The video did raise awareness of “auto-tune” but stands tall as an example of the “so bad, it’s good” video. Other train wrecks of this ilk include the endless variations of “The Star Wars Kid” (one of YouTube’s first viral videos), William Hung’s 2008 audition on American Idol, and Caitlin Upton’s infamous answer concerning education at the 2007 Miss teen pageant.
- Quality filmmaking. Once in a while you find a video that makes you stop and watch, and in the end reminds you that incredibly talented people are out there. Such is the case of Dan Trachtenberg and his seven-minute short film, Portal: No Escape. Inspired by the popular console game Portal, this video has managed over 10 million views in one year, and its numbers continue to climb. When you watch it, you can see why:
Sure, viral videos share a lot of things in common with one another, but when it comes to length, quality, intent, media coverage, they are impossible to predict. Each video defies what analysts would define as a “viral video” and you as a content creator are left wondering what makes a video go viral. It really is hard to say how such a creature is created, but you can be sure of one definitive way to know what you have created and shared with the world has truly gone viral…
You find your work featured at halftime:
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