Canada's online magazine: Politics, entertainment, technology, media, arts, books: backofthebook.ca

Politics, tech, media, culture and more, from a Canadian point-of-view

  • Politics
  • Media
  • Culture
  • Science and Tech
  • Living
  • Arts and Books
  • Features
  • The Video
You are here: Home / Culture / Other dangerous viruses

Other dangerous viruses

05/02/2009 by backofthebook.ca Leave a Comment

The swine flu and overnight singing sensation Susan Boyle have a lot in common, and I don’t mean that in the most obvious (and insulting) sense, so shame on you. The swine flu worked its way into Canada from the south, and the video of the self-proclaimed 47-year old virgin worked its way through the internets and into Canadian hearts. And American hearts. And the hearts of all those who have a modem, because internet-based fads cannot be stopped. She has, as the lingo goes, gone viral.

We are a culture that loves what everyone else loves. The day after Susan Boyle first appeared on my Facebook main feed, eight of my friends posted the video. The next day, 12 more people had thrown it up on their walls, and dozens more had given it thumbs up. And while the world is SB’s oyster right now, viral = fickle. Where is the numa numa kid now?

Susan Boyle went viral for the same reason she did so well on “Britain’s Got Talent.” She . . . er . . . has talent. But she also exploded due to the nature of the viral phenomenon. The more people who saw her, the more vital to one’s pop-culture sensibilities it became to have seen her, and the more people saw her. Other things, such as the SNL short “On a Boat,” are popular because they’re hilarious, but mostly hilarious only because they’re popular. The video for “On a Boat,” with well over a million YouTube views, derives at least part of its humor from the fact that three guys rapping so enthusiastically about something as banal as being “on a boat” has become a legitimate hit.

And in a sense, this just reflects how the dot.com.sphere.net has amplified our basic instincts. Viral videos such as Miss Teen South Carolina’s painfully idiotic take on “U.S. America’s” education system are no more than ramped-up gossip. (Pssst! Did you hear that Miss California hates the gays?.) Our love of scandal (and parody) resulted in the widespread viewing of the “don’t tase me, bro!” guy, as well as its many spoofs.

And of course, there is the inevitable sheep-factor. Since being featured on “Oprah” last week, J&D’s Bacon-Flavored Lip Balm is all over the internet and sales have skyrocketed.

Bacon-Flavored lip balm will be hot for about 20 minutes before everyone realizes that it’s a disgusting idea. While good products get a fair bit of net-play on their own by word of enormous-internet-mouth, lousy products are shunted quickly aside by a bad rep. Social networking and news sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Reddit, Sphinn (ad infinitum) that allow users to display and rate items tend to be self-filtering. Or would be, if they weren’t corrupted.

But they are, and this is where the viral phenomenon gets dicey. Once marketers realized that videos, games, memes, and products pretty well advertised themselves once they got going, companies began throwing a fair bit of energy into trying to force things to go viral. They started “astroturfing” these forums, posting as ostensibly disinterested parties in order to create what appeared to be genuine grass-roots interest. With the anonymity the internet provides, it became all too easy for a company to create fake but believable endorsements.

Or spawn them. In 2006, a book that had clogged the lit-blogosphere with rave reviews was revealed to have encouraged those plaudits with a contest; send us the most readers, win a prize. The book may have been fabulous, but when word of the contest surfaced, suspicion was thrown even on those reviewers who hadn’t heard of the contest. And as fun as it is to be hip with the jive, maybe this is the attitude we need to adopt when things flash into fashion. When shredded jeans and flannel shirts were all the rage (the first time), we looked like idiots because we wanted to, not because some flannel corporation was slipping free button-downs into the cool kids’ lockers. Now those flannel fat-cats are all up on those cool kids, and we need to watch our backs.

It was great for a while to be able to run around the internet like barefoot children, blithely accepting all the reviews of movies and books and dust-busters and teeth whiteners and squash rackets (I hear that the Wilson N145 has an enormous sweet spot) as though they came from trusted friends. Those days are gone the way of the penny candy. I don’t mean to sound conspiracy theorist here, but I’ve become wary of anything virally popular. From now on, I only click over if it’s that video of the fellow doing his happy jig in all those foreign countries.

Wait, that’s brought to me by Stride Gum? Shit.

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: business, celebrity, entertainment, Facebook, internet, Media, music, social networking, Web 2.0

Subscribe to BoB by e-mail or RSS

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Google+
  • Living
  • Politics
  • Media
  • Culture
  • Arts and Books
  • Features
  • The Video
Fire sale sign

Fort McMurray: Shopping time!

By Brady Tighe We’re now officially in the aftermath phase of the northern Alberta wildfire crisis. The fire is long gone, and everyone with a home to return to is back in its … [Read More...]

Nathan Cullen

Electoral reform: Hashtag fresh thinking

By Alison@Creekside The most interesting and innovative idea to come out of the first meeting of the all-party Special Committee on Electoral Reform, or ERRE, was Nathan Cullen's suggestion, … [Read More...]

Trudeau on quantum computing

The Trudeau gush fest is getting old

By Jim Henshaw There have been several bewildered as well as angry accounts coming out of the USA lately about how little media time has been spent covering the Democratic Presidential Primary … [Read More...]

Rick Meyers in Nanaimo Pride Parade

My friend, Rick, at the Pride Parade

By Frank Moher On this dreadful day, I don't want to write about the shootings in Orlando. I want to write about my friend, Rick. Rick lives just outside of Nanaimo, a city of about 80,000, … [Read More...]

Stephen Colbert on Late Night set

Triumph of the drama nerds

By Frank Moher Two drama nerds have recently moved into high profile positions. Before I name them (or perhaps you’ve already guessed who they are; or perhaps you’d like to scroll down and look at … [Read More...]

From “Our Rape Blog”: Shooting the Moon

Originally published on Our Rape Blog, the author's account of the aftermath of a violent sexual assault. By Mary Fraughton Have you ever played Hearts? It’s a card game. For our purposes, … [Read More...]

First Nations defending Lelu Island

The video: Lelu Island: “They will come.”

From Creekside: The B.C. provincial government is trying to green light the construction of a massive LNG terminal on Lelu Island in the Skeena Estuary -- Pacific Northwest LNG, backed by Malaysian … [Read More...]

Google

Follow Us!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

RSS CBC News



Recent Posts

  • Fort McMurray: Shopping time!
  • From “Our Rape Blog”: Shooting the Moon
  • Electoral reform: Hashtag fresh thinking
  • The fish hotel
  • Hatred on an Alberta golf course
  • The video: Lelu Island: “They will come.”
  • My friend, Rick, at the Pride Parade
  • Our selective sympathy
  • The Water Bomber, The Frogman and The Great Canadian Novelist
  • Komagata Maru: The story behind the apology

Tags

9/11 Afghanistan Alberta bad behaviour books British Columbia business Canada Canadian military Canadian politics CBC celebrity computers Conservatives crime environment family film G20 Globe and Mail internet Jason Kenney journalism Justin Trudeau law Liberals Maclean's music National Post NDP newspapers oil sands online media Ontario Quebec RCMP religion sports Stephen Harper television theatre Toronto U.S. Vancouver women

Archives

The Video: Lelu Island: “They will come.”

Pages

  • About
  • Privacy

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in