Image: Flickr- kk+
744,119,013. As of June 2012, that was the number of views Justin Bieber ft. Ludacris' video Baby had received. To put that overwhelming number into perspective, it accounts for roughly 5,000,000 people more than the entire population of Europe, or almost 2.5 times the population of the United States. Featuring a teenage pop sensation and lyrics such as "baby, baby, baby, ooh..", it also takes the title as the #1 most viral YouTube video of all time.
While 'Beliebers', a term for Justin Bieber's devote fans, may have granted him with new levels of YouTube virality, who can we tribute the 16+ million Evian Roller Babies views to? Or how about the 14+ million views of a man attempting to blend an iPad ? While I admit to occasionally browsing the YouTube popular page, I find it dismaying to imagine 458,415,728 other people sitting down to watch a video of a boy biting his brother's finger.
We are then brought to the question of what qualities result in virality. An algorithm, known as the "Branded Viral Movie Predictor" identifies four key elements required for a video to go viral. These elements include congruency, high emotive strength, network involvement in conjunction with paired meme synergy. When combined, this algorithm found certain meme elements to work well, such as voyeurism and surprise, while others would not. Additionally, it found classic movie production strategies to be helpful in increasing virality, such as an enticing headline and optimum key word phrasing.
Conversely Anita Elberse simply accredits viral video success to a large advertisement budget. Since "you have to spend money to make money online", she argues viral hits happening suddenly are the exception rather than the norm.
While virality seems to be the perfect mix of luck, promotion and emotional reaction, the development a precise formula to reach success is clearly unfeasible.
In the meantime, perhaps we should all just stick to making Lolcat memes.
Earlier this year, virality reached new heights with the release of the Kony 2012 campaign. Receiving more than 100 million views in six days, this controversial video about Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony made by Invisible Children generated a tremendous response. While this video fell short in fulfilling the aforementioned tactics to reaching virality, Claire Suddath outlines reasons for its undeniable fame. While the video tells a story, involves its viewers, features celebrity endorsement, and sets a future date to see expected results, I believe it's virality to be an indicator of social media's true ability. More than anything, Kony 2012 showed us that if done correctly, viral videos have the power to make vast alterations in the world.
While the next big YouTube sensation is undetermined, with social media's increased involvement in day to day lives, I believe upcoming videos will reach new extremes of virality and coverage.
Who knows, maybe you could be the next face of YouTube.
