It was many months ago - maybe a few years - that I saw a picture passed around on Facebook, of kids demonstrating how far things can spread online. They had a sign saying that as part of a school assignment they were asking everyone to keep forwarding the picture, to see just how many people it would reach. That seemed like a cute idea. By the time I saw it, it had already been shared and liked thousands of times. The point was made, to the kids and the many who saw it.
Get that? The point was made. There's no need to keep repeating the same experiment. I keep seeing more and more of them. Frankly, I didn't think this really needed demonstrating in the first place. To see the power of social media, you don't need to set up a photo with pleading children, you just need to watch what you are consuming online. Just in the last 24 hours, that bad Robert Downey Jr. interview has gone viral. So don't set up your own demonstration, just imagine he's holding a sign asking you to consider how stories spread on the Internet.
The irony is that the copycat viral media demonstrations are casting doubt on their own thesis. If these pictures were so widely spread, people would realise just how redundant they've become. You want to show kids how far viral stories go? Then you must not have seen the last twelve people who did the same thing, which means they didn't really spread that far. It's sort of like those ads you see on benches and bus shelters that say, "You Just Proved Advertising Works." Yeah, and you just proved that you're having trouble selling ad space.
No comments:
Post a Comment