Virality and Teasing the Fat Kids.

One of the biggest dreams of the average brand is still going viral. This isn’t new, but it is getting more irritating.

We could blame Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, and the man responsible for the word Meme entering public consciousness - this is the genesis of the concept of the ‘viral idea’, a self propagating memetic life form that everyone seems to think is the key to making any brand relevant.

There’s a key issue with this, and I think it’s best clarified by getting people to actually look at the most prevalent type of meme online - the ‘image macro’ format first popularized by lolcats. The example I’m going to use, though, was created by an acquaintance of mine; it’s called Watch The Cradle.

And seriously, you should check it out.

This is the holy grail of memes, as far as I’m concerned. A quick rundown of why this works:

1) It’s instantly recognizable. The image macro format is prevalent enough that nearly anyone who would find it amusing has encountered it online already.
2) Getting it comes with a certain amount of cachet. To understand Watch the Cradle, you need to be familiar with internet jokes, and familiar enough with a popular hip hop record to know the lyrics being referenced.
3) It’s cute. There are babies, which make everything more pleasant, and changes the context pretty effectively.
4) It’s accessibly participatory. You don’t need to be particularly creative to participate, you just need to be familiar with the format, the music, and google image search.
5) You can share it with everyone around you, pointing out how clever you are, whether for finding / getting it, or for contributing.

In my mind, these five points are the big ones to hit to cross over into virality, with the big missing one being the intangible (that is to say, being so undeniably awesome that people NEED to share or participate).

The problem I mentioned earlier? The problem is that we can use these same points to explain why the fat kids get teased in grade school.

Everyone gets the joke. You getting to laugh means your aren’t one of the people who is the butt of the joke. It’s funny, even though you shouldn’t be laughing. Anyone can join in, and in fact, you gain respect and power by joining. It happens in public, not in isolation.

What I’m trying to say is, brands need to aim higher. None of the attributes I’ve mentioned build positive associations about the subject matter.

You don’t want to be viral. You want to be the thing that is so culturally relevant, it inspires this low impact participation. That doesn’t happen by trying to go viral.

Awesome though it is, you don’t want to be the image macro that made me laugh so hard I spit coffee on my keyboard. You want to be the amazing record by two titans of the form.

Your objective should be to inspire participatory culture, and to exist in a form that facilitates it. Brands that mean something don’t create movements. They inspire them.