The Viral Dream
Going viral is something that a lot of people on the internet can only dream of happening to them. Having thousands to millions of people see your content, doing brand deals, and best of all making a lot of money. And while this might sound like a dream come true for many people, the parameters for going viral and gaining a following have started to shift into something much harder than it was just a few years ago.
The TikTok Craze
This shift in virality is heavily linked with the app TikTok. Over the course of 2019, the new social media app TikTok gained a huge amount of users. During TikTok’s first few years the majority of content was awkward videos and people lip syncing to music, like the app’s predecessor, Musical.ly. Most teenages weren’t fans of this content and had a hard time engaging with the app. However, the app had a change in content in early 2019 that allowed people in their teens, twenties, thirties, and older to be attracted to the platform. The shift in content went from awkward lip syncing to memes, comedy, art, and original ideas. The boom has many people dubbing the app “Vine 2” because of its popularity and comedy content.
Damn, Daniel, It’s Hard To Go Viral
Before the rise of TikTok, the majority of viral content was coming YouTube and a bit from Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram every now and then. When most of the videos on these platforms went viral, so did the people too. A good example of this is “Damn Daniel”. The Damn Daniel videos went viral in 2016, and so did the two boys in the video. They made an appearance on Ellen and other various interview platforms as well. Going viral like this is still possible after TikTok but the ones who make it to this extent are far and few in between. Because of the overwhelming amount of content creators and the infinite amount of videos on the app, almost everyone has the ability and the resources to go viral, all you need is a funny or unique video. The main page of TikTok, the For You Page, is a non stop flow of videos that have thousands or millions of views and likes. Five-hundred thousand views on a video used to make it go viral, but now with TikTok one can reach that amount of views with little to no effort and still not receive the viral title. For example, I have an account on TikTok mainly to watch other people’s videos and not create my own. However, I posted a video in December that has 461.5k views to date. This video isn’t funny and took me zero effort to create. All it is is a video of my friend going down a snow slide at the Campus Activities Board event, WinterFest, at TLU. Despite the amount of views the video, it’s for sure not viral. It didn’t get downloaded and reposted to Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube (as far as I know), and I haven’t been contacted by Ellen to appear on her show for an interview. The quantity of views you have to have for a video to go viral now has skyrocketed in the last year. I frequently see videos with millions of likes on TikTok and yet in a few weeks to a month the video will be forgotten down the long rabbit hole of content.
How Kombucha Can Pay Your Bills
Going viral used to be about how funny or crazy your content was, now it’s all about how people can manipulate your content to make it their own. If you post a video on TikTok and people have the chance to repost it to Twitter with a million different relatable captions, then you have potential to go viral. And in these cases, if the creator can keep up this trend then they can usually acquire a following and maintain their viral status and even turn that into fame. A good example being Brittany Tomlinson, better known as “Kombucha Girl” or @brittany_broski. Tomlinson posted a video of herself on TikTok trying Kombucha for the first time and it was uploaded to Twitter with a variety of different hilarious captions. Tomlinson was able to use this moment to her advantage and continue to create funny videos that people love. She’s accumulated 2.6 million followers and 45.2 million likes to date. I have also seen her featured in other popular creator’s content as a result of her virality. She was one of the few that was actually able to “make it” on the internet and continues to grow her following.
Like The Hunger Games But Happy
The rise of new social media platforms has changed the rules for going viral, and yet so many people still want to fulfill their viral dreams. My advice for anyone focusing on this goal is to just create original content and hope that it sticks. There’s not a formula for going viral, it’s kind of like getting picked for the Hunger Games, except you’re happy about it.
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