If your not first your last when it comes to viral content

This past week we talked a lot about viral content and memes in general. While I totally agree that it is unpredictable to guess which ones will go viral the points we talked about in class makes total sense. The memes need to be unique and be able to be modified. If its something new and we can potentially add our own twist to it then it makes it mean so much more to us. For me this is what makes memes popular with me. Another aspect that I personally look for is exaggerations of the truth that I find relatable such as procrastination memes and so forth. When it comes to stunts that are viral in videos they either need to be so ridiculously hard that others can’t believe someone could possibly do it or they need to seem simple yet have a difficulty that makes them elude people the first couple of times they do it. For songs they have to have a catchy phrase that sticks with people whenever they are going about their daily lives and then they’ll be more likely to share it.  The other aspect that I believe is important that I had never thought about is the fact that you need a famous person to share it first such a Daniel Tosh. Overall based on the memes that have been posted to our Facebook page it is easy to see a trend with many of the posts being relatable with our everyday lives such as struggles we face as students.

The other topics that we hit on briefly with the tail end of our class were some more interesting topics about how do we distinguish between professional journalists and those who merely blog and share news on the internet. I can see how this is becoming an extremely fine line because some people who blog are potentially reaching more people than some of the news stations out there. This is also compounded by the fact that now news is more likely to spread by social media before the traditional news will even touch it. We see this more and more on day-to-day basis common examples of this is the situation that happened on the airlines over the past year.  I am also excited with where our discussion is going with regards to the advancement of human rights by using social media as a facilitator. It is crazy to me that Facebook could have helped facilitate the revolt in Egypt. It is exciting to think that one-day oppression and wrongdoing may be stopped by advancing social media.