OUGD601 - What Makes Something Go Viral? - TED Talks

'What's the secret to making content people love? Join BuzzFeed's Publisher Dao Nguyen for a glimpse at how her team creates their tempting quizzes, lists and videos -- and learn more about how they've developed a system to understand how people use content to connect and create culture.'

https://www.ted.com/talks/dao_nguyen_what_makes_something_go_viral

A TED talk by 'Dao Nguyen' analyses the main elements which makes a piece of online content go viral. She proposes that the content must resonate with people on one or more of five key ways, this theory is coined by the term 'Cultural Cartography'.

Cultural Cartography - 5 Key formal categories to this theory:

• Humour
• Identity - Reliability 'This is me'
• Connection - Connecting with other people
• Help - Learn something, settle an argument etc...
• Feeling - Curiosity, sadness, faith

'In the age of social media we can go much further, people are connected to each other on Facebook and Twitter, and they are increasingly using media to have a conversation and to talk to each other'

This quote expands upon the idea of media being used in the form of visual communication and as a form of language.

The five characteristics of the theory usually determine how successful a piece of online content will be. In the case of my practical investigation, the '#Just Do It' challenge adopts both the identity and connection categories. It allows the user to perform a 'humble brag' about their achievements (personal identity) and challenge their followers (connection) to show off their personal achievements also.

An example of this system being put in place is on the meme below which received 3 million views. It addresses 3 of the key components within 'Cultural Cartography', reliability, connection and humour.