Is YouTube the Wizard Behind All Things Viral?

YouTube is the place to go for the biggest, loudest, flashiest viral content. Without YouTube to host fail compilations, cats playing piano and the Numa Numa guy, we might not even have a concept of a viral video. But we can now see the man behind the green curtain, the cat’s out of the bag, and the cat is showing us how our sausage is made. Apparently, YouTube has been crafting our viral experiences this whole time. YouTube admits that the so-called ‘viral video’ is all an illusion created to push the ideas of a narrow set of writers and videomakers onto the video consuming masses. “Since 2005 YouTube has been behind the scenes of all your favourite video trends, meticulously crafting every single moment of every viral video EVER,” today’s video from YouTube Spotlight states. And what’s more, now that we’re through the looking glass, YouTube has decided to show us what’s in store for 2014. First we have "clocking," the latest offering from Per De Graff, the inventor of "planking." This European intellectual talks at length about his work on planking being about space, so clocking is his progression onto time. Such high-minded waffle is unlikely to sway the general public, were it not for YouTube’s corrupt marketing behemoth. “It seems really simple, but everything, every moment is scripted and storyboarded,” says Brian Spelman, the assistant director of clocking. Viewers can also see both men on the set of the first planking video sporting a crew of no less than 11. They man the lighting and camera equipment to create just another small cog in the great YouTube propaganda machine. While YouTube has hundreds -- if not thousands -- of writers and musicians at its disposal, they’re relying on impressionable users to drive these cynical trends. Now the list includes 2014 trends such as the serving divorce papers by flashmob, kissing your dad and "The Harlem Shake... Again." While the video implies YouTube is now taking suggestions from users, given the Orwellian levels of control until this point, that’s unlikely to be true. It’s time for the innocent users of YouTube to rise up instead of just subsisting on the crumbs from the master’s table. More #OccupyYouTube less #NewTrends.

Social Pro Daily

Is YouTube the Wizard Behind All Things Viral?

Without YouTube to host fail compilations, cats playing piano and the Numa Numa guy, we might not even have the concept of a viral video.

Kimberlee Morrison

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Kimberlee Morrison