Going Viral

This is the chart that started it. After Aden Nak threw this up on his site after the debate, he woke to instant internet fame and an overloaded inbox. Other sites had grabbed his chart too, and one that featured Nak's art - DailyKos - had been Dugg 10,000 times. What does it mean when a YouTube video or a blog post goes viral? And how does that happen? This seems to be related to the digital anthropology studies that Mike Wesch has been up to lately. In writing about viral videos, he looks at what might motivate us to share with others and might make us hesitant to pass something on. He points out that there's never been a porn 2.0 because that's generally something people keep private. But in other areas, technology and media continue to change the way we think about and blur the lines between what's public and what's private. Aden Nak had a regular readership in mind when he posted the chart to his blog and the next day found another 10,000 readers he hadn't anticipated.