These are informative videos often about 3-5 minutes that explain or bring to light a certain topic. They can range from medical advancements, to cool new technology, to political and highly discussed topics, to simple popular culture trends. The reason that these videos are so easily spread is because people often use them to prove a point or to gain attention to a certain topic. Also they are easy to share since they are not long videos and often take scientific, political, or other hard to understand concepts and make them accessible to the average person.
Pen Pineapple Apple Pen (PPAP)
Apple Pen! … Pineapple Pen! … Uh! … Pen Pineapple Apple Pen!
PPAP is a short music video that went viral over the past month. The video gained over 38 million views within that time period. The music video shows the man dancing to the music and then claiming he has an imaginary pen and an apple then combine the two together to make a “apple-pen” then gets another imaginary pen and combines it with a pineapple to make a “pineapple-pen”. As the music builds up, he grabs both imaginary items and combines them together to make a “Pen Pineapple Apple Pen” and dances for the remaining time.
The reason why this content is so spreadable is because it is catchy, weird, and funny. In the past month many people have been creating parody or lip dub versions and has been spreading all across the internet. Even people like Justin Bieber tweeted that it was his new favorite video on the internet. 
Arthur Meme (Spreadable Content)
The Arthur Fist Meme became one of the most used memes over the summer, especially on Twitter. Seeing as how Arthur was a popular kids’ show in the 90’s, the meme struck a chord with teens/young adults, who watched the program when they were younger. They started to use a picture of Arthur’s fist as a ‘reaction’ picture to news or just for good humor. Some even went as far as editing objects onto his fist and created captions to go along with it. It became spreadable content because the Internet took a beloved character and jokingly turned a screenshot into ‘meme’ worthy content. It was easy to understand and entertaining to see Arthur in a more modern era, with funny captions and quotes to go along with it.
The Dance that Won the Internet
As we’ve seen our pop culture trends expand throughout history, one thing we can’t deny is the urge to get up and bust out the running man dance when we hear MC Hammers “U Cant touch this” track. Or maybe not; in this day of age I can’t help but to cringe at most trends started in the 90’s. In 2016, however, we’re exposed to social media posts through hashtags for personal transformations, hump days, and throwbacks to how life used to be. Two student athletes from the University of Maryland , Jared Nickens and Jaylen Brantley, took MC Hammers running man throwback dance to a whole different level when they created the running man challenge. The challenge was simple; film yourself doing the running man dance to the 90’s throwback song “My Boo”, by Ghost Town DJs.
The original running man challenge video boasted a whopping 38 million hits, and was later turned into a nation wide phenomenon once celebrities like Chris Brown, and athletes like Steph Curry posted videos of themselves completing the challenge. Although this challenge didn’t raise awareness of a disease or help benefit our society, it was damn good fun, and great humor watching friends post up their own running man challenge on social media. Humor can go a long way, especially when friends and family relate through something as simple as a throwback dance, but for now we’re stuck to doing the running man every time we hear “My Boo” blast through our speakers.
The Harlem Shake – Spreadable Content
Whenever anyone hears “Harlem Shake”, you cant help but think of the song and dance inside. The Harlem Shake actually was brought into media in 2012 by the artist Baauer, who created the song. It then became a giant dance craze tune in February of 2013. The Actual Harlem shake dance originated in 1981 by a Harlem resident. The original dance consisted of pivoting one shoulder and popping the other.
On or a few people would start dancing at whatever rate or rhythm they pleased, and once the drop of the song came upon, a huge mob of people would appear in exotic costumes and outfits and cause chaos in dance. The dances consisted of a large amount of improve, with some choreographed segments, but the people were able to dance however they wanted to. As long as it was crazy and got peoples attention, the video would be successful. It took place wherever people wanted. Whether it was on a college campus, or in a office; the variation of places was endless.
What made this go viral was that the purpose of the videos were very easy to perform. All people needed to do was to dress as obnoxious as possible, and dance along with the music when their part came on. The song was and still sometimes gets stuck in peoples heads once they hear it. Its so catchy that its hard not to sing along or play the beat in the back of your head. Also the amount of viewing traffic each video got was insane. It was inevitable for people to not see these videos pop up on their feed. The media at this time was booming, so people were willing to go all out and get their videos out on every platform, along with viewers waiting for the newest addition to the Harlem Shake to come up.
Paul Potts Emotional Audition-Spreadable Content
Paul Potts had a typical 9-to-5 job as a salesman in the UK. Little did he know his life was going to completely change after his viral audition (over 154 million views) in Britain’s Got Talent. In his audition, Paul says his dream is to sing opera and you can tell that the audience and judges are uncertain and doubtful about his dream based off their facial expressions. Even Paul mentions that he struggles being confident with himself.
However, during his incredible performance of “Nessun Dorma”, the judges and the audience are all in awe and some start to cry because they didn’t expect him to sing this extraordinary. It’s funny that he still has that look of consternation on his face that they might have not liked his performance even after he hears everyone clapping with a standing ovation. No one expected him to sing with this incredible voice and several judged him by his appearance. Therefore, when he started singing many people were moved by his performance, which is why this video became very popular on YouTube. It just puts a big smile on your face. The moral of the story is don’t judge a book by its cover!
P.S. Paul ended up winning the first series of Britain’s Got Talent in 2007 and his life story was turned into a movie!
SNL Presidential Debate Spoof – Spreadable Content
In today’s America, it is nearly impossible to escape the reach of political propaganda. With November’s election getting closer and closer, we are all flooded with content daily on both candidates. Whether it is Hillary’s sometimes overwhelming marketing strategy, or Donald Trump’s seemingly endless capacity for ignorance, there’s just no getting away from it!
Now I don’t know about any of you, but I was extremely excited for this debate. I just can’t think of anything funnier than watching Donald Trump speaking in high-pressure situations. Nonetheless, I would imagine I spent 90% of the debate looking similar to my mans pictured below.
With that being said, below is my selection of shareable content, a segment from Saturday Night Live satirizing last week’s debate:
This video has already received 4,420,705 views on Youtube since it aired last night. I believe this video has gained traction so quickly because it gives a frustrated american public a sense of comic relief . Many people felt frustrated with the debate as a whole, and this satirical video gives a chance to laugh at our pain, so to speak.
Now what’s really crazy, is that all these comedians had to do was repeat Trump’s actual dialogue!
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Apparently Kid- Spreadable Content
A local news station interview’s 5-year-old Noah Ritter after one of the rides at the Wayne county fair. The “apparently” kid gets his 15 seconds of fame and he does not disappoint! Noah expresses to the reporter how he’s never been on live television before, as well as his take on the rides at the fest. All while using the word “apparently” 8 different times during a minute long interview.
If you had your 15 seconds of fame would you handle it as well as Noah? This video on youtube currently has over 24 million views and it comes to no surprise that Noah has sparked quite the fame since his interview. He has appeared on Ellen multiple times and even some commercials. I believed this video caught fire mainly because of the unpredictability and let’s face it, the kids a natural with the mic in his hand. This interview is completely off script and that is what compels viewers. His funny and honest approach in a situation where anyone would be nervous is another reason I believe it spread as well as it did.
BRAGGADOCIOUS- Spreadable Contact
With the recent official presidential debate there have come a slew of memes, videos and posts about the whole event. Some have been catchy, such as the shimmy done by Hillary Clinton and other that didn’t catch the attention of millions of users on Facebook, twitter, etc. The satirical video played out by Randy Rainbow is a modern take on the popular song sung by Julie Andrews in the very popular musical “Mary Poppins.” In the video Rainbow takes parts of the debate to make fun of Trump, especially the Trumps use of the word “Braggadacious.”
The reason why I think it spread throughout social media and especially Twitter is because people enjoy humor, especially when it’s done so well. The video has over 15 million views on Twitter and 390,286 on Youtube. Rainbow himself was shocked by the popularity of the video, stating on Twitter, “Just woke up to 15 MILLION VIEWS! Whaaa?!?” After many months of hearing both sides, whether they were insults or actual plans for the environment, people needed something to lighten the mood. Not to mention Trump being called out on such an obvious misuse of a word had people interested. Youtube users have commented many positives about the video, saying they loved it.
Friday (Rebecca Black) – Spreadable Content
Rolling the clock back 5 years into 2011. A video that was supposed to be satirical took a downward spiral. Rebecca Black’s annoyingly catchy song surged across the nation, receiving negative attention from everyone. Rebecca Black wakes up and goes to school, meeting her friends on the way. In the evening, after debating whether to sit in the front or back of a convertible, Black and her friends ride the car to a party at 7:45 pm.
Video Link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfVsfOSbJY0&list=RDkfVsfOSbJY0
The Friday video was originally posted on March 11, 2011 and later taken down in June 16, 2011 over a legal dispute between Rebecca Black and ARK Music. Before the video was taken down the view count was just under 166 million views, making it one of the top 20 most watched videos. It was then later reposted in September 2011 where it has been available for the last 5 years. The current count as of October 2, 2016 is 100,320,841 views 2.3 million of which are dislikes, making it one of the most disliked videos on YouTube.
The video spread like wild fire because it was that song you could not seem to get out of your head not matter what you did. It is very catchy. Everyone was singing it even though they “hated it”. People just hopped on the bandwagon even if they did like it. This was the first song to play at my schools prom that year because prom was on a Friday. It seemed like from when the video actually came out people were very annoyed with it, but by spring of next year it was seen as the satirical video it was meant to be. The video also spread because people loved commenting on it and making spoofs and remixes that made fun of the original.
DIGIMITES | A Curation of ideas 