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Viral Video Culture: From Numa Numa to Old Spice

JA September 28

First there was the dancing baby, then All Your Base Are Belong to Us, then the Star Wars Kid, followed by Sneezing Panda, Chocolate Rain, Numa Numa, Charlie Bit My Finger, the Dramatic Chipmunk, Matrix Ping Pong, Charlie the Unicorn and Leave Britney Alone – take a breath, because I could go on. Chances are you’ve probably seen the majority of these at one time or another – whether you liked them, rolled your eyes at them, or were indifferent is another matter – and chances are you’ll see many more in the future. They, along with various clips of Susan Boyle singing I Dreamed a Dream and Tom Cruise doing his crazy love dance on Oprah’s couch, have the dubious honour of being crowned YouTube sensations, or viral hits.

While on one level I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about these kinds of clips, the inner media-geek in me is fascinated with this particular aspect of pop culture, and what makes it tick. What is it about these videos – as shlocky, kitsch and grainy as they are – that makes them so repeatable? They clock up millions of hits a piece and have seemingly instant, if fleeting, fame. There’s a certain quality to all of them that’s hard to pinpoint – amateur but subversive, nerdy yet cool, a little camp, a little DIY, a little awesome. Some rely on pure cuteness, some on humour, which can either be subtle or more of the Funniest Home Video variety, and others, let’s face it, on an element of cruel mockery. Most of them seem to be accidental hits, although you never really can tell.

During an online debate hosted by New York Magazine, Anil Dash argued that the real appeal of the viral video was simple, based perhaps on that part of you that still has a thing for ABBA or Sting:

Memes don’t care if we overthinkers have judged them to be cool or not; they live their own lives for the sheer joy of it … The driving motivation behind the spread of most memes, and the audience-participation of remixing and recontextualizing them, is that showing up for the party is a delight in itself … The meme’s unquestioning advocate isn’t a Karl Rove or Steve Jobs type, it’s your aunt who enthusiastically forwards you something without regard to its newness, novelty, provenance, or trajectory towards memehood. She just likes it.

According to editor and writer Bill Wasik, better known as the creator of flash mobs (where people would pass on and obey chain emails asking them to form mobs in public places for no real reason other than to form a mob), there’s another side to it as well. The spread of viral videos is not so much to do with the content, but with the act of forwarding. It’s about being part of a cultural exchange and, more importantly, being the one to ‘discover’ or introduce that exchange to another:

Mass culture continues to exist precisely because it’s the stuff of cultural exchange among ourselves. And so, that to me is the reason why you have 10 million people becoming obsessed with Susan Boyle instead of 10,000 people. Precisely because she becomes grist for this bigger conversation.

Ben Huh, who has the delightful title of being CEO of The Cheezburger Network, also points out that viral culture is very much to do with taking popular staples, such as The Matrix, Star Wars, Britney Spears and so on, subverting and remixing them before re-releasing them back out into the world. Funnily enough, viral clips often then become part of pop culture and are parodied or imitated themselves. There’s this comment from Dash:

Photoshop went from noun to verb owing to the efforts of the web’s meme-makers. Mash-ups wouldn’t have become a mainstream musical trend without their meme-perfect mix of being irresistible and completely disposable.

And this old South Park episode (apologies for annoying banner – for some reason’s it’s hard to find a clean, embeddable version of this clip. Although the ‘remixing’ irony is not lost on me here):

All of which leads me to the Old Spice ads, a massively successful campaign run by Wieden + Kennedy with actor Isaiah Mustafa as ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’. I’ve probably been watching too much Gruen Transfer but these ads seem to have very cleverly ridden the wave of all that is great about viral culture – a short clip shot in one take that, despite the special effects, still felt slightly DIY. As this article from Salon points out, ‘The ad is also funny (thanks in large part to Mustafa), it’s quotable (“I’m on a horse”) and it begs for repeat viewings, thanks to its “how the hell did they did do that?” factor.’

The first ad had over six million views in the first day alone. Wieden + Kennedy then appealed to fans to send through questions to ‘The Old Spice Guy’ via various social networks, and created direct, personal answers through yet more short, funny clips. Again, this was a way to harness the ‘cultural exchange’ aspect mentioned by Wasik above. This one (‘I’m handsome, you’re pretty. Let’s eat peanut butter’) even got the book trade talking.

By the end of the campaign, Old Spice had over 40 million hits (and later an Emmy) to boot. Plus there was that all important stamp of approval – fan-made tributes such as this Old Spice voicemail message, created by users of Reddit.


 

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