Saturday, October 9, 2010

Day of Rest

In a few minutes, I'll be heading to work to: a) spend two hours working on the NCTE talk I'm giving with Lee, and b) figure out next week.

Luckily, this will be easier than last week when I was making the calendars for the units and coming up with all kinds of ideas. Now, I just need to execute the ideas. One problem I've encountered, however, is that no one really seems to know why a YouTube video goes viral.

"I don't think there's a reason, Kace!" Rachel said forcefully. "It's just stupid America!"

I feel like there have to be some categories of things that make us so stupid. For instance, we love public humiliation.

I myself humiliated one kid this week. It was unavoidable.

2 comments:

LH said...

I wonder if that Gladwell book, The Tipping Point would have
any hints about why something goes viral.
I think it would, actually. Never read it but I saw someone give a presentation on it once and after that I always wanted to read it.

Happy Monday!

Martha Pettee said...

Here are some reasons I think things go viral ...
The video contains something utterly outrageous or amazingly unique (think the little kid who could name all the presidents, the convicts who dance in unison to Michael Jackson) - and if it has a famous person in it it will go faster (think Hasselhoff drunk and hungry)

Also, I think I read someplace that 13 - 15 year olds are the impetus for many a viral video - hence the gross/outrageous.