A few years back, people had never heard of the word “viral” before. Now it seems like every celebrity has their own viral video or article that goes crazy famous. Many people are now familiar with the term because it is so widely used.
With the rise in popularity of the internet and social media, people have found new ways to share information and ideas. Technology gives everyone a platform to spread messages, and catchy slogans are some of the most popular sharing styles.
In this article you will learn about the origins of the word viral and some interesting facts about how it became famous. So put your smartphone away and read up!
Fact #1: The Origins Of Viral
The word viral comes from ancient Rome where they referred to an epidemic disease. In the first century AD, the Roman writer Marcus Aurelius mentioned a concept called venere vacca which means cow plague. This was also known as heebo, a Dutch word for pest. Both these words refer to epidemics caused by contagious substances such as germs or bacteria.
A similar term is pessimum which translates into bad health or harmful influence. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods, there were many theories about what causes infectious diseases. One theory was that evil spirits could cause illness and death. Another theory was that bodily fluids contained poison that made you sick and sometimes even killed you.
In May of 2014, Vogue magazine published an article titled “The 15 Most Influential Style Icons of All Time.” Included in this list were five fashion icons that readers could recognize immediately: Audrey Hepburn, Coco Chanel, Georgia O’Keeffe, Marylin Monroe, and Jackie Kennedy.
While some may consider these individuals to be rich or famous, none of them received large paychecks for their designs. Rather, they lived modestly and invested in creative ventures so that they could keep re-creating new looks.
Theirs are not haute couture outfits; rather, they use practical clothing as materials to create inspiring styles. But everything about their wardrobe seems high quality and expensive due to how popular it is.
These fashion influencers did not have expensive wardrobes because they spent little money on flashy items. They saved up for durable, classic clothes that continually get complimented.
What made each one special wasn't necessarily what kind of shirt they wore or whether their hair matched, but instead what expression they conveyed with each piece of clothing. – Mandy Hale via The Balance | January 30, 2018
This article will talk you through 5 ways to make your favorite style look more like a fashionable icon's.
With the rise of social media, people have become very aware of how many followers someone has. It seems like everyone wants to know who has the most followers or is popular in some way, shape, or form.
This got me thinking – what if we took this idea and applied it to another medium? What if we replaced the number of followers with an even more important metric?
I am talking about “vanity pages.” You may have heard them referred to as a “Vanity URL” or a “Vanilla Domain Name.” They are simple web addresses that contain no additional content beyond the domain name itself.
Why is this important? Because anyone can create a vanity page for free! All you need to do is pick any domain you own (we will get into which domains are the easiest to use later) and then simply add your name to the end.
Your name being the last part of the address. For example, if my website was www.yoursite.com, I could make mine look similar to yoursite.vanimal.org. Simply put yourself before the.org so it reads yoursite.vanimal.you = vanimal.
Back in May of 2017, when there were just two main stream media outlets that people tended to trust for news, there was a very famous photograph.
It showed the face of President Trump with the word “DESTROYED” written across it. The picture had received over 20 million views at the time of writing this article.
Now here’s the thing about this image – it wasn’t meant to be seen. In fact, the person who took the photo wanted to erase their presence from the internet forever.
This individual made sure all of their accounts were deleted and even paid to have their name erased from search engines and social networks. They didn’t want to be found ever again!
But now they can’t stay under the radar for too long because someone managed to capture part of their identity in one shocking shot.
In order to properly understand how and why this happened, we first need to talk about something called the Streisand Effect.
Many people know what is considered to be the “first viral” video, but there are actually several that get credit for popularizing the very word “viral.” The first actual use of this term comes from Paul Glazer in his 2002 paper published in the Journal of Marketing. He uses it once to describe how an advertisement spread online through social proof.
That means other users shared the ad or article with their audience due to its effectiveness. Since others thought it worked, then it must work as well!
This concept has been around since at least 1995 when Janette Rizzo used it in her PhD dissertation. She called it infectious enthusiasm and described it in more detail back then.
Since then, every time someone calls something viral they are referring to this same idea. It is just simplified and categorized into one word.
In November of 2014, Vox Media launched The Verge with its then-editor in chief, Ezra Johnson. He left just over one year later to launch his own digital media company, Vessel, which publishes content for other sites including ThisWeekInSports, The Athletic, and BestSitesUSA.
The Verge is most well known today as the home of the website’s flagship show, Podcast!, but it also hosted several others such as TalkoTalk (now at Yahoo) and Phone Fun Time. It’s also where you will find our latest coverage here at THE VGEmail Newsletter!
Many people know the name Elon Musk due to his work as cofounder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, but not many are familiar with who he previously worked for before that. As a senior executive at PayPal, he helped grow the service into one of the biggest online payment platforms out there. Before that, though, he had another career path lined up — professional rocket scientist.
Musk dropped out of college to pursue this new passion full time, and since then he has been involved in the space industry in some capacity or another. When he isn't working on rockets or cars, he's thinking about ways to get us all to Mars. And when he is sleeping, he dreams of interstellar travel.
But none of that would be possible without him investing early in technology, particularly telecommunications equipment.
Before there was an internet, people made fun of each other by sharing pictures or videos that they considered funny. These are called memes.
People still do this to some extent today, but most of the time it’s done via social media where anyone can see it. With the emergence of the internet though, meme culture flourished.
Meme artists started creating their own humorous images and putting them into different groups or genres. Different styles of memes have emerged such as sports, horror, and food ones.
Certain types of memes become popular and spread like wildfire through word-of-mouth. Others stay confined to small circles for quite some time before getting "memed" and spreading.
A famous example of the latter is the now infamous “viral video." Its popularity comes from its catchy music and bizarre content.
Many people know how viral popular songs can be, but not many have thought about what it takes to make an online video go “viral.” It is definitely not your average music video!
Music has always been a form of media, so making a song become famous is already creating content. What makes a song go viral is adding more content to it, typically in the form of a longer film or video.
These films are usually centered around a theme or topic that goes along with the music being listened to at the time. These new videos often tell part of the story of the song, emphasize key lyrics, and sometimes feature additional scenes or stories.
Before there were celebrities, there were people who lived their lives in the spotlight or at least you could tell they wanted it to be that way. People with big social media followings are a testament to this.
With the rise of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, more and more people want to broadcast what they’re doing, how they’s living, and/or just bragging about how much money they have.
It is very easy to fall into that habit, especially if you feel like you’ve never had success before so you need to find ways to brag.
But unfortunately, most of those tricks are totally useless and annoying. So we made a list of things that will help you become famous for leaving nice comments on other people’s posts!
Here are 17 ways to get rich by giving away free money via online giveaways. These are great ways to make some extra cash while also helping out others. Plus, all of these services pay per action, not per user, which means even non-payers can earn dollars through your service.
