History
The behaviors behind viral videos, where ideas and news spread between individuals through dialogue, have been present in society since prehistoric times and form part of the foundation of culture. These behaviours are studied by the sociological fields of memetics and semiotics. Word of mouth marketing has long exploited the credibility of personal recommendations, and viral videos also benefit from this effect.
Viral videos began circulating before the major video sharing sites such as YouTube, Funny or Die and CollegeHumor, by e-mail sharing. One of these early videos was "The Spirit of Christmas" which surfaced in 1995. In 1996 "Dancing Baby" appeared. This video was released as samples of 3D character animation software. Ron Lussier, the animator who cleaned up the raw animation, began passing the video around LucasArts, his workplace at the time. A particularly well-known early example was "All your base are belong to us," based on a poorly translated video game, which was first distributed as a GIF animation and became popular in the year 2000.
Viral videos' staying power relies on hooks which draw the audience to watch them. The hooks are able to become a part of the viral video culture after being shown repeatedly. The hooks, or key signifiers, are not able to be predicted before the videos become viral.
More recently, there has been a surge in viral videos on video sharing sites such as YouTube, and the availability of affordable digital cameras.
Read more about this topic: Viral Video
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)