Why videos go viral?

We all know that a virus is a microorganism that causes disease. Then, came our computer virus, which can be a malware, spyware etc. It is for sure that these are all bad elements, which needs to be eradicated. We have lots of anti-virus software and antigens acting against them as they cause so much physical and mental trauma. But when videos go viral, there is no need for anyone to feel afraid or to feel bad, provided it does not have negativity in it, as it is something that makes one happy. Why? Because it means that the video has become popular and it is spreading from one computer to another at a very fast pace. It can become contagious either through email sharing or the most popular one is through YouTube.

The videos becoming viral started nearly two decades ago in the year 1995-1996. The first video that was released was “The spirit of Christmas” which is an animated film. It spread through emails and became very popular. The video was made with a paper, glue and an 8-mm camera. In 1996 “Dancing baby” was released. The animator who was working for LucasArts Entertainment Company, which is an American video game publisher, passed the video in his workplace to his colleagues. Thus the video virus evolved.

There is this big question of when a video would become viral in nature? How many views should it pick up? In 2011, YouTube personality said, “A few years back it was a million views, but now it has crossed 5 million views in a period of 3 to 7 days”. So, any video that has a 5 million viewership in less than a week's time is referred to as viral.

In one minute, 48 hours of video are getting uploaded to YouTube, but only a few go viral. As per Forbes,  there are six qualities that a video should have to be viral

They are:

1. Be short and sweet

2. Having a positive or an upbeat note.

3. Being timely on the current events.

4. Being involved and getting the audience engaged in the video.

5. Be informative.

6. Be inspiring,

But why the videos are going viral? In order to create a social impact on the viewer, like the promotion of music, education, protesting against someone or a firm, cyber bullying, etc.

In music, for promoting the album the singer and the band release a viral video so as to increase the sales and improve the popularity of the band. For example, Universal Music Group uses YouTube to promote their music. Tamil actor Dhanush's Kolaveri video and Gangnam style dance are a few musical viral videos.

In the field of education, the viral videos are used as instructive and teaching guides. There is a website called TeacherTube, a video sharing website for teachers which was started in 2007. It now has 50,000 videos in a matter of few years and that is because of the popularity it has over the student groups.

“United breaks Guitars” is a protest viral song by Dave Caroll wherein he sang about how his guitar was broken when he was traveling in the United Airlines and how the airlines reacted to them. The song became an instant hit and a huge embarrassment for the Airlines.

In 2002, a 15-year-old boy took a video of him swinging a golf ball retriever as a weapon and this passed various hands and finally, star wars music was added along with lights and sounds. It was released and became a hit, but it embarrassed the boy and so his family sued the miscreants. This video had 900 million views.

In 2008, political viral videos were made and YouTube became a powerful campaigning weapon during the United States presidential election.

To conclude, the viral videos gain huge advertising revenue for the creator as well as the producer, after all, everything is done for money.