Do you remember being 10 years old and pretending to enjoy something you definitely didn’t? This is Buzzfeed’s hilarious list of most overrated things in the world (I am personally triggered by the fact that they claim bacon is overrated, but oh well)
One thing that has become even more popular with the rising of the groundswell, is viral content. Social media has made sharing easier than ever before. So, this can also bring out our competitive side. It’s a cause for concern when this competitive side becomes dangerous. The most popular one that comes to most of our minds is the Blue Whale Challenge. It was a mysterious challenge that went viral on Social Media and was responsible for numerous deaths all over the world. Here is BBC’s in-depth analysis of this strange suicide game that was prevalent in Russia, Ukraine, United states and India.
However, there are also some challenges that were started for a social cause. The most popular one here is the Ice Bucket Challenge. People would tag their friends and challenge them to pour a bucket of ice over themselves to spread awareness about Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Even though lot of people did it for the trend, but it definitely raised some awareness.
While there is the good side and the bad side to viral challenges, there are also some harmless challenges that are purely for fun. An example is the Mannequin Challenge. It became a fun challenge where people would film their friends frozen and play the song Black Beatles by Rae Sremmurd. Things like this really make me wonder what the science behind all of this is. How do challenges take off and become viral?
Let’s go into the psychology of it all. Why do we choose to follow some of these challenge trends? Abraham Maslow proposed a hierarchy of needs and this had an immense influence on other psychologists. He explains how after Physiological and safety and security needs, the next most important need is love and belonging. In fact, in this Thought Co. article two psychologists Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary proposed love and belonging to be a fundamental need because lack of it can have an adverse effect on health.
Let's go back to the subject in question, we humans see something that appears to be a trend and we follow it to fit in. This is how viral content works. It's so unpredictable as to what can go viral. Rebecca Black's teenage music video experiment or even a loop of a pop tart cat with a catchy tune. There is no formula to it. That's the most exciting part, though! Thanks to the internet, we can wake up tomorrow fully expecting a new song/challenge/random video to be blowing up our social media.
Maybe most of these things are overrated (like Buzzfeed suggested the Mona Lisa, lobster, twerking among others!)
With all this clutter, make sure to stay focused and most importantly stay away from the dangerous challenges. Keep it real, #fam
Thank you for tuning in to this week's post on Simrants (Social Media Edition)
Let me know in the comments which is your favorite (or least favorite) viral challenge or viral video?
