I have been raking my brain for what to post as my very first post. I’ve procrastinating on what to upload, not knowing how to break the wall and start the flow. My collection of drafts and ideas is starting to overflow, and self-doubt growing. I had no idea what I could do, what would be the best way to begin. A gripping topic, a catchy title, a powerful opener. Nothing I could come up with had the right feel to set the mood for this blog
Then this image popped up on my news feed:
Source: TMZ
That, my friends, is a photo of Justin Bieber spitting off of a balcony, and onto his fans. Allegedly.
Whilst this kind of “news” does not normally catch my attention, it was when Bieber’s team of publicists tried to stop this image going viral that things became interesting. Some of you may recall an image of Beyonce from the Superbowl. Not many people cared too much, that is, until her publicity team tried to stop people photoshopping and sharing the image. Then all hell broke loose. The number of searches for the image skyrocketed. By trying to stop the image going viral, they made the image viral. A similar event happened to a photo of Barack Obama holding a rifle.
This same spread seems to be occurring for Justin Bieber and this now infamous photo. So, it got me thinking about the community of the internet, as well as the raging debate on intellectual property. This, coupled with the recent discussion on copyright and publishing, brings up the notion of the viral spread.
If, like me, you live on the internet, you would know about memes. Memes are various images and macros that spread across the internet, usually representing an action or idea. There is a huge variety of them out there, from Scumbag Steve to Grumpy Cat, Overly Attached Girlfriend to My Little Pony Fandom (known as Bronies), and all of them started as a single image (or video).
(For more on memes, I recommend http://knowyourmeme.com)
There is no science to what becomes a meme. Anything posted at the right time in the right place has a chance of going global. Anyone or anything can become famous in a matter of days. You can come to represent an idea or a platform for jokes, even if the image has little to do with the original content and meaning. The internet works in mysterious ways.
At this time I would like to bring your attention to a particular person.
Source: Facebook
That is Laina, also known as Overly Attached Girlfriend.
After her song parody of Justin Bieber’s song Boyfriend (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh0AhrY9GjA&list=TLcBc7SPUcT6A) went viral, Laina used it’s popularity to build her internet profile. She developed a website, expanded her Youtube account, got in contact with other youtube personalities. Soon her popularity expanded, with a loyal following of over 700,000 subscribers on Youtube and 190,000 Twitter followers (as of August 1st, 2013). Laina then used this popularity to start her Dare to Share Campaign, a campaign designed to raise money for certain charities.