By now many of you have seen images of a homophobic RSVP floating around the net. Story goes that a girl by the name of Sophia handed out invitations to her upcoming birthday party to her classmates. Tommy's mother wasn't happy over the fact that Sophia has two dads, and delivered the response above. Yesterday this was revealed to be a hoax by two radio DJs who wanted to stir up discussion.
Steve and Leeana of K-98.3 in Long Island were, in short, successful. Images of the RSVP spread like wildfire over news and social media sites, and people were talking. If this had not been a carefully crafted hoax, it would have been even more successful. Steve and Leeana have been suspended and K-98.3's PR has gone into crisis management mode. Even if their original intentions were good, the stunt wasn't worth the effort.
Viral is good, viral brings things to attention in a short amount of time. Viral content stirs our emotions on a very level. Unfortunately when crafted to tug our heart strings, viral content is manipulative. Usually, this intentional viral content backfires. Anyone remember the Kony 2012 video Invisible Children produced? How many of you felt the urge to join the movement shortly after? How many seriously thought that your effort in the movement to stop Kony would change the world for the better? How many of you then saw articles that criticized the Kony 2012 movement, and Invisible Children as an organization in the days following the March 5th release? They started popping up two days after the video. Articles that pointed out Uganda's government also uses child soldiers, and that the path Invisible Children wanted would only lead to more bloodshed in Africa. Or how supporting Invisible Children was a means to supporting a Western colonialist mindset?
I'll admit, I initially drank the Kool Aid, too. The video produced was powerful, and initially it did it's job. After the hype wore off, the Kony 2012 campaign became a humorous meme. Between the majority of their donations going to lavish travel expenses, the infamous gun photo, and the unstable behavior of founder Jason Russell, Kony became the butt of internet jokes ranging from the futility of armchair activism to the infamous Horny 2012 hashtag.
So what makes viral content effective in addressing issues? Keeping it real, and honest. The downside is that in this regard viral content is also unexpected and can't be planned. The contributors of said content are looking to be heard, but usually don't expect to go viral. In other cases, the creator of the content is bearing witness to something interesting. In early September of last year, the staff at a Journeys store in Marketplace Mall quit midday. According to Niki, Jess, and TJ, their district manager Jamie was abusive. Fed up with Jamie's treatment of them, they closed down the store midday and left a note on the gate informing customers as to why the store was closed. These weren't just entry-level employees either. These were people who managed that store.
These people were probably not expecting their public resignation note to be all over the Internet. Expectations were likely that the note would be seen by mall shoppers, and that particular store would feel the burn of lost business between closure and lost customers in general. They probably didn't expect a shopper to take a picture of their note to put up online. They were just three angry employees who were fed up with being treated poorly by their DM. Yet this shows that the best way to go viral is to be unscripted. It's not foolproof, some critics have come out and claimed the employees were troublemakers from the get-go, but like the story of the cop giving boots to the barefoot homeless man, the onlooker taking the photo may not know the real story. The onlooker may have just believed they were capturing something extraordinary.
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