Not everything you read online is true. However, even the most unbelievable things can go viral.
While it is an obvious fact for many online users, some of us can easily believe everything other people post on social media. It might be difficult to accept the fact that quick and easy access to the information we have today has resulted in laziness and often a lack of critical thinking. It is easier to believe something you read online than start checking the facts in different sources. Fact-checking is not as exciting as sharing the exciting information that someone’s just posted with your friends and family. This is exactly what happened in 2013 when someone posted a tweet claiming that the word “homework“ spelled backwards in Latin means child abuse.
People had many hot discussions about the fact that no one even bothered to check. As you might have guessed, the word “krowemoh” does not exist and has no meaning. Moreover, even the letter “w” does not exist in the Latin alphabet. That is why it was surprising to see the come-back of this statement in 2021. This time, though, people were aware of the statement being nothing more than a joke. Why is it so hard to resist the absolute obsession with one particular topic when you can see it literally everywhere?
The most exciting thing about this misunderstanding is that many reputable news networks wrote articles dedicated to this topic and its sudden popularity. It is a clear sign of how powerful social media have become over recent years. Even if you are not an active user of social media, you will still come to know about their viral effect. For instance, you definitely have heard about an ice bucket challenge because it was impossible not to be aware of this phenomenon. But how does this viral effect work?
Basically, no one can predict the next big thing everybody is going to be obsessed with for the next few weeks. Sometimes it’s a cute puppy that falls down the stairs in a very cute way. Other times it’s just eating your tasty dinner while listening to a popular song. Marketers from around the globe try to create posts that can become viral and create an insane demand for their products. However, sometimes it just happens that the advertised product is in the right place and at the right time. Like it was in the case of Vans shoes. The demand for the white Vans trainers went through the roof after everybody became obsessed with the “Squid Game” TV series. No one could’ve predicted the worldwide popularity of the series and the fact that people would want to relate to the main characters through wearing the same shoes. But it happened.
Millions of reposts and likes. This is something that almost every social media user dreams about today. Some of them do not care if the things they write about are true or not as long as they bring them the desired results. As to the viral effect, people are social animals. We need to be a part of a community. Being a part of an online community that has a specific thing to discuss can meet this requirement. It’s like having an inner joke with someone: the two of you know about it while the others don’t. As soon as it becomes popular, people start losing interest in it and look for another thing to change it with. It is a never-ending circle of viral posts. It is hard to tell whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. It exists because someone needs it. It will continue to exist until we come up with a new approach to fill in the need in socialization.
