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Whether social media is your job, you post casually or simply
lurk on various platforms, we all interact with quote UN quote
viral content. For those of us who work in the
industry, we chase virality. And for those of us who consume
content online, we often stumble across content that we deem as
viral. But in 2025, is virality even
real anymore? What one of us deems as viral,
another person may have never seen online.
It's safe to say that over the past decade, the digital
landscape has experienced a seismic shift.
It's no longer good enough for creators and other social media
professionals to have steady audience and social growth.
Brands, creators and publishers, for instance, are now expected
to manufacture viral moments consistently.
And that's because virality is largely seen as the path to
success for brand accounts online, it's often considered
the answer to brand awareness, the answer to social growth, the
answer to all PR and marketing, the answer to generating sales.
And for creators, it's similar. Virality kicks off a career, but
can also sustain it. Going viral introduces creators
to new audiences, allowing them to grow their following
consistently. In an era where growth and
engagement are paramount for sustainability, it's no surprise
virality has become the pursuit. We have seen how much success
can come off the back of a truly viral piece of content.
Take Brittany Broski, for example.
She managed to parlay her viral kombucha taste test moment into
a fully fledged influencer career.
Over the past five years or so, she has launched a podcast, an
interview show, appeared on red carpets, and even dipped her toe
into music. That said, Brittany Broski,
along with many others, have managed to use virality as a
stepping stone to influence certain.
But while virality may have been one of the answers to our
problems at some point, times have changed, and they've
changed fast. This is an exploration into the
myth of virality, how and why online culture has evolved so
much over the past decade, bringing us to a place in 2025
where quote UN quote virality is a pursuit not worth the chase
from Centennial World. I'm Lauren Meisner and this is
Infinite Scroll, a podcast about Internet culture, the creator
economy and how social media is shaping Gen.
Z. Welcome back to Infinite Scroll,
everyone. OK, so I have been doing these
keynote speeches on like the quote UN quote myth of virality
across Sydney and Melbourne and we decided to build this out
into a full-fledged episode for you guys.
So that is where this is pulled from.
Obviously, we've built it out into a more like consumer
focused episode or like content as opposed to like industry
focused. But yes, this is like a little
taste of what you get from me when we do consulting,
presentations, public speaking. So before I get into it, as
always, Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
Please sign up to our newsletter, also called Infinite
scroll. On Fridays.
We round up the five biggest thing pieces on the Internet
from that week. And we are still trying to get
to 1000 Spotify reviews. So please star rate US on
Spotify. To put it frankly, the concept
of virality doesn't really exist anymore, at least not in the way
that it used to. Over the past several years,
Internet historians and tech journalists have been
documenting the impact of viral content and how the concept of
virality itself is changing. Many have come to the conclusion
that the concept of virality has been watered down significantly.
What we have seen is that virality now in 2025, will
rarely produce a monolithic cut through that we hope for.
It's difficult to measure. It's unpredictable and fleeting.
And it has become even more challenging to control the
narrative and outcomes around viral content.
As Taylor Lorenz writes for The Washington Post quote, the
volume of content being churned out every day has skyrocketed.
The life cycle of each piece of media has grown shorter, and
social media platforms continue to inflate public metrics,
devaluing previously impressive online stats.
All of these factors have rendered the term viral nearly
meaningless, say experts, and have led to a condition we call
viralflation. The phenomenon of viralflation
has made it difficult for brands, creators, and users
alike to tell what is actually viral.
Aside from the factors that Lorenz mentioned, another key
aspect behind viralflation is how fragmented the digital
landscape has become, and this is largely because of the death
of monoculture. Of course, we have discussed
monoculture and its decline before on this podcast, but as a
brief refresher, the term monoculture essentially refers
to the monolithic version of pop culture that was dictated by
charts, award shows, and publications.
It was how the world experienced pop culture for decades.
During this time, sharing of online content once there
eventually was online content was largely manual and there was
a bigger discrepancy between viral content and everything
else. Thinking back to the 2000s and
early 20 tens before algorithms really took over, there were
multiple viral moments that pretty much everyone one would
know. Think specific moments like
Friday by Rebecca Black, the Grumpy Cat meme, or videos like
David After Dentist and Charlie Bit My Finger.
Millennials even had phenomena like Salad Fingers, an animated
web series centering around a character with the same name who
was a slender green creature who frequently talked about his love
of rusty spoons. This series debuted on new
grounds and entertainment platform that hosted user
generated content spanning categories including games,
movies, audio, and art. Salad Fingers was released on
YouTube one year later in 2005. Salad Fingers was definitely
niche at first, originating in a specific corner of the Internet,
as Tom Waite put it for days. Quote.
For many, the animated series served as an introduction to the
weird side of the Internet, where films that wouldn't fly on
mainstream channels were allowed to flourish via sites such as
New Grounds and YouTube. But Even so, it managed to
breakthrough the mass amounts of users.
Alex Hearn for The Guardian in 2000 15 even described the
series as quote, one of the first Flash animations that went
fully viral, inhabiting normal pop culture as well as the weird
Internet one. This was largely unprecedented
for digital culture and especially for content that was
considered quote UN quote weird. And even though online culture
has become increasingly intertwined with the mainstream,
some of the most popular weird content today would not be
elevated in the same way, largely because of the sheer
amount of weird content that is out there.
Having said that, there definitely are still viral
moments and universal reference points online.
Skippity Toilet is one such example.
But these moments are becoming few and far between, and happen
less frequently than you might think.
And that's because our experiences online have become
increasingly siloed. A fragmented intranet means that
everyone's essentially on their own side of the intranet,
whether that be book talk, water talk, food talk, or even more
niche communities like Dong Wan Jinlong's industrial grade
Glycine. IF you know, you know.
As academics Jessica Maddox and Fiona Gill explain Quote.
Sides of. TikTok is a platform vernacular
created and adopted by users to describe their experiences
engaging with algorithmically curated similar types of content
as well as the subsequent collectives forming around them.
This really took off in 2020. If you cast your mind back to
the early days of COVID-19, when many new users join the
platform, there was a significant divide between what
people defined as straight and Alt TikTok.
Straight TikTok was considered to be the home of TikTok dances
and arguably cringy lip syncs. For a long time, creator
collectives like the Hype House and the Sway House were
considered the faces of this side of TikTok.
By contrast, Alt TikTok, which was short for Alternative
TikTok, typically included videos referencing specific
memes and audios. When this divide was at its
peak, sound circulated that encouraged users to check which
side of the Internet they were on by seeing if they recognized
various audios. This was often about trolling
straight TikTok users and gatekeeping the content coming
out of Alt TikTok. Of course, there was and is far
more to straight and Alt TikTok, but what this divide shows us is
just how personalized and passive online content
consumption has become. As Crystal Andrews writes for Z
Feed Quote, digital platforms have made entertainment and
culture very personalized, driven by algorithms that know
you better than you know yourself.
Social media has become entertainment where you can
watch the daily insurance and outs of a girl on the other side
of the world, like a tiny reality TV show that only you
and 4000 others know about. With algorithm driven platforms,
we no longer have to open browsers and type in the names
of blogs, websites or publishers anymore to read their latest
content. We don't even open social media
and go to our following or subscription tabs.
Content is virtually presented to us on a silver platter.
It doesn't have to be viral. It doesn't even have to be
popular, it just has to fit our algorithmic profile.
And Gen. Z and Gen.
Alpha love this. Well, they may not love it, but
they also don't know anything different.
New research by Deloitte in the US found that 60% of Gen.
Z respondents prefer user generated content because this
content is served to them by recommendation pages and
algorithms. In other words, they don't have
to spend time searching for the content themselves, and they
clearly don't want to. Ultimately, this reliance on
algorithmic recommendations has resulted in a more divided
intranet with a less opportunity for content to have that
monolithic cut through. It has also made it extremely
difficult to measure virality. This I'm sure comes as no
surprise. We've all had conversations with
friends where we reference something quote UN quote viral
and they have no idea what we're talking about.
And that leads us to another reason why virality is difficult
to measure, because it's become a catch all term to mean
something that everyone's talking about, but only everyone
who's on my corner of the Internet.
Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The emergence of different corners of the Internet and the
democratization of virality within these spaces have
undoubtedly allowed for a more diverse creator landscape.
But there is a downside, as Taylor Lorenz continues for the
Washington Post quote, because we no longer have any shared
sense of virality, it makes it easier for people who don't
understand the mechanics of the Internet to fall for fake viral
trends. As a result, various brands have
attempted to manufacture viral buzz over products which were
not actually viral. The best example of this is the
Athenas Feta soup saga. We have discussed this before on
the podcast, but for those who don't remember, in November
2023, some major food influencers started posting
about an allegedly viral feta and butternut squash soup.
Emily Mariko was one such creator.
This caught the attention of social media consultant Rachel
Carton. When Carton looked into this
quote UN quote viral recipe, she found that at the time, there
were only 19 posts on Instagram and 14 posts on TikTok.
Clearly not viral, Carton ultimately came to the
conclusion that Athena Speta had commissioned influencers to make
the soup seem like a thing, when really it wasn't.
After some digging, Carton claimed that the first post
about the feta and butternut squash soup was a real by at
Grilled Cheese's Social, an influencer named Mackenzie
Smith. With over 700,000 Instagram
followers, this post was also in partnership with Athenos Feta.
Carton suggested that the brand chose Smith for authenticity,
pointing to her previous success in popularizing the tomato feta
pasta in 2021. So when you have creators
telling their millions of followers that something with 14
posts is viral, you can see how hard it's become to measure
quote UN quote virality. Just because people are calling
something viral doesn't mean it actually is.
It could be popular on their corner of the Internet, or it
could be a completely manufactured moment like the
Athena feta saga. In some ways, social media
platforms have even given these manufactured viral moments a
stamp of approval. In recent years, we have seen
the rise of vanity metrics within online content.
Vanity metrics are typically considered impressive data
points, but often don't convert into a real return on
investment. In this context, it may mean
that a brand has a video that goes viral but fails to convert
into sales, brand awareness, or loyalty.
Platforms feed into this by inflating views and engagement.
Many social media professionals believe that this is
particularly true of TikTok. While it's fair to assume that
some brands boost their content on social media platforms to
meet specific targets, that doesn't mean that social media
users don't notice and that their content is actually viral.
For years, there has been discussion on Reddit about
whether TikTok specifically inflates views.
For example, 1 user took to the R slash TikTok gossip subreddit
in 2022 saying quote. It seems like TikTok is
inflating its views slash likes slash follower numbers.
Soon Reddit users started speculating in the comments
about why it benefits the platform and creators and what
tipped them off. As one user wrote, quote comment
counts are inflated almost every single video.
Next time you're on TikTok and you scroll to a new video, take
note of the number of comments before loading them.
Then open the comments and the number of comments almost always
goes significantly down. Could be the result of comments
getting filtered or sent, but I don't know.
The user continues by pointing to bots as potentially one of
the reasons why these views and engagement are inflated on
TikTok. Of course, this topic frequently
comes up online with the discourse around the dead
Internet theory, a belief that most content online is generated
by AI bots instead of human beings.
The Reddit user continues. Quote.
I'm unsure if the problem with bots on TikTok comes from the
company themselves or from creators who buy view slash
comments. I'd have to think it's likely
both. TikTok is surely allowing it.
It's so clear that a huge amount of bots are on the app liking
random comments and videos to make people think their content
is being seen. With Tik Tok's algorithm and
analytics being relatively secretive and also confusing to
the average social media user, many people have gone on to
believe that various TikTok first creators virality is
manufactured by the app. Over the years, Bella Porch has
repeatedly faced such allegations.
For those unfamiliar with Bella Porch, she found viral fame in
mid 2020 for her quirky rendition of Millie BS M to the
B. This video became the most liked
video on TikTok within a matter of weeks and still holds that
title. Although the video of Leah
Halton lip syncing in her car is a contender to take that spot.
Known for her childlike facial expressions while lip syncing,
Bella seemingly captivated millions who just couldn't look
away. She has since gone on to launch
a music career. Though Bella has been
objectively successful, users first question the legitimacy of
her virality. For instance, 1 TikTok user took
to the platform last year writing quote.
Tell me why Bella Porch gets millions of views but nobody
talks about her? Her comment sections are 99%
bots. Is she even real or is it just a
corporation pumping money out of her?
We are likely never going to know the mechanics of Bella
Porch's fame. But we do know, as I alluded to
earlier, that platforms inflate views.
Many experts have argued that a view barely counts as a view
these days, and what I mean by that is that if you may be
counted even if a user barely engages with the video.
In a recent edition of User Mag, Taylor Lorenz explains that it
was Facebook that lowered the threshold for what could be
considered a view. As she explains quote.
According to a lawsuit filed against Facebook in California
federal court in 2016, viewership metrics on some
videos had been artificially increased by up to 900%.
In 2019, Facebook settled the claim for 40, $1,000,000.
She continues by noting that TikTok took this to an entirely
new level, where quote A view on TikTok is simply an impression,
meaning the video was served to a user for at least a fraction
of a second on screen. According to the company, TikTok
also counts each loop of a video as a view, allowing videos to
rake in massive view counts. Lorenz characterizes the current
digital landscape as an arms race over which platform can
inflate views the most, and she is probably right.
YouTube has recently announced that it is changing how YouTube
Shorts views are counted. Historically, views on YouTube
Shorts were counted after a video was watched for a number
of seconds, but now Shorts views will also include the number of
times a video automatically plays or replays.
This, in turn, will increase the number of views dramatically.
Quote With this update, YouTube Shorts will now align its
metrics with those of TikTok and Instagram Reels, both of which
track the number of times your video starts or replays.
YouTube notes that creators will now be able to better understand
how their short form videos are performing across multiple
platforms. Aisha Malik writes for Fast
Company. While updates like this might
incentivize creators to post on the platform and almost provide
a sense of legitimacy to content, it is a move that also
completely dilutes what it means to go viral.
Another example of a manufactured viral moment, while
not as egregious as the feta soup saga, was when the term
chewy gained popularity online. The term entered the popular
vernacular in 20/21. It was allegedly coined by 23
year old software developer Gabby Rassen in 2013, but
started going viral in a TikTok posted by Hallie Kane on March
30th, 2021. In her TikTok, Hallie nominates
choogie as the word to describe quote the type of person who
gets married at 20 or has quote millennial girl boss energy.
Know Your Meme at the time described choogie as the quote
intersection of millennial, girl boss and out of style cringe.
The New York Times pointed out that it is different from basic,
which alludes to conformism or people who are generic in their
tastes. They suggested that choogie is
not necessarily a negative descriptor, but just refers
broadly to someone who tries too hard or is out of date.
Soon, the conversation online became about what is and what
isn't choogie, with the likes of Harry Potter, Live Laugh, Love
Signs, and Disney Adults falling into the former.
What was strange about this conversation was that it was
predominantly millennials engaging in it and using the
word. Ironically, many of them
believed that choogie was a term Gen.
Z was using to describe them, where they seemingly were trying
to stay up to date with the latest slang.
But when you ask Gen. Z what choogie was and whether
they used the word, most would have been unfamiliar with it.
Now the point here is not to hate on millennials.
I'm a millennial myself. Or issue an opinion on what is
or isn't Choogie. But instead it's just show
another instance of supposed virality among Gen.
Z when this actually wasn't the case at all.
While Chewie had a moment of popularity online and some may
even say virality, the context was entirely lost on many social
media users. In turn, no one understood who
was using the term, let alone why.
And that brings us to my next point.
The struggle to measure virality is heightened by the fact that
these moments have become completely unpredictable and
fleeting. Despite what social media gurus
and experts may tell us, there is no surefire way to go viral.
There are definitely things you can do that may.
Help your chances, but virality is so unpredictable on such a
big and fragmented Internet. With that, the speed at which
the trend cycle now moves is unlike anything we've seen
before. If you don't catch a viral trend
within the first 48 hours, we've moved on.
Because of this, there's not a lot of recognition that comes
with virality now, as we can all tell by the Athena Sveta saga.
This in turn, has made it difficult to trace the origins
of a viral piece of content. Our passive consumption habits
mean we scroll without a lot of thought as to the brand or
creator behind posting this content.
And even when we do obtain that recognition, it's fleeting again
because of the pace of the trend cycle.
By this point, I think we've established that the Internet is
extremely fragmented, but this is where I should make a quick
caveat. There can be specific viral
moments that cross niches online, but with the downfall of
monoculture, there will probably never be one viral moment that
the whole Internet will consider viral again.
And while you may hope to be one of the few brands that can
cultivate one of these moments, it does come with risk.
Anytime we post anything online, we essentially lose control of
the narrative around that piece of content, especially if it
goes viral. We can't control how other
people will interpret it or misinterpret it, as the Internet
so often does. And unlike other forms of
publishing, when it comes to posting on social media, we
can't control how others will repurpose this content either.
Recently we've we've seen an uptick in brands sharing UGC
content from within the workplace.
This may be employees jumping on trends, pranking their boss, or
even time stamping their tasks to share their average day on
the job. While there's no denying that
this may be entertaining and useful for many social media
users curious about the workforce, issues arise when we
consider how much of this content can be taken out of
context, putting brands and their employees at risk.
Now we did cover this on Mini Scroll at the time, but a case
in point is the Aussie brand TBH Skin Care when they were
reposted by Andrew Tate on Twitter.
As a reminder, the TBH Skin Care employees made a video
recreating the boots and a slicked back bun trend.
In the video, they chanted phrases like Gen.
Z boss and a mini itty bitty titties and a Bob new Frank
Green and a sneaky link. While some users dismissed the
video as a millennial corps, others joked that quote
marketing degrees should be more expensive.
However, the criticism took a darker turn when the video
circulated on Twitter, where thousands of men began targeting
the women involved. Andrew Tate, one of the most
dangerous men on this side of the Internet, saw it and posted
it with the caption quote If you do not escape the matrix, women
like this will be your boss. Along with other misogynistic
claims. TBH handled this really well.
They're a small brand so they got in front of it immediately.
And I know the founder said that the brand did see an increase in
sales from this, but at what cost?
Her face and the faces of her employees are now forever on
Andrew Tate's Twitter, calling them names and exposing them to
his toxic manosphere followers. That's a dangerous place to be.
Now, this is an extreme case, but it's an example of how
little control we actually have around our content and our
narrative when something picks up traction, and how scary the
consequences of that can be. Now, all of what we just covered
isn't necessarily to minimize the power of going viral.
As anyone who listens to this podcast knows, there are
countless case studies of creators, brands and publishers
who have found immense success from virality.
But gone are the days when the creator of a viral piece of
content found themselves on Ellen.
Viral inflation in the emergence of an increasingly fragmented
Internet have given us a new online ecosystem where, quote UN
quote, viral content doesn't mean what it used to mean.
And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, it does require a
more in depth level of social media literacy to sift through
the bullshit when attempting to create or analyze quote UN quote
viral content. So if chasing virality isn't the
key to success online anymore, what should you do instead?
We charge for that. Infinite Scroll is a podcast
produced, presented and Co written by me, Lauren Meisner
for Centennial World. This episode was researched and
Co written by Annabelle and David.
Editing is by Danny Fenick for the last time.
Thank you Danny for all your hard work with us this year.
You really came through with the deep dives.
I love you guys so, so much. Thank you for listening and I
will talk to you next week. Bye.