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The Viral Spiral: Glo Up Edition

Hi Everyone!

This edition of the viral spiral is all about the GLO UP!

What is a Glo Up?

Urban dictionary’s top definition for glo up (sometimes called a glow up) is “when someone becomes really attractive after they hit puberty AKA ugly duckling syndrome.” Another top definition is “a twist of the phrase ‘grow up’, referring to a person's incredible transformation. This is usually based on increase of style and self-confidence.”

Basically, a glo up is a measure of self-improvement (either based on overcoming puberty or gaining self-confidence), and people love to share their own on social media with side-by-side comparison photos and videos. If you need more examples, you can watch YouTuber Nathan Zed explain what a glo up is!

Types of Glo Ups

Reaction videos: YouTuber’s have jumped on this trend by posting videos about their own glo ups and reaction videos to other people’s glo ups. These reaction videos garner millions of views, although they aren’t always so nice. Most YouTubers however, try to encourage and congratulate others on their self-improvement!

Challenges: If you search #GloUpChallenge on Twitter, you will see hundreds of tweets of people sharing their transformations. This hashtag is commonly used to source content for reaction videos.

The #GayGloUp: A popular trend which originated from Twitter user @caitlincrowley_ when she tweeted about her freshman to senior year prom glo up. The post garnered a lot of attention, receiving more than 35,000 retweets and 137,000 likes. It inspired others to share the hashtag #GayGloUp and share their own experiences.

Celebrity/TV Characters: People love to see celebrity glo ups as well as the transformation of TV characters from the beginning of a series to the most current season – hello Shameless! Shameless fans love this and have created their own fan content featuring cast members.

Instructional Glo Up videos: Beauty bloggers and YouTubers have also picked up the glo up trend with “How To Glo Up” videos. Internet personalities create content based around “glowing up,” showing others their new beauty routinescompared to their old ones, or how to get out of your awkward stage with makeup tutorials.

How Have BRANDS Utilized the Glo Up

“How to” and  instructional videos have gained sponsorship from beauty and retail brands. Example: How to Glo Up for Back to School sponsored by JC Penny Back to School and Clean and Clear.

BET capitalized on the Glo Up by hosting “La La’s Glo Up Contest” where people could upload a photo to Instagram using the hashtags #BETAwardsGloUp and #Contest, and tell La La why they want to win a custom designer dress by celebrity designer Thai Nguyen. The winner was announced at the 2017 BET Awards. Although, those hashtags only have 63 posts in Instagram, it was a unique contest.

Takeaways:

People love to share their own glo up on social media

People love to see and react to other people’s glo ups

Multi-season TV shows have an opportunity to share viral “then and now” content with fans

So, how can Showtime capitalize on glo ups in the digital world!? Share your thoughts!

[theviralspiral-blog]

The Viral Spiral: Twitch

Hi all,

In this edition of the Viral Spiral, we’re going to take a look at the growing influence of Twitch, and its impact on gaming and the current media landscape:

Last week, hip-hop megastar Drake teamed up with professional gamer Ninja for a Twitch livestream. The unlikely duo played the massively popular game Fortnite as 635K people watched, breaking the platform’s record for most concurrent viewers.

This launched a flurry of think pieces, signaling the event as the moment gaming went mainstream. However, gaming has been mainstream for a while. (We covered the phenomenon in a Viral Spiral last June.) In 2017, the game industry drew $36 billion dollars in revenue in the U.S. alone, growing 18%year over year. Other celebrity gamers include Post Malone, Logic, Travis Scott, Chrissy Teigen and Jimmy Fallon—all of whom are very vocal and passionate about the hobby. If anything, Drake is late to the party.

This moment actually means much more for Twitch.

While Twitch’s popularity is no surprise to its passionate user base, the Drake-stream pushed the platform further into the zeitgeist. CNN and TIME covered it. Rolling Stone ran a profile of Ninja, the 28-year-old who makes six figures (a month!) playing games. On Twitter, the event ranked among the Top 4 trending topics worldwide.

This is in the midst of many YouTube creators turning their attention to Twitch, following last year’s “Adpocolypse.” (Backstory: major brands like Coca Cola and Amazon pulled ads from YouTube, after learning their content was paired with hateful/extremist content. This led to YouTube taking a strict approach toward monetizing content, drastically hindering revenue flow for creators.) In a recent interview with The Verge, vlogger Casey Neistat stated, “If YouTube’s not scared of Twitch they should be now.”

Here are some highlights about the growing rise of Twitch, and it’s evolution from gaming platform to livestreaming juggernaut.

Casey Neistat, one of YouTube’s top talents, created his own Twitch channel, finding their payment model (which is built on viewer patronage and donations) to be “much more fair” than YouTube’s.

Following Casey’s lead, content creator/entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk also announced he was starting a Twitch channel, marking another non-gamer adopting the platform. Here’s Gary talking about the “cultural Twitch explosion.”

In celebration of Mr. Rogers’ 90th birthday, Twitch live-streamed all 856 episodes beginning on March 20th, starting with the 90 most popular. Currently, the livestream has 7M+ total views, with thousands watching (and commenting) at any given time.

The Mr. Rogers stream is part of Twitch’s long-running effort to diversify from gaming content. Other TV-related streams include Power Rangers, The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross and thePokemon animated series.

Twitch struck a deal with Disney Digital Network this past January. Disney Digital, which owns Maker Studios, will be bringing their top personalities (Jacksepticeye, LuzuGames, Markiplier, and Strawburry17) to the platform to develop exclusive video-on-demand content. Expect more news coming out of their Newfront presentation May 1st.

So how can YouTube fight back? It goes right back to Fortnite, the free-to-play game that is taking the world by storm.

According to Forbes, YouTube users are watching 25M hours a week of Fortnite-related content, with no signs of slowing down.

On March 26th, one hundred YouTubers (led by elrubiusOMG, a gamer with over 28M subscribers) played the game simultaneously on a YouTube livestream, drawing in 1.1 millionconcurrent viewers.

Ryan Wyatt, the head of YouTube Gaming (a Twitch competitor), took advantage of the event and tweeted:

Speaking of Battle Royale, it will be interesting to watch YouTube and Twitch duke it out over the next couple of months.

Takeaways

Twitch Is For Everyone, Not Just Gamers

Everyone Is Playing Fortnite

Nostalgia Is Powerful

Twitch is the home to podcasters, painters, musicians and a bunch of other interesting creators. (For example: here’s a 71-year-old pianist who takes requests on Twitch, racking up 500K+ viewers at a time.)

So what the heck is Fortnite? It’s a free game available on PS4, Xbox and (as of this week) iOS devices and currently the biggest game on the Internet. Will brands begin to take notice?

Mr. Rogers, Power Rangers, Bob Ross—all of these properties hold nostalgic value to Twitch’s key demographic (Millennial Males 18 - 34).

How can we use the rise of gaming to promote Showtime? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

[theviralspiral-blog]

The Viral Spiral: Shipping Edition

Hi Everyone –

Dim the lights, get some candles going and follow the trail of red rose petals to your television. In this edition of The Viral Spiral, we’re exploring the surprisingly complex and emotionally driven world of shipping!

For those who aren’t familiar with the phrase, “shipping” is a term coined by fans that expresses the desire to see two characters in a relationship. These relationships can be romantic or platonic (though most frequently romantic) and take on unique monikers via a combination of their names.

Now, most dedicated fans of any kind of entertainment know the joy, pain and often frustration of becoming so invested in a fictional story it evokes real life feelings. For some though, investment in a relationship (or potential relationship) that doesn’t exist in real life extends far beyond just feelings, and on to the internet in the form of stories, videos, GIFs and other shareable digital content. The idea of caring so much about a fictional love story or friendship might seem strange, but it’s super common and has been around a lot longer than you’d think. In fact, the phenomenon of shipping dates back to 1913, when Sybil Brinton, a wealthy Englishwoman in her forties, wrote one of the earliest works of fanfiction. Inspired by Jane Austen's voice and characters, she penned "Old Friends and New Fancies", a piece of writing that brought together several non-canonical pairings of characters from all six of Austen’s novels.

In present day, Tumblr is by far the most popular online platform for shipping focused content, as there are built-in communities of like-minded fans. On Tumblr, shipping exists in many forms: fan art, fan fiction, along with manipulated GIFs and videos. It’s a common practice no matter what fandom you’re in—from television shows and movies to K-pop and video games. On Tumblr, the most popular type is slash—ships made up of two male characters. Out of the top 150, 95 (63%) are guy/guy love. Fun fact: Slash originated in the 1970’s when Star Trek fans created numerous romantic encounters between Kirk and Spock, a genre that became known as Kirk/Spock and then simply K/S, leading the way for other non-hetero couples to be known among shippers as “slashes.”    

On YouTube, shippers love to create fan videos (“fanvids”) that incorporate music and highlight the best moments/scenes their favorite couples have shared. This video of Oliver and Felicity (A.K.A Olicity) from the show Arrowhas over 1M views (a very impressive number for this type of content!) and while it may appear completely bizarre, this Jelsa (Jack Frost/Elsa) Frozen music meets fanfiction shipper video has over 34M views.

Shipper content on YouTube isn’t just couple specific though — ShippersGuideToTheGalaxy is a channel dedicated to discussing all things ship and covers lots of different fandoms. Check out this video on controversial couple Joker and Harley Quinn which has nearly 1M views. In addition to the countless YouTube fan videos created to celebrate favorite ships, NotLiterally’s parody of Icona Pop’s song “I Love It” is an accurate and hilarious account of shipping which has racked up nearly 2M views.

Fans aren’t the only ones creating content related to shipping. Media publishers are capitalizing on the conversation and engagement around the topic as well. Refinery29 created a shipper video celebrating Jim and Pam from The Office that got over 20M views and Buzzfeed implored their readers to take sides in some popular shipper battles with this poll which determined the couples who were truly meant to be.  

While acknowledging shipping in marketing can be tricky for brands, Coke took the plunge recently by acting as a sponsor of the MTV Fandom Awards. They created an integrated campaign revolving around the “Ship of the Year” award, designed specifically for authentic Tumblr engagement. It culminated with an in-show moment that teased the award winner reveal. The spot featured social influencers representing their favorite ships via custom Coke bottles. Check it out here.

By now, I’ll bet you’re wondering how the actors who play these well-loved characters feel about fan shipping. Some embrace the idea, like David Duchovny who admitted to watching X-files shipper created videos while others like Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel are blissfully unaware but find the practice endearing.

I’ll close things out by asking an obvious question. Which Showtime couple is YOUR OTP? You know you have one……

P.S. Feeling a little confused by all this shipper slang? Below is quick glossary of all the terms you need to know.

OTP – One True Pairing, a term used to refer to a person’s favorite couple and the ones they invest the most of their emotion into    

AU – Short for “alternate universe” and anything that goes against established canon of the show

Slash – A term used to describe same-sex pairings (most often seen with characters who have not shown signs of being gay in the original canon of the show)

Crack Pairings – A term that refers to a couple considered strange or undesirable due to a major discrepancy in age, or (major ick) blood relation  

Anti-Shipping – A term that refers to a couple a fan dislikes and roots against

Multi-Shippers – Shippers who support multiple ships within a single canon

Endgame – The couple who fans think will wind up together at the end of the story

Cinnamon Roll Ship – “Beautiful Cinnamon Roll Too Good For This World, Too Pure” was the headline for a satirical articlepublished by The Onion in early 2014, which quickly became a catchphrase used on Tumblr to describe adorable, charismatic or otherwise sympathetic fictional characters.

Shipbaiting – When characters are put in potentially romantic situations with the intent of teasing the audience

[theviralspiral-blog]

The Viral Spiral: Creepypasta

Readers beware! In this week’s edition of the Viral Spiral, we’re pulling back the curtain on creepypastas.

Have you ever sat around a campfire with friends or family on a clear summer night, trading ghost stories or urban legends? It’s almost addictive – one story leads to another, then another, and hours later you find yourself laying sleeplessly in bed, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. This tradition could be considered the predecessor to creepypastas – the internet’s version of a campfire ghost story.

Creepypastas are user-generated horror stories passed around on internet forums and other sites with the goal of frightening readers. The term creepypasta comes from a cross between “creepy” and “copypasta.” “Copypasta” is a word used on 4chan starting in 2006 to describe text that is copied and pasted repeatedly on multiple websites – basically meaning short stories collected and reposted around the internet.

Early creepypastas were typically short, and followed one of the following three formats:

1. Anecdotes, in which the narrator describes a scary story, event or legend from their own life

2. Rituals, which come in the form of instructions for readers, claiming that if they follow the steps (go to a particular place at an exact time, or perform certain actions) something horrible or strange will happen – think spooky Bloody Mary tales from childhood

3. The “Lost Episode,” – this format starts with the narrator telling the story of a never-before-seen episode or scene from a famous TV show – typically a comedy or children’s cartoon – and as the story progresses, the audio/imagery becomes distorted and the characters begin to act violently, either killing themselves or each other. The “Lost Episode” format has fallen out of fashion in recent years and is now seen as cliché

As creepypastas have become more popular they’ve evolved into many formats and lengths. A trend has emerged on YouTube with different channels dedicated to the narration and animation of widely known or particularly scary creepypastas. For example, MrCreepyPasta has 1.2 million subscribers, and many of the account’s videos have over 2 millions views. His version of “Jeff the Killer,” one of the most widely shared and well-known creepypastas, has 5.8 million views.  

Another YouTube account that narrates creepypastas “with a British twist” is CreepsMcPasta – it also has over 1.2 million subscribers. His narration of 1999 has 2.2 million views.

The reach of these videos is enormous, even if the account doesn’t have many subscribers – the account IReadCreepyPastas (with 178K subscribers) uploaded a narration of the popular creepypasta “The Russian Sleep Experiment” in 2013. That video has over 26.5 million views!

As creepypasta videos have flourished online, and stories continue to be shared in numerous internet forums, they have garnered attention from television networks as well. Syfy currently has a show on the air called Channel Zero, and each installment is based on a creepypasta. The first installment was adapted from the popular early creepypasta, Candle Cove. The show has done so well that is was greenlit in February for seasons 3 & 4.

Another creepypasta to gain widespread notoriety is The Slender Man. The Slender Man started out as a meme on the Something Awful internet forum and grew into a phenomenon. His image is that of supernatural figure, unnaturally tall and with a completely blank face. The Slender Man stalks and abducts people in his stories, usually children.

The Slender Man mythology has inspired YouTube channels & videos, multiple video games (Slender: Eight Pages, Slenderman’s Shadow, Slender: The Arrival, etc.) and films. A YouTube channel called Marble Hornets created a series on Slender Man, which was later adapted into a horror film called Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story, starring Alexandra Breckenridge and Chris Marquette.

Slender Man reached a new level of notoriety following a 2014 stabbing in Waukesha, Wisconsin involving three 12-year-old girls , two of whom stabbed the third in order to become proxies for the Slender Man, claiming they believed he would kill their families if they didn’t. HBO released a documentary, Beware the Slenderman, on the case in 2016.

In terms of marketing, we can’t find brands who have utilized the creepypasta trend in their advertising campaigns, so it could be an interesting opportunity for Showtime to consider in the future. Which Showtime series do you think lends itself to the creepypasta treatment?

In case you’re looking for some creepypastas to browse over the long weekend, or maybe share over a 4th of July campfire, here’s a list from Mashable of the most shareable: http://mashable.com/2017/06/22/movie-lists-tension/

Sweet dreams and happy Fourth!

[theviralspiral-blog]

The Viral Spiral: Gaming

Hi all,

In this week’s edition of the Viral Spiral, we’re taking a look at gaming.

Gaming is no longer just a niche pastime. According to Google, it’s officially mainstream—and it’s time for brands to start paying attention. In another study, Google found that “64% of the U.S. population 13+ plays video games on some device today” and this behavior is reflected on YouTube, where two of the top five channels on the platform are gaming related.

The impact of gaming has affected other corners of the Internet as well. We’ve seen the rise Twitch, a live-streaming platform whose users watch more video in a month, on average, than YouTube’s audience. (421.6 minutes compared to YouTube’s 291 monthly minutes).

Then there’s the creators, many of which put out content in a multitude of forms: Let’s Play videos (gameplay footage mixed with on-screen commentary), gaming livestreams, unboxing videos, and gaming-relate “How To” content. The top in the field, including PewDiePie, Markiplier and Jacksepticeye, command massive subscriber counts, outweighing mainstream stars by a large margin. (PewDiePie has 55 millions subs, more than Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift combined.)

Many of these creators have begun shifting efforts to Twitch over YouTube, due to YouTube’s increasingly strict copyright strikes and content guidelines, which turns off ads on videos deemed inappropriate. YouTube’s biggest star PewDiePie launched a weekly Twitch show in 2017. Other popular channels like h3h3productions, boogie2988 and gamer Ray Narvaez Jr have followed suit. According to Polygon, “there is more stability in Twitch revenue over YouTube.” Although there’s still big money in YouTube, Twitch’s revenue model—including stream subscriptions and donations—is slightly more predictable.

Then there’s e-sports (competitive gaming), which thrives on Twitch but have also spawned hundreds of highly-attended live events. Revenue for these events grew 42% YoY from 2015 to 2016, and is expected to jump even higher in 2017. Gaming conferences have also grown, including RTX and TwitchCon, which were both attended by over tens of thousands of fans. (According to Nielsen, 23% of eSports fans have attended an event in person.) Brands like Coca-Cola have begun adding experiential value to fans at these events by sponsoring gamers, and providing commemorative cups, banners and soda.

More and more brands want to be in the gaming space. MCNs (multi-channel networks) who specialize in gaming have popped up, including Rooster Teeth, Cyber Solutions Agency and Machinima—connecting brands to their roster of talent.

Here’s how other brands have gotten in on the action:

The Verge posed a question “How do you get millennials who don’t have a cable subscription to care about HBO?” Their answer: “Bring it to them through the trusted Trojan horse of video games.” That’s just what the network did to promote Silicon Valley, bringing their cast to Twitch for a live Q&A session mixed in with some gameplay and a live-stream of the series’ pilot.

Netflix partnered with Twitch to promote Stranger Things. They worked with top influencers on the platform for an ‘80s-themed live stream that ended with a sneak peek of an episode. The influencers played various games in a basement set that resembled the basement from the series, driving buzz amongst the platforms 100M monthly users.

As part of their "You're Not You When You're Hungry" campaign, Snickers partnered with three popular gamers on Twitch. While the gamers live-streamed, they hungrier they got, the worse they played.

To promote a mobile game based on the series, The Walking Dead partnered with PewDiePie to create Youtube videos in which the gamer wore full zombie makeup. This example has 4.7M views.

Arby's Twitter and Facebook posts creative images and GIFs based on video games.

Red Bull has been riding the e-sports wave, creating a YouTube channel dedicated solely to competitive gaming.

Geico published a quiz on Buzzfeed highlighting the brand's connection to the gaming community on National Video Game Day.

Angry Birds created a new level of the game that showcased the Skype brand.

Best Practices:

Partner with popular gamers and influencers in the space. With the trend being so new, there’s untapped potential and a chance to do awesome things.

Do your research. Gamers are smart and can detect phoniness. On the flip side, they’ll reward authenticity.

Throw away your preconceived notions of “the average gamer.” Google published a video titled “What Do You Really Know About Gamers?” to highlight the rise of female and adult gamers.

Twitch presents an opportunity. With viewers and creators flocking to Twitch, it’ll be important to have presence on the platform.

Have you watched anything on Twitch recently? How about gaming content on YouTube? If so, who are some of your favorite creators? We’d love some feedback and thoughts on this topic, as we continue to explore opportunities.

[theviralspiral-blog]

The Viral Spiral: Vape Videos

Do you even vape, bro?

Though controversial, there’s no doubt that the internet is high on vape videos. In this week’s Viral Spiral, we’re inhaling this growing trend.

In January of 2010, the /r/Vaping subreddit was created for discussions on vape practices. As technology around vaping improved, interest in it grew. As proof of increased awareness, “vape” was named The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year in 2014. Their reasoning for choosing “vape” stemmed from the fact that e-cigarettes had become a lot more common by 2014, and as a result you were “thirty times more likely to come across the word vape than you were two years ago, and usage had more than doubled” within that year.

A quick search on YouTube brings up thousands of vape-related videos, including reviews, tutorials, and tricks. In 2014, PDX1K’s posted the How To: Vape Tricks video to his YouTube channel demonstrating different tricks and it has since garnered over 5 million views. Trick videos have gotten increasingly popular, especially Vine TV Vape Trick compilations which can get 10 million views or more. A YouTube Channel called FaZe Rain, part of a larger gaming network called FaZe Clan, posts frequent trick videos, including one from Vape Con which got over 10 million views in less than a year.  There are YouTube channels solely devoted to vape tricks as well, like Narguileiros BR’s channel (the word Narguileiros translates to Hookah). Though the channel only has a little over 100K followers, its Smoke Tricks Compilation video for 2016 still has over 3 millions views.  

There are influencers who tap into the gearhead side of vaping, posting reviews of equipment and tutorials. One of the more popular is RiP Trippers – a self-described vaping fanatic, his YouTube channel has over 860K followers and has videos with reviews on e-cigarrettes and related vape tutorials. Since the start of his channel in 2012, his videos have racked up more than 140 million views. Another popular influencer is GrimmGreen – he has nearly 328K subscribers on YouTube and creates a weekly vape vlog.

YouTubers aren’t the only ones cloud chasing these days. Brands got lit for 4/20 this year in an attempt to capitalize on the holiday and vape interest. To tap into 4/20 celebrations, their campaigns referenced smoking without actually featuring vape videos. Below are some examples of different campaigns:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/20/420-how-brands-are-marking-the-day.html

http://www.adweek.com/creativity/how-pepsi-hbo-dennys-and-dozen-other-brands-are-celebrating-420-164174/

As vaping has become more mainstream, videos parodying vape culture are have gotten popular on YouTube too. h3h3Productions’ “Vape Nation” video is the most popular one on their channel, and has racked up over 15 million views since it was posted last year – it’s hilarious, and my favorite video in this e-mail, so check it out!

If all this Viral Spiral info on vaping has you feeling a little baked, here’s some food for thought to wrap things up… of all our Showtime characters, who do you think would be most likely to vape?

[theviralspiral-blog]

The Viral Spiral: A Deep Dive into the “Oddly Satisfying” Trend

Hello everyone!

Each month we want to do a deep dive on an emerging video/YouTube trend. This week we’re focusing on the wildly popular trend of “Oddly Satisfying” videos…

Have you ever caught yourself getting lost in a video with an endless loop of gears working in perfect synchronization or walls being painted? You know those videos…the ones you randomly come across and then 15 minutes later you realize you’ve been watching the same thing on loop. You can’t exactly explain it, but these videos are oddly satisfying…

Starting as early as June 2011, gifs started to pop on several internet sites like Jezebel and Reddit that called out the visual’s  “oddly satisfying” nature. For example, one of the earliest examples was this post:  “This zipper gif is oddly satisfying,” posted in the /r/GIF” posted in the /r/GIF sub-reddit in April 2013. By May 2013, Reddit had created a sub-reddit dedicated to the trend of “Oddly Satisfying” which was described as a place where, "you can post things that make you feel, well, oddly satisfied. This can be physical (like popping bubble wrap), visual (a perfectly looped GIF), or even aural (the crunching of leaves).” By July 2014, the sub-reddit had attracted more than 160,000 subscribers and now in January 2017 it has 592,831 total subscribers.  

It can’t fully be explained why the “Oddly Satisfying” trend has taken off, but it could be that the simplicity of it all is very calming. It’s familiar, simple, a pattern.

Now sit back, relax and watch some of these famous “Oddly Satisfying” videos. My personal favorite? Watching pottery being molded. Sigh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjeKw0B8PG8  — Some highlights: a cake being frosted, marbles rolling smoothly, gears in perfect synchronization (16,419,301 views!!!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNDgHWt_jgI — Some highlights: pottery being made, Fed-Ex trucks backing into garages, parking lots being painted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wspZAB89ohU — Here is a “YouTube Reacts” video to popular “Oddly Satisfying” clips

If these video peak your interest, here are some popular creators:

On YouTube:

Just Cool Stuff: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTFIyrIRbphyevGx7YRuNbg/feed

The Funniest Vines: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdyKVqV0hO_p-th33Mex_Yw/featured

Oddly Satisfying: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCZIevhN62jJ2gb-u__M95g/featured

On Instagram:

Urbanspoon: https://www.instagram.com/urbanspoon/?hl=en

Streetartglobe: https://www.instagram.com/streetartglobe/?hl=en

Oddly Satisfying: https://www.instagram.com/oddlysatisfying/?hl=en

——

Additionally, here are some of our favorite viral videos from the past week. Enjoy!

Who ever knew milk was so interesting? (Answer: I did). This video looks into why movie characters drink milk —   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKDtmV5xSv0

Here’s a trailer for the year of 2016. No surprise that it’s a horror movie — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z04M6NhkIKk

A mashup of Arthur with “Not Afraid” by Eminem. The only description you need — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVaQKJX3r_Q

"Alexa Fail" I’m sure this is the first of many "Alexa Fail” videos you’ll see in 2017, but not going to lie, this one is pretty cute — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaF5ieBkFs4

To be a princess or not be a princess: Princess Leia Edition — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kXuR0tBThg

Best of CES 2017 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjXizY4sJbY

La La Land was my personal favorite movie of 2016, so I’m happy to see it sweeping the awards circuit. It also provided this great moment at the Golden Globes — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-P7dUi3TII

The Golden Globes Cold Open -- I live for stuff like this and I love seeing all the different movies and TV shows intertwined. It’s a fun way to think of our shows — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaldSt0lc8o

[theviralspiral-blog]

The Viral Spiral: Food

Hello everyone!

We’re back with another edition of Viral Spiral and this week we’re focusing on the digital sensation of food content online.

Recipe videos are taking over your social media. You’ve seen them everywhere and you can’t escape them. They are sped-up, one(ish)-minute long videos in which an overhead shot shows two hands creating a dish. Whether it’s almond-crusted parmesan salmon, cheese-stuffed blooming onion, or pizza lasagna, there is something for everyone.  And just when you think you’ve seen it all, you’ll see a recipe for root-beer pie. But you’ve got to admit, you’re intrigued…

And while it’s fun to see what wild recipes are posted, these videos are special (and oddly addictive) because they make it seem as if cooking is something everyone can be a part of. They are quick, painless, and pretty delightful. It’s easy to get lost watching these recipe videos for a minute or two. You see the process from start to finish and then you’re on to something new. Similarly to the “Oddly Satisfying” trend, these videos may just be a nice break in the day for people. Plus, who doesn’t love to eat?

Food content has been a part of our culture since the first cooking shows in the 1940s with Philip Harben. The first dish cooked on TV? Lobster vol-au-vents. In 2017, everyone and anyone can post their food recipe videos online. However, there are a few creators that have established themselves as the best: Tasty (Buzzfeed), Thrillist, Delish, and Saveur. In particular, the Tasty Facebook (a product of Buzzfeed) has become a go-to destination for recipe videos. Since its launch on July 31, 2015, the Tasty Facebook page has over 80.3 million Likes (!!!). According to this behind the scenes video on the Tasty cooking video series, the Tasty team produces two videos a day and Buzzfeed estimates that 1 in 4 Facebook users view a Tasty video once a month. In fact, most of the engagement and views come from Facebook. For example, this Veggie Nuggets recipe video that was posted to Facebook on 1/24 had 16M views, 80K comments, and 238K reactions in just 20 hours. It’s a massive and highly engaged community.

Here are some of the most popular recipe videos:

Cookies and Creampuffs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zyz0ktjUrI

Penne 4 Ways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo4M34ih0Uo

Red Velvet Churros: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg2lWZNVRU8

Plus, a fun twist on recipe videos with famous TV series (they’re a bit longer than usual recipe videos):

Breaking Bad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be4dxRzK81U

Stranger Things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8WYiLfnWXs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PzDQcQ4DbA

Game of Thrones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJus3oFzBr8

Here are some of the top creator that you can follow across platforms:

Tasty (Buzzfeed):

https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedtasty/

https://www.buzzfeed.com/tasty

https://www.instagram.com/buzzfeedtasty/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJFp8uSYCjXOMnkUyb3CQ3Q/videos?sort=p&view=0&flow=grid

Thrillist:

https://www.thrillist.com/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/thrillist

Delish:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWMl6Xw3M37ti_C964vmYvg

Saveur:

https://www.youtube.com/user/SaveurMagazine

—

Here are some other stand-out videos from the past week!

Have you ever wondered if or how all Pixar movies are connected? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANDvxzotELw

I think many people will remember the night of the 2016 Presidential election for the rest of their lives. This video focuses on a group of Londoners watching the election results come in: https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/193365646

The horror film The Ring has scarred me for life. To this day, I am afraid of static on the television. In this video, hidden cameras capture the reactions of unsuspecting customers when Samara comes out of a TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcuRPzB4RNc

An estimated 2.9 million people (in the United States alone) marched on January 21, 2017 in the Women’s March. This video shows a group of women, all from different cities who had never met, performing a song they rehearsed online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeQD9QwYC5M

Here is Ellen’s tribute to President Obama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCsr0CNqB3g

The Trump Administration as if it was an episode of The Office (one of my ultimate favorite shows): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x1eqZNyJjM

[theviralspiral-blog]

The Viral Spiral: Health and Wellness

Hi all –

The Health and Wellness industry is booming these days and that (not surprisingly) has extended itself to the internet. People are hungry for organic and healthier food (hello Farmers Markets and Whole foods!) along with ways to integrate exercise and overall wellness into their life. The biggest challenge for many however, is fitting those things into a hectic daily schedule. Well… that and avoiding the cookie aisle at the grocery store.  

In this edition of The Viral Spiral, we’ll take a look at how the emergence of health and wellness content online has made fitness and healthy eating extremely accessible, budget friendly and dare I say it…kind of fun?

Fitness influencers are plentiful on YouTube and there’s a little something for everyone. If you’re feeling like you need a bit of zen in your life, pull up a mat and do some Yoga with Adrienne. She’s a YouTube yoga guru with over 2M followers who posts weekly yoga practices geared toward different audiences and skill levels. It seems fitting to share her Showtime relevant Yoga for Actors. If you’re looking for something a little more high impact, check out The Fitness Marshall who regularly posts cardio dance workouts to popular songs. His video featuring Meghan Trainor’s Me Too has over 5.5M views! Fitness Blender is another wildly popular fitness creator with over 3.9M subs – a husband and wife team that provide free full length workouts for every fitness level. And if you’re pressed for time, Refinery 29’s 60 Seconds to Fit has you covered with quick :60 videos that showcase one key exercise you can add into your workout rotation (example below).

Of course, fitness and eating healthily go hand and hand. People paying more attention to the food they put in their bodies is reflected in the endless content available on YouTube that focuses on that very topic. In addition to the more straightforward healthy recipes, videos tend to follow a few popular formats like Meal Prep, Food Hauls (think of it as a grocery store version of show and tell) and What I Eat in a Day, where influencers take you through the things they eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Some examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGuZVnfcwNQ - Food Haul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYeJUtMCAzc  - Meal Prep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQgs_MHtmco&t=1s - What I eat in a day

Even Buzzfeed is dipping its toe into the Health and Wellness game with Goodful, featuring better for you Tasty style recipes and other tips and hacks for wellness.

How to make 21 healthy meals for under $50 -  https://www.facebook.com/officialgoodful/videos/1517129128357548

8 Smart Vegetable Hacks https://www.facebook.com/officialgoodful/videos/1520636024673525

Brand Examples:

How to Throw a Healthy Wellness Brunch Party – Dole and PopSugar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYOl42BSJ6g  - Refinery29 and Smartwater  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=322&v=Vd40VQCNQmI  - Blogilates and Jamba Juice

And to give ourselves some balance, the antithesis to Health and Wellness - Cronuts and Dominos pizza!

A video of Cronut creator Dominique Ansel taste testing girl scout cookies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHoHafb6mE

Dominos pays homage to a classic 80’s film, weaving it brilliantly into their advertising - http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/dominos-remade-the-running-home-scene-from-ferris-bueller-with-joe-keery-of-stranger-things/

[theviralspiral-blog]

The Viral Spiral: ASMR

Hi all,

Who says the Internet can’t be relaxing? If you’re looking to destress after a long day of emails and your relatives’ Facebook posts, head over to YouTube, pop in your headphones and search “ASMR.”

ASMR (Autonomous sensory meridian response) is a phenomenon that has been sweeping YouTube since 2010, after being coined by Jennifer Allen, the founder asmr-research.org. To explain it simply, it’s the auditory equivalent of a glass of wine after a long day. Soft whispers, the slow crinkling of tissue paper, manicured nails tapping on a piece of wood—ASMR artists record themselves creating calming, satisfying sounds that, when listened to with a pair of headphones, trigger a tingling sensation in the brain.

A quick scan on YouTube, and you’ll find thousands of these videos created by hundreds of artists. Popular channels include Gentle Whispering ASMR (860k subs), Gibi ASMR (154k subs) and ASMR Darling (511k subs), all of which follow a similar format. They are recorded straight to camera and feature the artist speaking softly or doing something seemingly mundane (such as pressing buttons on a remote or chewing gum) directly into a microphone. Videos such as 21 Words to Trigger ASMR, ASMR 10 Triggers to Make You Sleep and ASMR Whispered Tapping and Scratching have racked up millions of views and earned the creators a dedicated, engaged following. Brands like Pepsi, Dove Chocolate and KFC have gotten into the ASMR game as well, creating digital and social content that speaks to this growing audience.  

Although the exact science of ASMR is still up in the air (neuroscientist Steven Novella believes it to be “entirely plausible” and likens it to a “pleasure response”), there is no denying the impact it’s had in the digital space. Also, when done right, it really works. Give some of the examples below a try.

ASMR Whispered Tapping and Scratching

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwnLdjhQ0b0

ASMR Sound Assortment (Water, Tapping, Whispers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48PdWMGvALo

21 Words to Trigger ASMR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3cpQi9-RlA

ASMR I Can't Sleep: Sticky Tapping

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuGEtw1u9i0

Brand examples:

KFC – Colonel Sanders ASMR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuuSGq3o1uI

Pepsi Instagram ASMR post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDV6SadKrBn/?taken-by=pepsi&hl=en

Dove Chocolate China ASMR ad campaign:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhwYbH5n15c

More Info:

VICE posted a feature on the trend, titled ASMR, the Good Feeling No One Can Explain:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/asmr-the-good-feeling-no-one-can-explain

Here’s Mashable’s piece on ASMR and its effect on YouTube:

http://mashable.com/2015/01/26/asmr-youtube/

Steven Novella’s blog post about the science of it all:

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/asmr/

The ASMR subreddit has over 123k subscribers. Content is filtered by intentional and unintentional forms of ASMR:

https://www.reddit.com/r/asmr/

-------

In other trending news:

Want to know what it’s like to go bowling in the White House? Vlogger extraordinaire Casey Neistat has you covered:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnOzMj7v-64

Our last Viral Spiral covered the food phenomenon. As a follow up, here’s some Super Bowl snack ideas from Tasty:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti5_eI8ZM8Q

Bad Lip Reading interpreted Inauguration Day and racked up 27 million views in the process:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gneBUA39mnI&t=110s

Cut.com had kids try teas from all over the world. It goes as expected:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC_WotxU5W0

The Nerdwriter gives an in-depth breakdown of how Louis CK tells a joke. (This popped on Reddit and brought in 1.5 mil views).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufdvYrTeTuU

Jon Sudano had a dream. “What if every song in popular music was written by Smash Mouth?” He realized that dream and has taken YouTube by storm, proving content doesn’t have to be flashy or highly produced to make an impact. Here’s the video that started it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhcpoXqT86A

One of his latest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq-YWK9Dsxo

[theviralspiral-blog]

The Viral Spiral: Live Streaming

Hi all,

In this week’s edition of The Viral Spiral, we’re taking a look at live streaming.

With the quick and steady rise of Facebook Live, and the increased functionality of livestreaming through the YouTube and Twitter apps, the trend has become ubiquitous in the digital space.

Below are some notable examples from a variety of publishers, artists, TV shows and consumer products. The key theme is that they peaked the curiosity of viewers with intriguing premises and followed up with surprising pay-offs.

Mr Robot made headlines, and racked up 2.2mil views, by premiering a scene from Season 2 after a long, mysterious countdown. Once the countdown finished, a masked member of the fsociety revealed himself, explaining that fans were about to see something very secret.

In partnership with USA Networks, The Verge hosted a Mr. Robot after show on Facebook Live and USANetworks.com, following the airing of each episode (starting with 203).

The comedy destination Super Deluxe have launched a ton of strange, hilarious Facebook Live videos, including:

A live Telenovevala episode where viewers can determine scene outcomes.

The creation of a pizza made using ingredients decided upon by viewers (that they forced people to eat). Watch if you dare.

A live race between a Tortoise and a Hare. The ultimate showdown.

BuzzFeed wrapped rubber-bands around a watermelon, one by one, until it finally exploded. At the peak of this 40-minute video, 800k viewers were watching live. Watch here.

The Stranger Things kids attempted ‘80s Trivia on Facebook Live. They failed in hilarious fashion.

In probably one of the strangest challenge videos of all time, LADBible live streamed four ice-cream pops melting in a battle to see which one would outlast the others. This oddly engaging clip pulled in over 6.3 million total views.

In the first use of YouTube mobile live streaming by a Hollywood studio, 20th Century Fox broadcast a Comic Con Q&A with the cast ofAliens to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the film’s release.

The WWE further eventized this year’s Wrestlemania by broadcasting a live pre-show on YouTube, pushing viewers to download a 30-day free trial of the subscription-based WWE Network.

Tastemade broadcasted a live video of tiny food preparation in a tiny kitchen, and viewers went nuts. The clip has over 39 million views to date, and almost 85k comments.

Airbnb also took advantage of Periscope 360 to give viewers a tour of different properties around the world. Their video of a house in Kauai, Hawaii accumulated more than 3.6 million views.

Livestream Fails

While livestreaming can be a super engaging way to reach a massive audience, it can also fail miserably if not executed well - both in concept and on the technological side of things.  

HBO encountered this when they produced a Facebook Live event to build hype for the seventh season of Game of Thrones. That event involved watching a block of ice melt which concealed the premiere date. That is, of course, before the stream began glitching and was eventually was taken down due to technical difficulties. It seems being forced to watch ice melt understandably rubbed GoT fans the wrong way. They took to alternative social media platforms to vent their frustration, with one fan calling the ice-melting exercise “the biggest troll job in the world”.

Iceland-Based Reyka Vodka missed the mark (and certainly misjudged the attention span of the internet) with their Holiday themed Facebook Live Stream, where a man goes on to wish every single resident of Iceland “Happy Holidays.” By name. For over two hours.

The New York Times attempted to livestream a morning pitch meeting. Many took issue with this tactic as not being on-brand. Gawker, at the time, even accused the stream of being staged, and, worse yet, boring.

You’d think a livestream interview with President Obama would be a home run. However, due to technical problems, BuzzFeed’s streamwas stalled and their visibly-frazzled host had to kill time with an off-the-cuff ramble, losing viewers and creating an awkward start.

There’s also the trend of seemingly unprepared talking heads, in which brands lose viewers due to long pauses and lack of engaging dialogue. Here’s a Huffington Post example.

Best Practices

Challenges/Stunts

There’s just something about the unpredictability of watching a live challenge or stunt that people love. Having a pay-off at the end of a video (such as a winner being crowned or a disgusting pizza being eaten) gives viewers a reason to keep watching.

Just Because It’s Live, Doesn’t Mean It’s Interesting

Avoid content that’s too drawn out or doesn’t allow viewers to engage. Show fans something they couldn’t see anywhere else. Give them the unexpected, or else they’ll scroll right by!

Make It an Event

Livestreaming can help a televised event seem even bigger. Creative twists on pre-show, after-show and behind-the-scenes content can up the ante of standard linear programming.

Demos/How To Videos

Putting a creative twist on a standard “How To” video is a good recipe for success. People love to learn and share information. Tapping into this trend can lead to high view counts. (Just ask Tastemade.)

Plan for the Worst

Technical issues can derail even the most sure-fire concepts. Planning ahead, and devising backup procedures, could help you avoid scrambling on-air.