The Science and Psychology of Why Videos Go Viral
https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/08/02/the-science-and-psychology-of-why-videos-go-viral/
In this article, Carissa Lintao looks into the six principles that make videos go viral. These include: Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories. For the principle of Social Currency, it is believed that individuals share posts to create an image of what they want to be perceived as. Our social image effects our behavior, specifically online. Additionally, the principle of public suggests that people are more attracted to things others are attracted to. The article calls this “social proof” where individuals copy others because they believe they will have some information that others don’t.
In class, we focus on the rich get richer effect, the idea that things will gain more attention if they already have a substantial amount of followers/views. The article’s idea of social proof is very similar to this power law as they both suggest in increase in views with already famous things. We see this same phenomenon in wealth distributions, where millionaires are earning more money in a shorter amount of time compared to previous years. This derives from preferential link of earlier nodes. A node that has more links from the start will increase its connections at a higher rate than later nodes.