Accidentally famous - psychology of going viral

  

Adam Nyerere Bahner back than in early youtube days was a graduate student living in Minneapolis, pursuing a Ph.D. in American studies. "I was a bad graduate student. I didn't really like teaching, and I didn't really like research," he said. "I was focusing on studying the history of performance and social change." In 2006 Bahner began to go to small open mics at "mom and pop shops" where he would "sing for perhaps five people, two of whom were reading the newspaper and three of whom, being Minnesotans, were very non confrontational and would say, 'Oh, yeah, that's great; keep doing what you're doing, he was called 'Tay Zonday In January 2007, Zonday started uploading music videos that "got no momentum whatsoever. 

'Chocolate Rain' was a song I completed as an afterthought," he said. "I did another song that YouTube told me they would feature on the front page." At the time, editors still curated YouTube's front and section pages.

So Zonday "rushed 'Chocolate Rain' to completion because I knew I should have a second song ready on my channel." He uploaded it in April 2007, and it got some views, maybe 30,000 or so in the first couple of months. Within days, "Chocolate Rain" "just blew up.

 Fame has completely changed in the last 20 or 30 years, primarily because of reality TV and also the internet and social media 

 

 Rebecca Black's music video "Friday" also just "blew up  It literally went from 3,000 views from the start of a weekend to 1 million by the end of a weekend and by the end of the month 100 million," At the time, it was the fastest video to hit 100 million views The video also had the distinction of racking up more "dislikes" than "likes." From Black's view, there were "literally millions and millions and millions" of people saying "get out of here; we don't want you here

 Rebecca Black says her hit "Friday" placed her under "intense pressure."
Though she cannot discuss money because of a nondisclosure agreement with YouTube, she says, "Our kids go to good private schools, we've been fortunate enough to take them to Disney more than once, I'm able to go to department stores to shop, all kids have had braces, we can afford to get them dance lessons, music lessons, and instruments so they can learn new skills and build character for their futures, and each kid has a college fund and a nice savings account, we live in a nice house and we're able to provide the life I always wanted to give my children

 But it also creates this situation where I feel more real in fiction than I do in reality