High Five for First Kiss: The Birth of a Viral Video

This is one of those times, this is one of those times where a crazy story is just waiting to be unleashed.  This week, I experienced something I never thought I'd experience, I'd never imagine I'd experience.  What happened?  Well, let me tell you.

Wednesday Night: May 4th, 2011.  I was perusing Facebook, as usual, and my news feed was fuming.  My eyes scanned the headlines, stopping on a video Ms. Tiegra Boots had posted a minute before.  Most videos make me stop, this video got me to click the "play" button.  I opened up the video in YouTube and immediately noticed it had only 32 views.  32 views?  That's pretty mightily small.  I laughed and proceeded to watch the video.  I watched.  And I watched again.  And again.  I realized something.  This video was GOLD, I had stumbled upon something special, real special.  This short video simultaneously shone brilliance, caught my heart off-guard, finally defined the word "cute," and excited me, very much so, to the point where I began sharing little Elliott and Bowie's first kiss.  This was the video:

  

Now, my first reaction was to share.  So I did.  I showed a lot of people, a lot of Internet people.  I posted it to my Facebook, I posted it to my wedding videography business' FB (Mawwiage Films), and  I made my way onto Reddit.com, a social news website with a MASSIVE fan base and proceeded to post the "high five for first kiss" video under the title "I don't care who you are, this is the CUTEST EVER."  People began commenting, people began voting it up, people began enjoying it.  I watched as the video that had 32 views upon my initial viewing made it up to 1000+ before I went to bed.  I was pleased, I posted something that was getting views!

I woke up in the morning to see it have around 4000.  Wow!  Tripled overnight! People must have shared it! I'm impressed!  The day went on, views started climbing.  I noticed a spike and went to investigate: Super Blogger Perez Hilton (link to post) had posted the video on his blog!  WHHHAAATT!  I'm pumped.  Can't wait.  This thing's ERUPTING.  By the end of the night, the video had well well over 100,000 hits.  I went to bed, who knows what's going to happen while resting in slumber.


I wake up, take a look at the comments, and upon investigation, find this little gem:

My main man, Mr. Justin Bieber, checkin' the interwebs, findin' something he likes, and posts it to all 9,000,000+ of his followers on twitter (here's the link to JB's post/twitter).

My friends, at this point, I am simply awe-struck.  There I sat, 2 short days earlier, watching this 32-hit-ridden video.  There I sat on May 6th, looking at Justin Bieber twitter, thinking to myself "Woah, this is the real deal ladies and gentleman."

I'm going to use the famous idiom: THE REST IS HISTORY.



"High five for first kiss" broke the milestone 1 million views on the 6th, and now sits at (the time of writing on the 8th) a lofty 3,913,298 views.

This my friends is what going viral looks like.  This video about a cute little boy and a cute little girl being all flirty and teasing, eventually leading to a short kiss, their first kiss, in which the little boy, Elliott, proclaims to the entire world through loud cheers that he has in fact kissed Bowie on the lips; this short little video took the planet by storm and will continue.

If I am this excited over this video going viral, I can't imagine what the families of both Elliott and Bowie are feeling right now.  I literally can't imagine, because I have nothing to base it off of.  I know one thing though: they are having the times of their lives.  I'm excited to see where this incredibly opportunity leads you.





This has been an incredible journey.  New surprises arise every day and it's likely not to stop here, it's going to go, go, go.  I learned something big: CONTENT IS KING.  Why does a video go viral?  Because people like the content and they share it.  Yes, the initial plant and who sees it first, getting it into the hands of the right people, all that jazz, it sorta matters, it matters to get it started.  But the real jet fuel is the people of the world sharing the video with their friends.  You see a video, you like it, you share it.  If the content is not sharable, your video's not going to be seen by millions of people.  Content is everything.




So what's next?  Get one of my own videos to go viral.  That's likely not to happen, but hey, it's the next step. Sometimes next steps aren't attainable, and sometimes that's a good thing.




Thanks for reading, have a great day, and always be on the lookout for anything and everything, you never know when something like this may happen.




One last little fun snippet:  I realized later that someone had posted the same video on Reddit before me.  The difference was his video did not get very exposure because he posted it in an apparently obscure sub-genre of Reddit while I just posted it in the "video" category.  Check it out:

Connor, if you're reading this, you know exactly what I'm talking about when I say "similar story."  Thanks GRVeee2!  I can't thank you enough.  And I'll repeat it, sorry to steal your thunder!  I'll just let you know, I've thoroughly enjoyed myself throughout this whole ordeal.

Color- est

Color is a bizarre, complicated, yet incredibly simple element.  Take notice of my clothing.  Do the colors match? No. They don't. When I was standing in front of the mirror, a look of disgust took place upon my face; just in case, I wasn't in a place to change.  Normally I would change, but I thought to myself "Man, color is such a bizarre, complicated, yet incredibly simple element, that I think I'll rock these whack colors today and write about it on my blog."  As you can tell, this is precisely what happened.  Seriously though, color is pretty crazy.  Why do some colors work together and others don't?  Whats the deal with complimentary, analogous, triadic, color schemes.  Don't know the answer, can't help you out.  What do I know? I know that color is an art and some people just don't have it, same reason some people can't clap on beat to save their lives, drives me bonkers, but it's life, and I'm blessed to have rhythm...and color recognition.  If you can't clap on beat, sorry.  If you can't tell red from black (yes, I'm talking to you Connor), sorry.  But here's the deal: you're probably using the skills that I have used up clapping and looking at colors in other better, cooler, radder, sweeter places than I could imagine.  You're talented.




That was a somewhat random spiel, how nice.

I've got some artistic matter for you today.  I am in a typography class at Biola labeled "Letters & Symbols."  Kind of hard to explain what exactly we learn, but it's an incredible class that is stretching my mind through great lengths.  We had a project due yesterday: we had to choose 3 words and then construct them out of virtually anything and everything.  There were rules, rules irrelevant to this blog, but I followed the rules and below are some fun examples of the outcome.  Enjoy.


Exhibit 1: Blue Painter's tape. FUN FACT: In real life, this stretches over 6 feet in length.

Exhibit 2: Hot Sauce on a refrigerator door. FUN FACT: In real life, this is still sitting outside my room. It smells like hot sauce exploded on a refrigerator door.

Exhibit 3: Socks. FUN FACT: In real life, those are real socks, look closely, you can tell.

Exhibit 4: Shoelace(s). FUN FACT: In real life, the shoelace had to be eliminated from the shoe in order to spell elimination. How symbolic.

And there you have it, some words.






Moving forward

This week is crazy, last week was crazy, so much stuff happens in a week, it is rather remarkable.  As of last week, Justin Bieber was pretty much a Biola student, that has changed quite a bit, but hey, I'm still a belieber.  Even the Mawwiage Films banner was updated, last week was weak sauce, we'ek needed to upgrade:

 

Mawwiage Films | Wedding Videography

Speaking of things that happen in a week.  There are two specific videos that were born and then took over the face of the planet this last week.  One is the girl from UCLA who rants about Asians in the library, expressing her disgust towards their behavior in the library and elsewhere.  I'm not going to post that trash on my blog, no offense. She has received mauling by the multitudes, I wish her good luck in the conquering the rest of her life.  It's a bummer this had to happen.




All in good form, the other video is by brilliant lyricist Rebecca Black.  Arguably the goodest lyrics of the year, Black's "Friday" inspires millions with lyrics such as

"Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes afterwards"

and

"We-we-we so excited"


Here's the vid.





Wonderful.






So that's the plan, that's the jam, it's the end of the post, worth as much as spam.

Have a wonderful day people of the internet. Enjoy yourself on this fine day.

The Shack

Good morning sunny California.  The sun's out and we're loving it.  Mr. Michael Warnecke said I worked at the surf shack.  I can take that.


Hey, so this week has been intense, super intense.  So intense, I'm not really going to get into it.  But here's the moral of the story: life is intense, it's going to be intense, might as well buckle up and enjoy the ride!  Sometimes there's bumps, you might get a bruise or two, but that's not going to stop this ride from flying around the next corner.  I guess you could call that a word of encouragement, maybe a few words of encouragement; it actually encouraged me, in fact.


So, I've got some exciting news: Mawwiage Films has officially entered the Crexendo website competition hosted by Biola.  They are looking at a whole lot of different factors, but, as a shameless plug, if you wouldn't mind spreading this guy around, that'd be awesome, especially to people who are looking at getting married.

Link: http://mawwiagefilms.com   
Los Angeles and Orange County Wedding Videography

Hey, and if you like what we do, if you've seen Mawwiage videos and enjoyed them, take a second and like our facebook page!  Click the banner below:

Mawwiage Films

Awesome.





So, the topic of Biola University the last few days to few weeks has been Mr. Justin Bieber.  A phatty rumor was started: Mr. Justin Bieber has applied to Biola University for the Fall 2011 semester.  All of a sudden, Mr. Justin Bieber was the talk to the campus; was it true, was it false, was it cool, was it incredible?  People tweeted, people facebooked, in one particular instance, a fake facebook profile was created for the singer in order for Biola people to become "friends" with the legend.  As I watched the internet meme form, I really wondered what could come of this.  If Mr. Justin Bieber actually did come to Biola, how would people react?  I would hope that people would treat him like a normal person, not flip out when they walk past him in the caf, say "What Up Justin" in passing.  This is what I would hope.  However, what I watched form on the internet was a ridiculous fanfare of posts, a surefire way to hestitate Mr. Bieber.  It got to the point where Mr. Bieber was said to be replacing the Eagle as the Biola mascot.  Now, if you were Mr. Justin Bieber and you saw someone post that about you and your potential future school, would you really deep down want to go there?  I can't say I would.  Maybe Mr. Bieber is different.  Either way, people around Biola bascially flipped and went NUTTY over this rumor.  It was the talk, it was the life.  I got asked 3,231 times by people who knew I worked in Admissions if I knew the real answer.  I told them I did, but I wasn't going to tell them the real answer, got to keep the rumor a rumor.  Earlier this week, the Chimes, the Biola newspaper, broke the story, Mr. Justin Bieber was in fact NOT coming to Biola, at least for next semester.  People reacted, but the rumor did not fizzle.  The next day, Mr. Andre Stephens, the head of Biola Admissions (my boss in a sense), received this:

Think what you want.



Biola caught Bieber Fever.  Mr. Justin Bieber, we would love to have you study here, just be warned, you're going to have an audience.  I have a theory though, once you step on to campus, everything will change.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.



I've got a video for you, it's a good time, a little drumming, took me straight back to winter drumline.  Sometimes I miss it. 













That's the post.  Got a little Bieber, got a little drumming, can't go wrong.  Fun stuff 101.



Have a great week, drink a strawberry-banana smoothie.

Tabled

How are you today? Weather treating you well? How's work/school/chillaxin?  When is the last time you drank a fruit smoothie?  We all have questions, and most of the time we have answers to the questions.  Right now, I have a pretty intense question: how do I fit all that needs to be done, including getting a good nights rest, into the 24 hours we are given in a day?  If I knew the answer to that question, I'd be pumped, rested, and ready to rock at every waking hour.


I have a few different things to talk about. 1st?  Justin Bieber.  You may say "What? Really? You're kidding, right?"  This is not a joke.  Over the last few weeks, I've come to appreciate Justin Bieber.  Why?  I've come to realize this dude is pretty genuinely talented, he's not your typical Disney Channel star turned rockstar overnight who just, honestly, isn't that good.  Nope, big man JB found his start upon youtube.com, impressing the masses, including Scooter Braun who introduced him to Usher who was so impressed....well it's all just history.  I'm not a particular fan of JB's music, I have not contracted the Bieber Fever, but I am going to admit he's talented, because he is.  Additionally, I have been impressed by JB's attitude and drive after becoming a world renown star overnight.  From what I've seen in interviews and such, he's just a kid having a good time, enjoys a sports-related ringtone, and actually has remarkable humility for his position in the entertainment industry.  I haven't done a whole lot of reading/watching, so I may just be speculating, but hey, JB keep it up, Buddy.  





Next, this week marks the first round of directing project.  For mine, oh mine, I'll let you just watch it, there really aren't words to describe it.  I have been calling the "craziest-video-I've-ever-made."  I don't know if that's true, but definitely makes it into the finals.


Generic from Morgan Lott on Vimeo.



Nutty.


Third, the POG revolution has arrived at Biola University.  Last week, if you recall (if you don't: http://emliv.blogspot.com/2011/02/reevaulate.html), I talked POG (Passion Orange Guava juice) up, explaining that Mr. Michael Warnecke and I took matters into our own hands and began requesting the Biola cafeteria supply it's customers with the delicable island drink that is POG: "On the note of POG, we (now a group of probably 10 people) have been asking the Biola cafeteria to supply the populous with the incredible POG juice.  We requested enough times that they claim they are finding out from their suppliers if POG is an option.  It's happening, the POG revolution is here."

So here's what happened, we requested, we requested, they responded saying they were looking at vendors, few days pass, a note appears on one of our "current status of POG search?" request cards: "We will be serving POG starting Tuesday morning!"  We could not be more happy, because we normally do not do breakfast, we got up extra early to get some delicious POG.  We hit up the caf, had trouble finding the POG, had trouble making the juice dispecer actually dispence POG, but when it was all said and done, we had cups full of POG and, my favorite, POG Berry (POG and cranberry fusion).  Let's just say it was heavenly.  I simply cannot believe we sought out to get something, we told people about it, we requested, requested, requested, and we received.  Well done, Biola Cafeteria, you guys flew to the top tier of my BEST-EVER list.  Can't wait for my next glass.



NOW, I've got some video for you, an interesting lineup to say the least:


1_

This is "Children Go Where I Send Thee" by Tennessee Ernie Ford, and little dude on Tennessee Ernie Ford's right, our left, is PUMPED. This dude feels like beat deep deep in his soul. Good for him, let's take notes. I'M FEELING IT.





2_

Introducing the most incredible lightshow I've ever seen. I have not a clue about how they pulled this off, all I know is it is incredible, and I sit in awe from behind my computer screen. BEASTLY.


Licht Festival Gent 2011 from Mr.Beam on Vimeo.



3_


Here's how a man eats a banana, go big or go home.





4_


There's just something about this next video. I think it may be the music. I think it may be the gang of cats. I think it may be that even cats get confuzzled. I think it may be that the gentleman and the cat communicate so effectively. I think it may be this video:












And there you have it, a little tidbit of the week.  Boom boom bam.  I feel like I'm forgetting something.  Maybe I am.  Forgetfulness, now there's a topic.  I forgot was I was going to say about forgetfulness though; oh yes, I was going to say forgetfulness is a great topic.



Have a pleasant morning/afternoon/evening.  Please.