18TH VS. 21ST CENTURY VIRALITY

18^TH VS. 21^ST CENTURY VIRALITY

Looking at Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense”, which helped spark the American Revolution in the 18^th century through it’s virality, and the 21^st century example of Drakes’ “Hotline Bling” memes, it’s clear that with the development of new social media platforms and technologies, which continue to blur the line between space and time, the media modes of production, or the various media forms and communication tools we use to create new media ecologies has endured much change throughout history.

“Common Sense”, which argued for independence and the creation of a new form of government while abandoning “the European traditions of hereditary monarchy and class-based societies”, gained symbolic meaning as it suddenly became a topic that, “transformed attitudes toward independence, which had previously been something many people were reluctant to talk about…”.  “Common Sense”, thus, became a mode of communication, or a social practice of creating symbolic meaning by using print to generate and spread new discourse across America.  “Common Sense” was inflicted with modes of affect, or emotion that was attached to its meaning, as it began to change people’s feelings and attitudes towards how their country should be ruled. Standage notes in his book that, “His pamphlet both revealed the extent of latent support for independence and won new converts to the cause”, suggesting that the widespread distribution of Paine’s pamphlet brought an important issue to the surface, which revealed similar, hidden stances about independence, as well as transformed the attitudes of many to support his argument. Standage points out in his book that Paine reduced the cost of his book to one shilling, donated proceeds to the colonists’ Continental Army, and “increased the circulation of the pamphlet by allowing more printers to copy it”, making his mode of accumulation less about capital and more about power (Standage, 2013).  What I mean by power, is that by increasing the circulation of his pamphlet and creating virality, he had the ability to reach a vast audience, giving him the potential to change many attitudes to support his argument.  Because “Common Sense” exemplifies how media modes of production work together to create symbolic meaning through communicative tools, change or develop new attitudes, feelings, and emotions towards a cause, and accumulate power by capturing the attention of a massive audience, I would therefore argue that 18^th century virality differs from 21^st century virality in that it illustrates the first distinctive conceptual articulation while modern day virality represents the second articulation of media modes of production.

            Drakes’ “Hotline Bling” meme is a modern-day example of how new technologies and sharing processes have created a whole new understanding of virality since the 18^th century. The second articulation, which is most applicable to modern-day mass media practices, is concerned with the process of how media artifacts are brought about and spread through culture, and the spatio-temporal relationships that exist throughout this process.  Looking at the spatio-temporal dynamics of relations of creativity and production, relations of distribution and circulation, and relations of consumption and reception, it’s evident that each of these relationships is dependent upon each other in the process of making something viral.  In relation to the “Hotline Bling” memes, it’s evident that once Drake released his music video, people began to tamper with the original images from the video to create and produce a new, imitated, version, which would then be distributed and circulated across social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and so on, to be shared, consumed and received on a mass, multi-platform level.  Because we have the ability to share so much information on such a large, multifaceted level today, and thus, develop new communities, cultures or societies as a result, the second articulation is most applicable to modern-day virality and Drakes’ “Hotline Bling” example, and the first articulation is most relevant to 18^th century virality as it mainly focused on changing as many attitudes as possible, creating new discourses, and accumulating power through communication rather than creating, circulating, and receiving information to merely be passed around.