Blog 3: Common Sense vs. The Double Rainbow

Common Sense vs. The Double Rainbow

Common Sense was a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1776. The pamphlet was comprised of an argument in favor of the American Revolution. During this time, pamphlets were an imperative medium for the diffusion of ideas. Within 10 days of Common Sense’s emergence, the printed publication went viral, as it spread outside of Philadelphia into various other cities. Paine even allowed other printers to copy it and capitalize off of its demand. The pamphlet was also spread through letters and from hand to hand. Its influence became contagious in that it not only “transformed attitudes toward independence, which had previously been something many people were reluctant to talk about, let alone support,” (Standage 144) but also became the “most popular and influential pamphlet of the American Revolution” (Standage 146). Essentially, the pamphlet provided Paine with a medium that enabled him to publicize his messages of which had a notable impact on American opinion of the time.

Fast-forwarding now to the 21^st century, where the virality of social media has become much quicker, due to the ease at which we are able to spread media texts from person to person within our culture. The double rainbow offers us a relevant example of the virality of social media in today’s world. The link to the double rainbow YouTube video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI The creator of the video Paul Vasquez uploaded it to YouTube and then it was eventually sent on to Jimmy Kimmel. At the time it had 800 views, but after Jimmy Kimmel posted a link to it on twitter it gained nearly 7 million views in less than two weeks. As a result, Jimmy Kimmel became a tastemaker. Tastemakers, which we learned in class from Kevin Alloca, are the key gatekeeping factor in the temporary media ecology. From there, community participation followed allowing users to become part of the phenomenon, wherein mentions, remixes, and parodies of the Double Rainbow video were made, all of which creatively transformed the original content of the Double Rainbow video.

The virality of social media of the 18^th century thus differs greatly from the virality of social media in the 21^st century because of the Internet and various communication technologies available to us today, which allow us to disseminate media content i.e. memes from person to person within our culture with just the click of a button. In conclusion, it is important to note however, that just because something is uploaded to the Internet does not mean it will go viral, as its virality greatly depends on the amount of views and shares that a media text receives. Specifically, the greater the range of platforms in terms of the production of the media texts, means the greater the distribution and circulation, which then means the greater the occasions that there will be for the consumption of these media texts.