"Common Sense"... that can only mean one thing...!

The main difference between Paine’s 18^th century infamous pamphlet and a 21^st century meme, such as, Drake’s Hotline Bling meme, is the technology that is used to distribute and circulate these media texts. It is crucial to understand the articulations of social media mode of production, and thus how these concepts provide an insight into the virality of social messages that can be spread across society, culture, or one's community at an accelerated speed. Popular media texts, or memes, can act as a mode of communication, wherein these texts create meaning, binds individuals together, and forms a shared understanding that demonstrates the power a message can exhibit.

In the early 1770s, Thomas Paine created a pamphlet called “Common Sense,” which transformed many individuals’ attitudes towards independence, and then influenced the beginning of the American Revolution (Standage 144). Paine’s “Common Sense” pamphlet is an 18^th century example of a media text that went viral and connected a multitude of individuals with the same new opinions. Paine’s pamphlet was one of the most popular pamphlets of the American Revolution, but at first it was simply seen as a text that was more extremist in comparison to other texts that articulated thoughts about independence. However, as “Common Sense” spread and soon reached a wide audience including various ranks of people, more and more booksellers and printers wished to capitalize on this pamphlet’s popularity (Standage 143). Soon enough, Paine’s pamphlet was being passed on from one friend, to another, and was also read aloud in public (Standage 143). Paine and “Common Sense” made their claim to fame through similar steps as a contemporary meme would in today’s society, except a 21st century meme would gain attention with the use and convenience of the Internet.

In the 18^th century there was inevitably no email, and thereby Paine's pamphlet depended on individuals who would either send one another letters mentioning “Common Sense” as well as the newspapers who reprinted some elements from “Common Sense," these elements therefore helped the pamphlet gain its mass attention. In comparison, the individuals of the 21^st century have the opportunity to send and receive messages instantaneously with the use of the Internet and social media platforms. These individuals also can spread information by sending it to a friend, who may send it to their friends, which will eventually reach individuals from multiple networks. 

It is clear that the increase in technology has helped the efficiency of communications as a whole. For instance, it took a much longer time for Paine’s pamphlet to gain popularity across America than it did for Drake’s Hotline Bling memes to surface throughout social media platforms. It is evident that Drake did not make his "Hotline Bling" music video with the intention for it to turn into a popular meme. In addition, Drake's music video only became a meme because it is continuously manipulated and composited by everyday amateur users, which provides an example of mode of affect as well as supports the idea of community of participation. However, the difference between Drake's music video and Paine's pamphlet is that, Paine's pamphlet was not manipulated by its fans, but it was valued by individuals because of its original ideas in support of independence, whereas, amateur users took Drake's music video and added elements to it that turned it into memes, which then gained attention and went viral on the Internet. Furthermore, it may only take a matter of hours for memes to go viral in today’s society, since our technology can easily produce, distribute, and circulate message for to a wide audience to consume throughout multiple networks, whereas, Paine’s “Common Sense” started with an extremist idea that intrigued society and led to the slow spread of the text that managed to gain enough attention to influence the American Revolution.