Our One-Minute Life

We now live in a real-time world. You could argue that it was always that way, but before it was only real-time in a local radius. “Viral” was only used to describe things like…real viruses. We’ve always seen meteoric rises and falls…but now we are part of creating them.

Examples:

A 53-year old Cleveland man (Ted Williams) was “discovered” while panhandling—singing on a YouTube video made by someone from who he begged. He was a former radio DJ/commercial voice actor and was then immediately offered several high-profile voice actor/announcer jobs, appeared on “Dr. Phil”, became an overnight sensation, and entered and left a Texas rehab facility. All in one month. That original YouTube video has now gotten over 10,000,000 views: Ted Williams YouTube Video

About two years ago, two Domino’s Pizza employees filmed themselves doing very unsanitary things to food while working, put the video on YouTube, and got over 1,000,000 views the first week. Although it was clearly an isolated incident, Domino’s President felt compelled to issue a response—also via YouTube: Domino’s Reaction to YouTube Video  (That response, however, only got 20,000 hits.)

During this weekend’s NFC Championship Game, Chicago Bears’ quarterback Jay Cutler left the game early in the third quarter. It was reported he had a leg injury, but Cutler was seen standing on the sideline and people started asking questions about Cutler’s desire to win and his toughness. Before the game was even over, Cutler was being criticized ruthlessly on Twitter—with many current NFL players’ tweets adding validity to what was being said by the armchair quarterbacks. Following the game, Bears’ players came to Cutler’s defense Bears Players React to Criticism of Cutler, and the very next day it was reported that Cutler actually had a badly-sprained MCL and was ordered out of the game by the coaching staff. By that time the damage to Cutler’s reputation had been done, and most people had already decided he wasn’t “tough enough” to play quarterback for the Bears. Soon after the game, another video showed a Cutler jersey being burned in the parking lot.

With smart phones and social media, we all now have the ability to make or break a business’s or celebrity’s reputation at our fingertips. The same things that we rip the CNN’s of the world for (rushing to talk about a story before the facts are clear; over-dramatizing stories; over-thinking stories until they become self-fulfilling prophecies) we now see being done by thousands of regular people via Twitter and Facebook.

Viral news and events are the “splitting of the atom” of the information age. All of the new ways to communicate certainly enrich our lives, but if we’re ready for the immense responsibility that comes with it is still in question.