Spend 5 minutes reading things on social media, and you’re bound to come across an article like this:
https://medium.com/the-mission/10-strategies-to-go-viral-on-any-platform-e3eeaccd5379
I embedded this piece here because Todd is a good writer, seems sincere, and isn’t trying to pull one over on anybody. He’s trying to help people to achieve a goal that many online writers have: to go viral.
Part of me wants to go viral.
Part of me wants to write a post that gets shared hundreds of thousands of times, pops up on all sorts of media outlets, and garners some sort of internet fame (whatever that means these days).
But I suspect that the same part of me that aches to “go viral” is the same part of me that wants to drink 5 glasses of bourbon and eat an entire pizza the night before a big presentation in front of a client — and still nail it.
It’s the same part of me that used to spend more time hunting for the magic muscle-building supplement than I spend doing squats and cooking healthy meals.
It’s the same part of me that used to spend more time looking for the best notebook, coolest pen, and best productivity app than I did actually thinking about, organizing, and working on my projects.
That part of me is lustful, careless, and has no regard for the long-term.
That part of me wants to cut the corners that countless others couldn’t cut.
It wants more results, with less effort. It is impatient, immature, and impulsive.
I probably shouldn’t let it dictate what I publish.
Here’s the thing about going viral. Try as you might, you can’t reap the benefits of that term — “viral” — without also having to deal with the drawbacks. Viruses spread quickly and easily, and to a lot of people. But they also end up in many places where they’re not wanted, and where they can end up being toxic. But your post about the 10 things you learned from quitting your job can’t be toxic, right? Kind of; just think about it.
The drawback with going viral is that it can serve to pigeon-hole you. So your post about the killer morning routines of billionaires went viral ? Great! What next? Now you’ve got to keep writing about killer morning routines of billionaires, or you can pretty much count on your next piece falling mostly into obscurity.
So would I love it if my posts went viral? Sure — it’d be exhilarating. Would I love the feeling after about a week or so — when the deluge of notifications had mostly subsided? No. I’d feel like I did something wrong. But I didn’t. And I shouldn’t feel that way.
I think what we don’t realize is that we’ve got our assessment of virality all messed up. We fail to realize that so much of what makes a given piece go viral is much like what makes a kite fly. The conditions have as much to do with success as any kind of skill. Writers forget that at their own peril.
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