INSIDE JOKES: UNDERSTANDING THE VIRAL CULTURE OF INTERNET COMMUNITIES
The word meme comes to us from Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. The book itself is a study on evolution, while the idea of memetics comes into play in applying concepts of evolution to human culture.
In essence, there's a process of competition and natural selection at play on every level of human existence. From two candidates competing for the same job, to a number of suitors competing for the love of a beautiful woman to, yes, online videos competing for viewer attention.
Successful memes are basically those things that enter the public consciousness. For example, we all know who Super Mario is, even if we haven't played a video game in years. A recent poll of children around the world found Mario to be an even more recognizable figure than Mickey Mouse.
He wasn't the only video game character around at the time Donkey Kong came out. We also had Pitfall Harry, Pac Man, and those Space Invaders, but when we think of video games, we think of Mario. Explaining that through Dawkins' theories, we see that Mario's creator Shigeru Miyamoto won a kind of competition in creating such an iconic character.
Pac Man has his qualities, but Mario's recognizability is instantaneous and distinctive. Shigeru Miyamoto had set out to create a character who would have a lot of personality on visuals alone, but he only had four colors and less than one hundred pixels to work with. He gave the character a moustache because it was hard to make mouths on the old arcade hardware. He gave the character red overalls because they clearly separated the arms from the chest while giving the character a unique, colorful look, and the hat was given just because hair always looked really weird on video game characters in those days.
Miyamoto's ideas worked. Mario was a unique, distinctive character, loaded with personality, instantly recognizable, and because of that, he beat out all the other characters vying for the role of "Most iconic video game character".
MEMES, MEMES EVERYWHERE
This exact same concept of "memes" is at play not only in internet communities, but everywhere. This is how all concepts spread. From religion to the sciences to urban legends, there's competition for the right to survive, in a sense, in a prominent place in the public consciousness. With religion and science, while certain religious leaders may hold dearly to their particular beliefs, the ideas that spread will always be the ones that appeal most to the public. The story of Jesus, for example, is a great story whether you're Christian or not, and so, it earns its place in the public consciousness.
When it comes to securing your own place in the public consciousness with your viral videos, the silver bullet we're all looking for is to generate something like a great catch phrase, a "Make my day" or "Dude, where's my car?" kind of thing, or a memorable moment, like Indiana Jones pulling his gun out and shooting that guy who was swinging the sword around.
The fact is that many of these catch phrases and great moments tend to happen by accident, and they're kind of hard to arrange on purpose. The Indiana Jones moment, for example. Steven Spielberg had been planning a big, elaborate sword fight for that scene, but on the day of shooting, Harrison Ford was actually feeling ill and was in kind of a bad mood, and he really didn't want to do the sword fight. He suggested "Wouldn't Indy just shoot the guy? I mean, I've got a gun, right?" and film history was made.
Catch phrases, likewise, tend to develop naturally. They rely on repetition, the things we hear a person or character say all the time.
This isn't to say you can't try and come up with a great catch phrase or an iconic moment or character on purpose, but you'll never be able to force it. If people don't think your main character's catch phrase is funny, no amount of repetition will ever get them to like it.
WHAT’S SO FUNNY ABOUT NATURAL SELECTION?
It really is all about natural selection (exemplified clearly in the title of the video sharing website "Funny or DIE!"), and this is why we're putting so much emphasis on making a lot of videos, not just one or two. You simply improve your chances of nailing that iconic appeal you're going for by trying more than once. You may get lucky and wind up with thousands of views on your first shot, but the online community is just as prepared to watch your video as they are to gladly ignore it.
In short, ideas catch on because there's something to them that just plain works right away. They're immediately understandable, and people enjoy holding onto them as an inside joke of sorts. That's exactly what you want, to be quoted as a sort of nerd-reference, like dialog from Star Wars. There's no better way to get people talking about your video than having people wanting to get in on the joke.