Friday Fun: How This Monkey Went Viral

You may recognize this crested black macaque -- she's the one who in 2011 snuck off with a camera owned by wildlife photographer David Slater, while Slater was in the the Indonesian wilderness. The monkey took hundreds of selfies, this photo went viral, it ended up on Wikipedia, and Slater got upset because he wasn't earning any royalties.

FastCompany just did an extensive story analyzing whether - or not - Slater deserved royalties, since the monkey took the photo. They side with the monkey, and even poke fun at Slater for claiming the monkey was his assistant, which may be his only viable strategy for claiming royalties.

But, in the spirit of Friday Fun, let's examine the larger strategy (or lack thereof) at work here. How did a monkey go viral on the Web?

Imagine you are a crested black macaque sitting in the Indonesian jungle, picking ants out of a hole in a tree and confessing to your mum that you aspire to bigger things. If only, you say in a wistful voice, you could find a way to access the Internet and get your name out there.

Your mum just grunts and scratches her private parts.

But then a miracle happens. This odd-looking creature with just a little bit of white fur on the top of his head stumbles into the jungle and leaves a magic machine sitting in the open. This is your moment! You drop to the jungle floor, grab the shiny piece of magic, and start pushing and prodding it. Every time you do, you hear a CLICK, which only makes you more excited. But after 200 or 300 CLICKS, you get hungry, forget about the magic box, and go eat some leaves.

That odd white-haired creature - David Slater to the rest of us - retrieves his camera, discovers that most of the "photos" you took are unusable, but finds one or two that are very engaging. He shares them, eventually loses control of the copyright, and - whamo! - you are semi-famous for fifteen minutes.

What are the odds?

Here's my point, although it may surprise you at this moment that I do have one:

The monkey's odds of going viral on the Internet are exactly the same as your odds.

Yes, that's right. Just because you have opposable thumbs and a reasonable command of language, your odds of going viral are not greater than this random female crested black macaque. They are exactly the same.

To go viral, you have to enjoy a succession of fortuitous random events in exactly the right order.

My advice is simple: unless - and until - a crested black macaque wanders into your office and drops a camera, forget about your dreams of going viral.

Have a nice weekend.

Bruce Kasanoff is a ghostwriter for entrepreneurs and executives. Learn more at Kasanoff.com. He is the author of How to Self-Promote without Being a Jerk.

Image: selfie taken by random monkey with David Slater's camera.

Tina Loncar

New Home Sales Counselor at Classic Companies

9y

...forget about it!

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DONNES L’argan dus messieurs îles Sa pelles Bruce Kasanoff ! sait a luit la pareille photo pas a un singe île a payes son voyage pour sait photo oui donne son argent un POIS sait tous thahoooo merci

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I don't know about you, but I'd feel somewhat chagrined frequently doing something ("selfies") that a monkey has no problem accomplishing.

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