science journalism

Ever wondered what makes a video go viral? As an online science video producer I’m constantly mulling over this question, trying to figure out the right formula of content and style to create a popular video.

Some students of YouTube claim that viral videos have common characteristics.  Kevin Nalty, a professional marketer and “weblebrity” with over 187 million views on YouTube, thinks he has the formula at least partially figured out. He writes in his  book “Beyond Viral: How to attract customers, promote your brand and make money with online video” that viral videos tend to include these types of content:

• Pranks
• Dancing
• Music
• Children
• Political humor
• “Fails” (think America’s Funniest Home Videos)
• Song parodies
• Video blogs
• How to
• Attractive women

And additionally, viral videos have these qualities:

• Short
• Original
• Unusual
• Unexpected
• Funny, mysterious or sexy

To see if Nalty’s observations apply to science videos, I checked them against the all-time top-viewed videos in the “Science and Technology” category on YouTube. Here they are in descending order:

Podcast: See a live surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome (1:14)
38,126,896 views
Advertisement for a live streaming carpal tunnel surgery.

Pregnant Robot Trains Students (4:02)
35,448,518 views
A news video from DiscoveryNews.com that shows medical students learning to deliver babies from a robot that looks like a pregnant woman.

REAL ghost girl caught on video (2:59)
27,592,319 views
A brainless Ghost Hunters/Paranormal Activity-style video with the cameraman freaking out because he believes he saw an apparition.

NUCLEUS: McRoberts Maneuver for Shoulder Dystocia (0:26)
23,966,032 views
A short animated video showing a baby leaving the birth canal.

Sonic Boom (2:30)
19,600,176 views
A simple narrated video that explains how a sonic boom is created. Includes some amazing photos of fighter jets amidst a pressure wave.

Piano stairs (1:28)
14,132,358 views
Brilliant video showing that if you make stairs into an electric piano people will favor them over an escalator.

ISLAM ,MAHDI,DAJJAL(ANTICHRIST) ,JESUS CHRIST,UFOS,NASA (5:22)
13,721,915 views
Basically, this is an old Turkish guy video blogging but I don’t speak Turkish so I have no idea what he’s saying. Based on the title I’m guessing it’s some nutty shit–which may explain the appeal.

Intro to Google Buzz (1:56)
12,941,364 views
Just as the title says.

Did You Know? (4:56)
12,910,395 views
Infographic video on the progression of information technology.

R.M.S Titanic (4:31)
11,961,549 views
Audio slide show of old Titanic pictures and some more recent video of its rediscovery.

So how do these videos stack up to Nalty’s observations?

A majority of them fail in terms of content. The overriding element that remains is music. Seven out of ten videos contain a compelling soundtrack. The other two elements that survive are pranks (“Piano on the stairs”) and video blogs (“ISLAM ,MAHDI,DAJJAL(ANTICHRIST) ,JESUS CHRIST,UFOS,NASA”).

As far as Nalty’s qualities, I’d say most of them hold true. All the videos were relatively short; the longest at just over five minutes. All are originals, not remixes of other videos. Many are unusual or unexpected: a live streaming surgery, a robotic birth, little known facts about the growth of information technology and stairs turned into a piano.  As for “funny, mysterious or sexy”, those are so subjective that I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

Here are some other observations:

• YouTube could really use some modest curation of its content.  The “REAL Ghost girl” video has about as much to do with science and technology as Politico.com has to do with restaurant reviews.  The other offender here is the “R.M.S. Titanic” video which, by some impressive stretch of the imagination, could fit under the umbrella of technology, but plays more like an homage to James Cameron and Celine Dion.  I’d also like to see YouTube split its science and technology category into “science” and “technology” to give science videos a fighting chance (see below).
• Only one of these videos (“Sonic Boom”) actually contains any science content. The two most viral topics seem to be technology and medicine, which are applications of scientific knowledge. In fact, two of the four most popular videos are an intersection of medicine and technology.
• The more visceral or unusual your thumbnail image is, the more views you’ll get. Who can resist clicking on the E.T.-like thumbnail of the Turkish video blogger? Who knows, maybe he’s got the inside scoop on an alien landing?
• Speaking of old Turkish bloggers–if you are a crazy nutter, you will get views.

So what would the ultimate viral YouTube “science” video look like then? I don’t know for sure, but I’m thinking the description would read something like this:

Alien Birth
Pranksters fool onlookers at the mall into believing they are watching an alien birth using futuristic medical devices. Soundtrack by the Chemical Brothers.