How did Childhood Cartoon Profile Pics go viral?
Childhood Cartoon Profile Pics is a recent example of an organic viral meme. It’s interesting to examine viral memes not driven by an apps, because the virality must be particularly high to overcome the friction of manual effort required from users. What are the elements driving this meme?
Facebook users posted the following texts in their status updates: “Change your facebook profile picture to a cartoon from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same. Until Monday (Dec 6) there should be no human faces on facebook, but an invasion of memories. This is for a campaign against violence against children.”
Nostalgia, and specifically childhood nostalgia, is a good universal strong emotion.
The deadline, with a specific date, is important for feeling immediacy — otherwise it’s easy to put off and forget.
The imagery of “no human faces on facebook” — another example is “Let’s paint Facebook red” for AIDS day — is imagery that communicates the idea concisely. It also moves people, it’s about giving them grassroots impact.
The last part about “this is for a campaign against violence against children” is interesting. As a campaign message it is not very useful. But it helps you feel less like “look at me” and more “I’m a good person” when you change your profile pic. It’s also going to motivate some people to do it who would otherwise just be indifferent.
It also has worked well for this campaign to have had several days to build up. ”Turn Facebook (RED) on World AIDS Day” was a similar campaign that could have gotten more exposure by launching a few days in advance of the actual AIDS day, giving people more time.
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