Going Viral

Starbucks

I don't remember the last time me and Adam talked so much.

We talked about it all night.

Immediately when I told him it made sense. And I was right.

A viral video.

We dissected the organs of them, trying to understand what made them work, and what made them not work. Viral videos have been huge the last several years, and it didn't matter where they came from. Ever since the internet gave birth to YouTube, billions of videos had been uploaded to it, with some of these videos capturing life's odd, real moments. Moments so juicy, so unique, people who watched them couldn't help but share the video with friends, family, coworkers, knowing that sharing a video of its caliber would put them in the "Oh, this person is cool!" radar. People sharing things to express themselves was a key, unlocking that door me and Adam have been banging on all along.

My destiny: Making a viral video.

We went to sleep around 4 am, and even after I woke my mind was still revving with ideas. I showered before telling Adam to meet me at Starbucks as soon as he can.

I had been here all morning, using the free Wi-Fi watching everything and anything that went viral. (I had a 2gb plan, which was like giving a homeless man a piece of bread and telling him that has to last him the entire month before he could get another slice.)

I borrow bread when I needed it.

It was a little passed noon, Starbucks began to fill itself with a variety of people dressed in their 9 to 5 costumes. I tried to drown out the noise from the chattering to focus on what I was watching on my phone, it was hard to concentrate also because of a morbidly obese man breathing too heavy as his phone chimed from the sounds of Candy Crush. Baristas added to the noise, periodically calling out drinks.

"Grande ice coffee! Light ice!"

I needed focus.

I sat by the window, looking out. Adam could see easily when he got here.

Adam came a little after twelve thirty. Wearing what he wore yesterday, and the day before that: Blue jeans and a black dress shirt that stretched beyond what it was made for. He had his notebook in his hand, scanning the Starbucks before making eye contact with me, and moving over.

"Why are there so many people here today?" He asked as he moved the chair out, sitting down in front of me.

"It's noon," I said. "All these assholes are on lunch."

"Oh, makes sense."

"Caramel Frappuccino!" The barista barked.

Opening his notebook, Adam moved through pages filled with his words until he found a clean piece of paper. He wrote at the top "awesome idea", circling it.

"Alright," he said. "So, viral video."

"I've been thinking, what makes people want to share anything on the internet? Besides making themselves cool, what would make millions of people want to share it. Write that down."

Adam jotted it down. "Okay, so, why would one person want to share a video with another?"

"That's a good fucking question."

The internet, though it was twenty years or so years old, was still compared by the creatures who controlled her, and infant, already infested with billions of videos from all over the planet, even millions more being uploaded daily. Buy why, out of all the countless ocean of videos, just a sea of garbage, why would thousands of people even think to pick up one of these videos, and go, "It has been decided! This is the video that will go viral!"