How Do You Get Something to Spread?

For reasons that will be later explained in the class, I don't like using the term viral.

Viral implies, as Henry Jenkins argues, the idea that we are not active participants in the sharing and distribution of media content; that there was no preexisting structure to share this content; and that there was no way that our own emotions, tags, etc. influenced how this meme, etc. got shared.

So I saw an amazing video yesterday about Travyon Martin.



When I first saw it on a friend's FB, it only had a few hits. Then I pushed it out over twitter, and got a couple of RTs.

Henry and I were talking about how to spread it, and he pushed it out over his Twitter.

I found this video so compelling because it was a remixing and appropriation of Howard students looking at the Travyon Martin situation and responding in a powerful way. I want this video to spread. What is my power to do this? I guess the only thing I can do is share it through my social networks.

So the question becomes: How do you get something to spread? What takes off and what doesn't? How can we get substantive content to be shared?