Christine SlusserIf you've ever wanted to go viral — you know, make a video that everyone and their brother watches, loves and shares — look no further.
We've broken it down into some categories. (People love categories.)
--Animals: Self-explanatory, but especially if you have a cat ... #InternetGold.
--Kids: Preferably if they're doing or saying something hilarious or wildly inappropriate.
--Parodies: Make a parody of something that's already famous.
--Surprise: Somehow manage to capture an event no one saw coming ... or just have a camera rolling 24/7.
--Original comedy sketch: Write something funny. Funny is good.
Once you've picked a category, get chuggin'. Post that masterpiece to YouTube, Reddit, Facebook ...
We spoke to two viral animal masters themselves.
Mike Walsh, the man behind Neville Longbottom the corgi.
And Byron Gatt, who has brought us such masterpieces as telekinesis cat.
"It seems like every time I post a video on Reddit, that's when it starts to take off," Walsh says.
"Emailing people who have blogs, emailing other people who have other cat-related YouTube channels ... everything from posting on Reddit," Gatt tells us.
As for another viral superstar, Hunter Wolk is behind the "Girls Are Assholes" series. He and Yael Zinkow write the comedy sketches that involve ... well, we think you get it.
And Hunter says nobody likes a long viral clip. Imagine your viewers having the attention spans of a ... Oh, look! A squirrel!
"Make it short. ... Imagine how long you spend watching a video before clicking it off and then just understand that everybody else is going to be doing the same thing. Everybody's like ... a video is two minutes?! F*** that. ... People don't have attention spans anymore, so you really just have to cut it down to its core essence," Wolk says.
OK, so you've posted your first video across social media platforms. Here are some other tips to make it go viral:
--Keep posting. Make more than one video. Don't be a one-hit wonder.
--Once you make a vid, seek out people who have the same interests.
--Don't take the trolls seriously.
Especially that trolls part. Don't let them get you down; you just keep doin' what you do.
"It's funny to me, though, because people will — I guess I should know this already — but on the Internet, will find anything to complain about. So it was like a cute animal video, and then they were making comments about President Obama. So then I was joking with my wife, I was like, 'Yeah, Neville is a puppet of the liberal media,'" Walsh says.
"Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the Internet," Zinkow says.
But our ultimate tip: "Call in a lot of favors and get a lot of pizza," Zinkow says.
'Cause who can say no to pizza? We can't.
This video includes footage courtesy of YouTube / Anastasia Alexandrova, Lifetime Movie Network / "Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever," YouTube / Heather Schouten and Nia Williams, NOKAT Comedy, YouTube / Super Epic Cats and YouTube / Mike Walsh. Images are from TexasEagle / CC BY NC 2.0, Ingrid Taylar / CC BY 2.0 and Robert Engberg / CC BY 2.0; music is from Kevin MacLeod / CC BY 3.0 and sound effects are from Mike Koenig / CC BY 3.0.
