Viral Post Syndrome - Are you infected?

Viral Post Syndrome or VPS is a very real thing. It's not a true "medical" diagnosis as of yet, but it will be. The Internet is relatively young, and social media is even younger. But the desire of being famous isn't. It's as old as time. I'm sure even the earliest of hominids were fighting each other to be the most popular of their tribes.

Now, I'm sure you're reading this and thinking to yourself, 'Aren't you trying to create a viral post with this blog?' The simple and straight poop answer is, nope. I couldn't care less if it ran the world over twice. The fact that I write is simply a means to get the words out in a platform where I can control the feedback that, ultimately, will come from keyboard heroes, such as yourself. But that's another post.

Getting back on point....VPS is taking over social media accounts everywhere. Every user is hoping that just one of their posts makes it to the ultimate status - 1,000,000 likes or comments or shares. And how do they plan on making that happen? Let me break it down for you.

There are a few different paths to take.

The Heart-string Path - These individuals will pick images or stories that have NOTHING to do with them, and post them as if they're the first person to ever post about it. Pictures of animals that have been abused or stolen, war vets coming home to their families, pictures of ANYONE who looks like they may bring in some likes, etc.... Then they slap some simple tagline like, 'I bet I won't get even one like/share' or 'They're dying and only have one wish to make it to 1,000,000 likes'. These kill me! It literally blows my mind that there are that many people out there who can be taken in for these things. Just for a second, let me put this in your head. If ANYWHERE on your bucket-list is to get a post shared 1 million times, YOU HAVE NO LIFE ANYWAY. The individuals in the images probably have no idea their picture is being used in such a way until they see it scroll by on their feeds. Please remember that cat-fishing is the term used when someone brings you into their lie and makes you believe it. If you've ever shared a post like this, congratulations. You've been cat-fished.

The Religious Path - These individuals play on your devoutness to the Lord above. They pick religious images and tell you if you love God then you must share the image, or else you're choosing the devil.... Now, I've never met God, so I can't guarantee 100%, but I feel VERY strongly that God/Allah/whoever your maker is - has not wasted his/her/its time to contact these individuals to get them to make this post so they can guilt you into liking a picture that probably doesn't resemble them in any real way. You will not go to Hell for ignoring that images, in the same way that you did not have 7 years bad luck when you broke the chain letter in 5th grade.

The Fear Path - This one is the most dangerous of the 3. This is where individuals find an article - any article - and highlight only a few points, ensuring it creates drama and conversation. They play on the fact that the majority of these social media users DO NOT READ OR RESEARCH THINGS BEFORE THEY PRESS THE SHARE BUTTON. Did it need to be yelled at you? YES! You really need to stop doing this. This is exactly what witch-hunt dreams are made of. Don't believe me? Let me show you the most recent I've seen.

This image was shared on Facebook. Please pay special attention to the "Off Facebook activity" portion where the original poster says they had access to certain apps, specifically the bank account.

Now, if you go to the list in your "Off Facebook activity", and you ACTUALLY READ the list that's there, you'll notice that it is the list of all the apps/websites that you've selected "USE FACEBOOK TO LOG IN", not a random bunch of websites you've visited. I had 15 in my list. Games mostly, as I don't care if I use Facebook to log into games. There was nothing about my banking, or all the many web searches I've done. And trust me - there's no way in hell I should only have 15 listed there with two girls doing homeschooling, asking me questions a million times a day that I need to rely on Google to answer (because apparently Google doesn't work for THEM when finding the answers to anything unless it's something we happen to be arguing about...but that's another post.) You may not have any listed if you've never used that option when logging into an app or website.

The point here is, that post will go viral. It will be shared around to the masses and people will turn on Facebook again, because it's "listening and recording them" - which, again, isn't quite the full truth. Does Facebook suddenly give you an ad that is EXACTLY what you were talking about minutes before? Yup - but again, that's another post.

We allow these posts to take over our lives. We don't stop to understand what we've read. We simply copy and share, adding our own opinion to the post, without actually knowing what the hell we're talking about. We are the enablers behind VPS. We are the virus and we are the cure. This post is estimated at a 4 minute read. This means the majority of people will only read the first paragraph, and then come up with an opinion how I'm a hypocrite. Those who make it to the bottom, congratulations! It's because of people like you that will help VPS become a thing of the past... hahaha, well, one can hope.

Here's a few examples:

Emma is NOT a means for anyone's viral post.

Poor Emma is being used years after her death to get the almighty viral post. And it's been liked by 1,471,743 people at the time this screenshot was taken.

Viral Post Syndrome by Proxy

Dad has VPS - and is using his children's desire for a puppy as a way to get the almighty viral post.