We live in the 21st century, which in a nutshell means that most of our lives, especially social lives are lived online. In the age of science, technology is at our fingertips, quite literally. We are just one click away from Twitter or Facebook, just one click away from global communication. And this virtual world of ours happens to be quite unpredictable. If anyone likes to notice patterns and draw up conclusions, they’d probably be baffled seeing the rate at which seemingly random things seem to go viral. There’s isn’t any logical explanation as to what, why or how things go viral, they just do. So with the beginning of the New Year, everyone is bidding farewell to 2013 and reminiscing about the year gone by. So today’s list is dedicated to all those things that went viral in 2013, some appreciated, some not, and some that you just can’t ignore. So sit back and enjoy this short trip down memory lane.
1. Twerking:
Twerking! This list and probably reminiscing about 2013 would have been incomplete without this word. Most of 2013 and the beginning of 2014 have been all about this phenomenon. Twerking is basically an individual dancing in provocative manner with their hips thrusting out. This particular term isn’t a new one and has existed for years now, but what made it so trending in 2013 was (no points for guessing) Miley Cyrus. Miley and twerking have been inseparable, with her twerking at any given chance she gets. This is one trend that hopefully will die down soon, because frankly everyone has had enough of twerking for a life time.
2. What does the fox say:
This was a song video that went viral made by the Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis. A seemingly senseless song, it talks about the various sounds that animals make, and then puts forth the question what does the fox say? Giving a witty and catchy retort. This song was supposed to be sarcastic, and was created as a joke and a fail and wasn’t supposed to become popular. But accidently it became viral, making the duo insanely famous. Guess you just never know when and what might end up trending. And if you haven’t yet watched the video yet, then go ahead and stream it, and join the world in asking the million dollar question; what does the fox say?
3. Selfies:
The term or word that went viral the most in 2013 is probably selfie. Selfie is basically using your camera, be it a proper camera or your phone camera, and using it to take your own photo, or a self-capture. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all these social networking sites exploded with people uploading their own selfie’s. Our celebs weren’t far behind either, what with Rihanna’s Instagram being considered to have the maximum amount of selfies. And who can forget the whole Obama selfies fiasco? This word and the entire concept trended so much, that oxford dictionary included the word Selfie. 2013 was definitely a selfie year.
4. Harlem Shake:
This meme/video features a small part of the song called Harlem Shake by Baauer, but other than that bears no resemblance to the song what so ever. Harlem Shake is essentially an internet meme in the form a video where a group of people perform a comedy sketch; more of a comedy dance if you ask me. It was originally established when a group of 5 teenagers uploaded the video of the shake on Youtube. Since then this video has spread like wildfire and has been uploaded by loads of groups representing their very own Shake. (Who are we kidding we’ve all tried it out with our friends)
5. Hashtags:
Hash tagging is a common phenomenon seen on Twitter and Instagram; and it’s been there on these sites for quite a long time. So how is it that they trended or went viral in 2013? It’s because they found their way out of the confinements of Twitter and Instagram and made its way into people’s conversations. It took over their Facebook and Whatsapp statuses. And instead of proper sentences and words people started using hashtags. Though this trend is currently on a decline, it’s not at a fast enough pace and it’s going to be awhile before sentences sans hashtags walk back into our lives.
6. Unflattering Beyonce:
Performing live can be difficult what with so many people in the audience clicking pictures of you constantly. That is exactly what happened with Beyonce. During her halftime performance at Super Bowl XLVII an unflattering image of Beyonce was clicked and uploaded on BuzzFeed. To make matters worse her publicist requested the photo to be taken down, turning it instantly into a trending topic in the social media. Making it exactly what Beyonce didn’t want it to be, famous and least of all, into a meme. Sorry Beyonce, maybe better luck next time.
7. Doge memes:
These memes became viral in 2013. The doge meme typically consists of an image of the Shiba Inu dog, with words and sentences written around it in multicoloured Comic Sans MS font. These sentences are usually always in broken English, deliberately, and don’t stray much beyond words such as so, very, much, such and wow. The meme first originated on Tumblr and since then has found its way onto our wall posts. You may find this meme irritating in the beginning, but eventually it will rub off on you, because this meme is here to stay and has been carried over into 2014.
8. Grumpy Cat:
Everyone has seen or posted a Grumpy Cat meme, at least everyone who is on Facebook that is. These are memes of a cat with a seemingly grumpy expression with really dark and grumpy captions. It all began when Tabatha Bundensen uploaded a picture of her pet cat, Tardar Sauce who had a permanently grumpy looking face due to feline dwarfism. It was made into an image macro with grumpy captions. Since then it went viral and became an internet phenomenon making Tardar Sauce a celebrity. It has its own official page on Facebook with around 2.9 million likes, and was even featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal.
9. Confessions Pages:
Last year Facebook saw a sudden spurt of confession pages booming up. These pages allowed people to anonymously confess to anything and everything. It gave people a forum to talk freely and openly and allow them to speak their mind without inhibitions seeing as the posts were completely anonymous. Suddenly all campuses, schools, colleges saw their very own confession pages starting up. Though started with a good intent it also saw a lot of malicious and vicious posts. But thankfully this trend had a very short shell life, and died down just as mysteriously as it had started.
10. Psy, Gentleman:
2013 opened with the 2012 Gangnam style trendsetter Psy releasing his next single Gentleman. And just like his previous hit, this song too was completely sung in Korean and had only one word (line?) in English. No one knows as to how or why Psy became famous. But he surely did, and though most of us have no clue as to what he is singing about, we all gladly groove to his music, because let’s face it, it’s catchy. This video of Psy’s became an instant hit and was watched almost 581 million times on YouTube. Talk about beginning the year with a bang!
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