You’re Thinking About Online Trends All Wrong
From pessimism around dating to AI reshaping culture, cyber-ethnographer Ruby J. Thelot tells WIRED why people are putting too much stock into things that go viral.
Get smart on it
A cyber-ethnographer argues that people misunderstand online trends because they confuse virality with genuine cultural adoption. The internet has become "balkanized" into separate digital islands where content can be engineered to go viral without reflecting real mainstream interest or staying power. Examples like recent trend terms that "broke containment" and past failed predictions around certain technologies illustrate how metrics like view counts have become targets in themselves, disconnected from actual cultural value. Understanding trends now requires looking beyond viral metrics to distinguish between temporary engagement and lasting cultural phenomena.
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