Do Viral Videos Make You Look Cool… or Stupid?

This is a guest post by Jim Taggart.

Do you consider yourself to be cool, hip to the latest tech stuff?

Do you know the lingo on how to come across to your friends and co-workers?

Do you consider perception more important than substance?

Have you ever gone 24 hours or more totally unconnected to the Web?

(That last question probably caused you heart palpitations.)

Okay, enough stupid questions. Where am I going with this?

Society has become so addicted to instant gratification and superficiality that it has lost sight of technology’s long history. We think we’re pretty darn smart that we have handheld wireless devices that have more computing power than the 35 pound laptop I used in 1990. Indeed, more juice than the computers used in the early 1960s.

And with very recent advent of the Web, we’re cracked up with our ability to watch endless (and mindless) videos of people doing, to be blunt, stupid shit.

In his excellent book The Long Tail, Chris Anderson expresses well society’s preoccupation with hits.

Our culture is a massive popularity contest. We are consumed by hits-making them, choosing them, talking about them, and following their rise and fall. Every weekend is a box-office horse race, and every Thursday night is a Darwinian struggle to find the fittest TV show and let it live to see another week. A few hits songs play in heavy rotation on the radio dials, while entertainment executives in all these industries sweat as they search for the next big thing.”

Where are the grownups in this scene? When you see moms and dads trying to act like their teenagers you know you have a problem as a society. When you see balding bosses trying to be hip with their Gen X staff, you have a problem as an organization. And when you focus on the gadgets and social media fluff, you have a huge problem when it comes to generating national wealth through invention, innovation, productivity and competitiveness.

Let’s look at society’s addiction to watching crap on the Internet, specifically viral videos. The most widely watched video ever (which I have not seen) is that of a young chubby teen who is wielding a staff in some sort of Star Wars fight routine. He became known as “The Star Wars Kid.”  This kid was so traumatized by the public ridiculing after his private video went viral that he ended up in a psychiatric ward.

Another video that went viral and which established a cult-like following was Winnebago Man. I’d never heard of this video until six months ago, yet it had been growing like wild fire on the Internet for several years. Shortly after I viewed it, I saw Jack Rebney (Winnebago Man) interviewed on Jay leno. And in May 2011, I happened to watch a film produced in 2009 that interviewed Rebney over a period of several months. So let’s take a look at Jack Rebney and his story. The vast majority of viewers wouldn’t have a clue about this very intelligent man’s story, except that he likes to use the word “fuck” a lot.

Rebney, who’d been a broadcaster with CBS for many years, worked as a salesman with Winnebago in the eighties. It was a series of commercials in 1989 that lead to the eventual viral video. The film crew kept the dozens of outtakes, which contained Rebney ranting and swearing in the 100 F Iowa heat, batting away hordes of flies. The producer of Winnebago Man wanted to understand Rebney and what was behind the infamous viral video. After hiring a private detective, the reclusive Rebney was located and agreed to meet. Rebney claimed he didn’t know about the video that was made from the outtakes. He’d been subsequently fired from Winnebago and was living by himself in a secluded area in Northern California. Some observers contend that Rebney knew about the viral video and was paying the film producer.

The film’s very interesting, exemplifying society’s preoccupation with shallowness and what’s cool. Except that Rebney is a very intelligent, articulate and funny guy. Anyone of us can be made to look the fool, given the right circumstances.

So what do we learn from the Winnebago Man example, besides stupid shit being funny – sometimes?

Does it make us richer, whether economically, morally or spiritually?

I’ll leave the last words to Jack Rebney, as expressed at the end of the film:

Do you believe any of that shit?
- Jack Rebney (Winnebago Man)

Jim Taggart worked for Canada’s federal government as an economist and leadership development project manager for three decades before retiring at the end of 2010. Freed from bureaucratic restraints he now works as a leadership consultant in Ottawa, Canada.

Over the past two years Jim has been developing his blogging skills, with a main emphasis on leadership, management and business topics. When not banging away on his laptop, you’ll find Jim at his piano playing Jazz or walking his American Lab, Max.

Please take a moment to visit his Changing Winds website.

Image by bine_bardi