Categories: Articles

Viral Videos, Internet Memes And The Value Of Online Anonymity

How do ideas spread? Why do people come together online to make things go viral? The answer might surprise you.

At last year’s TED conference, I had the pleasure of seeing Christopher "moot" Poole (founder of the infamous and awesome 4Chan platform) discuss why people do things online (from getting ideas to spread to LOlCats). A large portion of his discussion focuses on the notion of anonymity (more on that here: The Next Big Thing Online Could Well Be Anonymity). In a world where every Marketer is looking to better understand who their consumer is because they are self-identifying themselves in spaces like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, it’s important to think about what anonymity means online, and the sheer brute force of change and influence that comes from a very vocal minority, that looks a lot like a majority through the power of anonymity and mass collaboration.

In a Social Media world, where we focus on core values like openness, transparency and personal brand, what do you think about this…

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.