Lessons in Accidental Virality
Have you ever posted something that accidentally went viral?
I have.
At the 2011 NBA Draft, the Sacramento Kings used the last pick of the draft to select Isaiah Thomas, a 5’9’’ point guard from the University of Washington.
A few days later, my family attended the press conference announcing Sacramento’s new players. A perk of being season ticket holders.
In the moments following the press conference, my dad spotted Isaiah Thomas sitting alone on a couch and jumped at the chance to welcome him to Sacramento. As my brothers and I watched, he kneeled down close to Isaiah, brimming with awkward dad energy, to enthusiastically congratulate him on making the NBA.
We snapped a pic. I posted it to Twitter.
Fast forward to the 2016–2017 season. Now in Boston, Isaiah led the Celtics to the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference while finishing 5th in the MVP vote. He was playing sensational basketball. It was clear that he had exceeded everyone’s expectations.
Next thing I know, people are sending me Facebook posts asking, “Is that your dad?”
An Isaiah Thomas fan page used the photo we had taken of my father and added the caption: “Never forget when Isaiah Thomas only had one reporter interview him in the 2011 draft.”
The post had 25k likes and thousands of shares.
It goes without saying that my dad was not a reporter. He was just an overzealous season ticket holder. And that picture wasn’t even taken at the draft. While the essence of the narrative was true…the post was factually incorrect. I tried commenting to correct the mistake, but to no avail.
In the 5 years since that first post went viral, there have been countless re-posts and re-shares, each going more viral than the last.
Last week I saw it again on Instagram. 1.5 million likes (!). Thousands of comments. Isaiah himself commented, “omg, that’s a lot of likes.”
I’ve long since given up trying to correct the story. Upon reflection, I realized these posts could either be treated as misinformation that needs to be corrected or as an apocryphal narrative that inspires hope in underdogs everywhere.
I chose to do the latter. Which would you choose?
