Cicada Media

There are a number of science fiction novels where the net is this turmoil of code/object/beings that fight each other in this memetic ecosystem.

Code snippets preying on other code snippets. Lying in wait or hunting.

Nice metaphor, but not the way code works.

But what happens when a comedian plants a video on youtube and lets it sit there for months until one day it blows up and goes viral and then he comes and says, “HAHA FUCKERS, it was me all that time!”?

Should we get angry? Shout, “You are destroying the sanctity of viral media!”

As if there is some right we have that our viral media be authentic. As if that even means something.

Anger simply hides the issue. The argument boils down to being too egotistical to feel anything other than “someone caught me being voyeristic and judgmental, thus they must be bad because they make me feel bad about myself!” Narcissism distilled.

Thus too the urge to point a trembling finger at TV news to blame them for showing to us what we want to see in the first place. We’ve known that all along, and it reflects just as poorly on us for bothering to take them seriously.

It all detracts from the central issue.

What if this is what the science fiction authors are really getting at? Memes that lay in wait for the air temperature and humidity to be just right, then hatch like a billion cicadas. Consuming our attention for news cycles before burning themselves out.

And if this one happened to catch, what other viral traps are still out there, waiting for conditions to be right to burst forth?

How many viral videos does Jimmy Kimmel have to plant in order to succeed with one?