“The key of it is, people passing the word about you. …It just boils down to ‘what does it mean to be remarkable?’ So remarkable, that people remark.”Depending on your mood when you read this, you will assume Paul Williams is either a genius or a retarded badger.
Sadly I think defining "remarkability" is an impossible task. Few concepts are more subjectively beholden to the individual than "does that impress me?" Look at "Sneezing Panda" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzRH3iTQPrk), which on a conscious level doesn't impress, inspire, or amuse me at all, but I've certainly watched it several times (including slow-motion)!
I can hear the usually-silent intellectual in me screaming "It's so stupid! A panda sneezes! It doesn't even get eaten or attacked by the other panda! In fact, the most action is a chewing motion! Don't watch it again! Please? Oh God, he's watching it again in slow-motion! Why is this popular!?"
As my intellectual mind slips back into dark silence I ponder the question - what does make this "remarkable"?
Personally I think I might have just accidently summed "remarkable" up. When we are entertained and we don't know why, we find ourselves in the realm of remarkability. Maybe we feel inspired to pass on these clips and content so others around us (namely those we trust and associate with - friends, family, co-workers) may define this x-factor we ourselves are unable to understand.
Perhaps the 53 million viewers of Sneezing Panda are all simply looking to each other to define why they were transfixed for that 10 seconds of their lives, and why, despite no logical reason to watch it again, we find ourselves compulsively pressing the replay button.
Perhaps viral media is actually a form of crowd-sourced psychiatry, where by sharing the videos we are instinctively opening a door of communication to discuss what it is about them that made us pass them on in the first place.
If that's the case, then that's fairly remarkable as a concept unto itself.
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