What no one realizes when they say that short phrase is that they're participating in a world-wide epidemic known as rhetorical velocity. Rhetorical velocity is what happens when something has "gone viral." This happens every day and every minute. The meaning behind this phrase is the spread of something in pop culture, news, or really anything that can be posted on the internet and can be sent to another person at a fast pace. Records are being broken every day for the video, picture, or piece of news that is spread the fastest.
The audience for rhetorical velocity is literally everyone. Any person with a computer or smart phone can go on YouTube and watch the latest "baby laughing" or "kittens surprised" video and share it on there Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or blog in a matter of seconds. Even if there "friend" on those sites wasn't looking for a lighthearted video to brighten up there afternoon, there it is on there timeline and all they have to do is click play.
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When thinking about how simple it is to just click play on your computer and watch the kitten be surprised for 17 seconds or see a meme about the Queen of England being "not amused" at the olympics is something that most people take for granted. If this was 1902 the only way you were going to see a kitten be surprised is if you bought a kitten and had the free time to play with it. Spreading pictures and videos gets easier as days go by. All it takes to share the latest picture or video is the click of a button. Most sites now actually have a "share" button on there websites making it even easier, and faster, to post a video of that surprised kitten or the meme of the all important Queen.Not having free time brings me to another point about rhetorical velocity. In this day and age people as a whole may work hard, but they most certainly play harder. It wasn't until the past ten years that people had basically a computer in there pockets that they could whip out at any time. This changes rhetorical velocity even more, because you can now share on the go. I think that this is what really makes things go viral, because everyone has limited attention span. The majority of people who share videos don't sit at home all day on the computer, no they share that video in-between classes, on lunch breaks, in-between cooking dinner and helping the kids with homework.
This makes you, the person who shared the video, the second author in the situation. By second author, I mean that along with the person or persons who made the video, picture, or posted the pieces of news you shared there creation and made it gain rhetorical velocity. Some may argue that there is no such thing as a "second author" but I disagree. Does anything someone makes matter if no one is around to appreciate it? The person who shared the authors creation brought it to a wider audience and gives that author a new platform with there work, which brings me to talk about show-business. Anyone can post a video or make a picture but a lot of professional artists count on rhetorical velocity to make money and keep a steady hand on the entertainment business: (before I talk about these next two artists remember that it's a free country and I can "fangirl" over whoever I please). For example, the latest videos on YouTube that went viral in a matter of hours are that of One Direction and Justin Bieber. Both artists put out videos within days of each other. They counted on there fans to spread there respective videos the fastest to make them have the most views in the smallest amount of time. I've watched both videos and I know which one I prefer, but I'll let you make your own decision.
Regardless of if the artist is a singer, dancer, painter, writer, etc., they most likely use the internet to spread the word about there work. The use of rhetorical velocity is relatively new, when regarding technology. In the 80's, no one had a computer or smart phone to pass along the latest Micheal Jackson video. You had to wait for it to come on MTV if you wanted to watch it.
It's easy to see rhetorical velocity as a good thing, but it has it's downfalls. Some of them include copyright and cyber-bullying. In the end the rhetorical velocity is here and it'll probably be here until we all become robots and can share our thoughts by shaking hands or something (scary thought). Alright, I'm off topic now, I'll just leave with this...
~Kelsey
(I'm fully aware that it is now winter and the sun has gone into hiding but humor me, I want to keep my catch-phrase)
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