The Orig-ins of Narnia

By definition, viral content spreads quickly and deftly. It infects the social concsiousness and puts down roots in the cultural dialogue. That being said, the term itself has gained such momentum that its casual uses far exceed that original definition. Douglas Rushkoff's book, Media Virus, helps to reframe the discussion -- or at least to remind us where it began.

Similarly, Time magazine's recent "Person of the Year" (its YOU!, in case you haven't seen it yet) helps us to understand the recent media infatuation with interative, the bloggy, the individual. Blah, blah, blahggggy.

All of this, mind you, is pretty masturbatory and optomistic. Granted its hard not to be excited about this technology and its implications and utilizations -- they are, for all intents and purposes, changing the way we operate as media consumers. But it is important to keep perspective (i.e., SecondLife)But one particular paragraph did catch my eye.

But of course the party is just starting for Chad and Steve, whose omnium-gatherum of online videos has captivated the Web for the past year, at least since a Saturday Night Live digital short called Lazy Sunday was forwarded millions of times last December, increasing visits to youtube.com 83%.

Its worth reading the rest (god love Time-liness), but the above paragraph contexualizes the YouTube phenomenon. It had been around prior to Lazy Sunday...so had SNL (read: really?) but the exclusive hosting of the "Chronicles of Narnia" helped both the service and the video to soar. Suddenly Andy Samberg was a name and Youtube was a destination. And mind you, the reason this stupid blog/alterego even exists.

It is for this reason that I will be hereafter referred to as Narnia, 83%.

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