Yesterday a friend asked me what a viral video is.  He’s from a generation before mine and grasping such things is not intuitive, as it would be for an eight year-old raised in this digital world.   I described the phenomenon, telling him about a chilling video I’d seen a week ago, along with 2.000,000 others.  Today you can click here and join the more than 10,000,000 who’ve seen this truly devastating story told by a 15 year-old who killed herself a month after making this short film, two days before someone reposted it and the tragic, engrossing short went viral.  Make sure to read the full comment below the video, at the bottom is the suicide teen’s original message of hope in a world of cyber-bullies and schoolyard monsters.

Looking at the latest clip by the animation workshop I noticed a clip called “dontwalkuponme”.  The title comes from the blustering line spoken by a trash talker immediately before he got his ass kicked.  The woman shooting the scene is a supremely annoying provocateur, with a braying voice yelling way too close to the mic.  She did a decent job with the camera, though, I have to give her that.  I sent this clip to my friend who’d asked what a viral video is,  it had been posted only 12 hours before and already had 26,000 views.  An hour later, when I refreshed the screen, I saw it had been viewed another 14,000 times.  When I looked again 6 hours later it had reached 76,000– before being online 24 hours.  You can see how many more have seen it so far by clicking here— though, do yourself a favor and turn the sound down if you watch this stupid little fight.

I was pleased to see that my session 3 animation with the kids had gone from 17 to 26 views meantime.  Of course, that doesn’t include the kids or their parents, I haven’t sent it to them yet.