The Virality Illusion: Why We're Misreading the Signals The internet has become a complex web of echo chambers and curated feeds, where trends can quickly go from viral to irrelevant.
This phenomenon raises questions about what we consider success in online culture. Cyber ethnographer Ruby Thelot argues that our reliance on virality as a metric for understanding culture is misguided.
Thelot critiques the way we approach social media trends in his book, In Defense of Being On Line. He claims that what was once a good proxy for cultural relevance has become a target in itself.