Look up. Look down. Now look back at the screen. What are you thinking about? If you’ve wasted countless hours on YouTube, you’ll know that I’m referencing the ‘Old Spice Guy’. You’ve been infected by a media virus. But never fear – I have too. In fact, it’s hard not to be.
Created as an advertisement for the company, the Old Spice video spread throughout several media and became what’s known as a meme – a piece of content that ‘spreads’ from host to host. It can even mutate, causing further iterations of the virus, until it lies dormant in the public consciousness to be ‘re-activated’ or referenced at a later time. The fact is, once unleashed, memes never stop spreading, mutating and spreading again.