VerrDon Mason

Husband, Father of 5, Engineer. 1/7 of @thisisusforreal

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

This is my favorite unexpected blast from the past today. Super cogent, self-aware, insightful retrospective on one of the early super-viral videos, by its creator.

[TayZonday @TayZonday]

BIG PICTURE REASONS WHY "CHOCOLATE RAIN" WENT VIRAL:
• With no algorithms, the Internet was driven by novelty, not loyalty. Weirdness wins novelty.
• Myspace was #1 in social media. YouTube was unproven and Facebook had just opened up beyond colleges. YouTube needed a "model home" for what its cultural real estate meant.
• One person uploading a video that thousands of strangers parodied became YouTube's behavioral "model home." No other platform had that social dynamic.
• Soulja Boy, Chris Crocker, and other talented creators had viral YouTube videos that got widely parodied. "Chocolate Rain" became identified with a type of "shareholder safe" virality. YouTube's human editors promoted it on the front page.
• YouTube was an unproven business for both Google and creators. The idea of creators earning Internet money was not mainstream. I was added in round two of YouTube's experimental Partner Program. I believe round one had about thirty creators.
• Television remained the eight-hundred-pound media gorilla. Viacom's billion-dollar copyright lawsuit was an existential YouTube threat just as the first YouTube videos went viral. The fact that "Chocolate Rain" began on YouTube and transitioned to me being on CNN, Jimmy Kimmel, discussed by Carson Daly and dozens of other celebrities... came at a time when YouTube needed a Rosetta Stone. They needed to translate a massively subsidized, high-risk venture into understandable cultural value. "Chocolate Rain" became a stenographer of YouTube crossing over. I got parodied on South Park, Saturday Night Live, nominated for a People's Choice Award, sang with Boyz II Men on Tosh.0 etc.
HOW DID "CHOCOLATE RAIN" GO VIRAL?:
• "Chocolate Rain" was rushed to completion in April of 2007 since I had another song ("Love," made with Kooby) featured on YouTube's front page and wanted other new content. It sat at around 30,000 views until summer.
• "Chocolate Rain" got posted on Digg in July of 2007, an early Reddit-style social bookmark site. Someone saw it there and posted it on 4chan.
• 4chan worked to meme "Chocolate Rain," "Numa Numa," Rick Astley, and other things. In 2007, 4chan was dominantly "Howard Stern liberal." Being offensive, outrageous, and highly speech-tolerant used to be identified with leftist, avant-garde identity. My first inkling that "Chocolate Rain" was going viral was 4chan prank-calling Tom Green's self-produced show and the caller busting out singing "Chocolate Rain!"
MORE FACTORS IN "CHOCOLATE RAIN" GOING VIRAL:
• YouTube had no stereo sound in early 2007. I posted a free "Chocolate Rain" MP3 download, with a giant video banner announcing it, purely to circumvent this. I wanted my songs heard in stereo.
• "Chocolate Rain" begins with an instrumental and loops. This, combined with the MP3 download, made parodies easy. This was totally unplanned luck. It's like it was made to be parodied.
• I looked like Janet Jackson, moved like Mr. Bean, and sounded like Barry White. Not trying to mean-girl myself, just being blunt. I was a unique combination of attributes but also not self-aware. Social internet video of everyday life was a new experience. Like, "If that guy is singing 'Chocolate Rain,' what's MY neighbor doing?" Everyday life was transforming into a democratic video content frontier nobody had given much prior thought to.
• It's worth noting that 2007 was before mainstream mobile Internet video consumption. YouTube was overwhelmingly consumed on desktop computers and laptops. The later shift to engagement-optimized and loyalty-optimized social video was heavily influenced by phones.
PERSONAL FACTORS WHY "CHOCOLATE RAIN" WENT VIRAL:
• I built a bedsheet box in my living room to sing "Chocolate Rain" in because I'm agoraphobic. That's the opposite of claustrophobic. Boundaries supercharge me. It also turns out that lots of people have bedsheets to hang up.
• I moved stiffly and sang "Chocolate Rain" with elongated vowels because of dyspraxia, a neurological movement difficulty tied to me being autistic (first diagnosed at age sixteen).
• "Chocolate Rain" musically captured my tendency towards echolalia and echopraxia — repetition and reinvocation of speech and behavior. These are adaptations to being a partially verbal autistic who has to blend-in with speaking society. They also help in making catchy songs.

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@TheBabylonBee Should have posted this under the not-satire account. Facts.

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@BridgetPhetasy @jkirchick You're absolutely right — it's a ghost writer for everyone.

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@EMBurlingame 🥹

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@jockowillink Sometimes a word is worth a thousand words. 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@TheLaurenChen Most humans are consensus based over principle based. Men, women, right, left... Doesn't matter the subdivision of human. It's a potentially terminal stage of cognitive development.

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@pmarca "but Europe has trains and I am compelled to believe they're some kind of utopia I've never been to of course trains must be good and right"

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@Rothmus Human nature has not changed at all.

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@realDonaldTrump Maybe go after Thune? Massie is probably the most America-first representative in the house. Not a good look for the admin, especially after abandoning DOGE and betraying your voters.

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@StephenM No. This is political retribution from the Trump camp because Massie votes principles, even when the R's abandon them.

And the R's as a group barely have principles to begin with.

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@RandPaul This is a huge bait and switch from the campaign Trump ran.

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@MattWalshBlog Content saturation and attention economy killed the monoculture. Content used to be comparatively scarce and we grouped around what was available. Now there is functionally infinite content, and attention is scattered everywhere.

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@GabsClark5 @elonmusk I suspect this is what he's talking about

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@HouseDemocrats So... why are average California gas prices over $6?

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@Zprtr1 Now do New England

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@WallStreetApes @zerohedge Now do the federal government

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@libsoftiktok Yes, but also this admin has no excuse for not addressing this problem at its source. There should be prosecution of the abuse of the system, of course. Even more urgently, there needs to not be a federal money spigot at all.

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@ZubyMusic "The future will go to those who show up for it."

🔥🔥🔥🔥

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@yoalexrapz On the upside, He'll burn it, so at least there's that.

[VerrDon Mason @verrdon]

@ZubyMusic What about high taxes and copious fraud and accountability-free waste? Working as intended?